Low-Temperature Hydrothermal Resource Potential Estimate

Description

Compilation of data (spreadsheet and shapefiles) for several low-temperature resource types, including isolated springs and wells, delineated area convection systems, sedimentary basins and coastal plains sedimentary systems. For each system, we include estimates of the accessible resource base, mean extractable resource and beneficial heat. Data compiled from USGS and other sources. The paper (submitted to GRC 2016) describing the methodology and analysis is also included. * A newer version of this data exists in a more recent submission. See the resources below for more information.

Resources

Name Format Description Link
53 Deprecated. A newer version of this dataset exists! This version contains a calculation error in the reservoir_volume_km3 and accessible_resource_base_1e18_joules fields. Date fields include estimates of temperature, depth, volume, mean accessible resource, mean extractable resource, and beneficial heat. General locations are provided in the spreadsheet; specific locations are provided in the associated shapefiles. https://gdr.openei.org/files/830/us_low_temp_hydro_2016-06-30%20%281%29.xlsx
21 A newer version of this data submission. The latest version corrects a calculation error that is present in this version. https://gdr.openei.org/submissions/842
53 A newer version of the us_low_temp_hydro data. This version corrects a calculation present in previous versions. https://gdr.openei.org/files/842/us_low_temp_hydro_080316.xlsx
10 Low-temperature geothermal resources in the United States potentially hold an enormous quantity of thermal energy, useful for direct use in residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural applications such as space and water heating, greenhouse warming, pool heating, aquaculture, and low-temperature manufacturing processes. Several studies published over the past 40 years have provided assessments of the resource potential for multiple types of low-temperature geothermal systems (e.g., hydrothermal convection, hydrothermal conduction, enhanced geothermal systems) with varying temperature ranges and depths. This paper provides a summary and additional analysis of these assessments of shallow (≤ 3 km), low-temperature (30°–150°C) geothermal resources in the United States that are suitable for use in direct-use applications. This analysis considers six types of geothermal systems, spanning both hydrothermal and enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). We outline the primary data sources and quantitative parameters used to describe resources in each of these categories and present summary statistics of the total resources available. In sum, we find that low-temperature hydrothermal resources and EGS resources contain approximately 8 million and 800 million TWh of heat-in-place, respectively. In future work, these resource potential estimates will be used for modeling of the technical and market potential for direct-use geothermal applications for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Vision Study. https://gdr.openei.org/files/830/Mullane_66461_NREL.docx

Tags

  • direct-use
  • volume
  • low-temp
  • accessible-resource
  • hydrothermal
  • potential
  • sedimentary-basin
  • wells
  • deprecated
  • mean-extractable-resource
  • springs
  • beneficial-heat
  • resource-estimate
  • accessible-resource-base
  • coastal-plains
  • resource-potential
  • usgs
  • temperature
  • delineated-area
  • low-temperature
  • depth
  • geothermal

Topics

Categories