🍂 Fall 2017 Updates

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October, 2017

Zhaofeng Zhang, General Manager of CNPC GreatWall Drilling and Dr. GenSheng Li, VP of China University of Petroleum Beijing, and member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and others visit EPI for geothermal energy discussions. 

China is pursuing significant research with the goal of increasing geothermal efficiency and the new concept of Geothermal Battery Energy Storage. China University of Petroleum and EPI agreed to pursue a joint drilling improvement cooperation, and an MOU is being developed.

New White Papers 

Meaningful fracture calculations... 

click to download full paper

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EPI and FrackOptima meet to discuss wellbore simulation analysis.

September, 2017

EPI brings in Dr. Alex Xu, developer and President of FrackOptima to present at the University of Utah, Energy & Geoscience Institute on the details of using simulation analysis software prior to in situ production....

EPI staff and Alex Xu.

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Has energy storage kept pace with renewable technology?

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June 25, 2017

Solar energy, and to a lesser extent wind energy, have moved ahead of the ability to manage their intermittent nature without similar growth in cost effective energy storage.

On June 24, Sidney Green chaired a meeting on large-scale energy storage that could be used to support solar and wind electricity.  The meeting was supported by the National Science Foundation, Geothermal Energy SedHeat Program with cooperation of the American Rock Mechanics Association. 

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The small invited group considered a concept of solar thermal underground energy storage. 

Underground storage competes with surface heat storage in tanks, and is more complicated then surface storage in some ways.  However, for large-scale Gigawatt hours of energy storage, underground storage may be more practical and cost effective at least in some situations.

The full Report is available online here.