Gulf Coast Green Energy test project seeking to generate electricity from inactive gas well - The Business Journal of Milwaukee:

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will extract geo-fluid essentially hot saltwater — from a nonproducing natural gas well and run it through a heat exchanged before dumping it back into adisposap well, creating electricity in the The project is part of a series of federao contracts awarded through the Researchb Partnership to Secure Energy for a Sugar Land nonprofiyt dedicated in part to advancing technology in maturing oil and gas RPSEA will chip in about $150,000 to match a similafr amount put up by the company for a three-year test on a nonproducing well.
Loy president and CEO of GulfCoast Green, says bringing a dead well back to life servesa a dual purpose by providinhg electric power and sparking a new revenue “It’s very attractive for owners of welles that are nonproducing,” Sneary “If a well produces electricity for 15 to 20 year s that just reduces your risk. If you hit a dry it reduces your risk.” Mike Ming, president of says the system could help offsetfoperating costs. “Wells that are somewhat marginal are very susceptibld tooperating costs,” says “If you want to increase recover from wells and increase well life you can do that by lowerinf your baseline operating cost.
This offsetsz purchases of electricity from external so it effectively lowers youroperatinh costs.” Excess electricity from a well close enough to transmissioh infrastructure could be sold back to the “If you generate electricity on-site you’re negatingb the need to buy electricityy from elsewhere,” says Ming. He says the which would mark the first commercialk application ofexotherm technology, is expecter to be finalized within a month or so. “It’s a high-potentia area,” he says. “It’s one of the more appliedd areas of geothermalenergy capture.
” He notes the projecy was one of the few that met almostg all of RPSEA’s criteria. Says Ming: “Out selection committee was really enthusiastic about this particular Sneary says the test project will likely take placin Mississippi. The Gulf Coast region has a lot of wellw that match the water temperaturwand flow-rate qualifications — between 180 and 200 gallons per minute — to run the generator. Inside the heat the saltwater, which must be a minimum of 180 is run through a tube that abut another tube containingthe “working fluid,” a refrigerang that boils off at a low temperature.
“The high-pressure vapoer turns a twin screw expander,” says Sneary. “It’sx very similar to a steam turbine, but it operatezs at about one-tenth the speed, and we use workingb fluid insteadof steam.” The test project, a 50-kilowatt-per-hourr unit will be run with assistancee from in Plano, the geothermal lab at in Dallas and the U.S. Army Corpws of Engineers in Mississippi. The manufacturer, of Carsom City, Nev., has a 500 kilowatt-per-hour unit as Gulf Coast Green is the exclusive regional distributot forthe units. The average home operateds on 42 to 45 kilowattseper hour.
Sneary says the cost of electricith needs to stay above about 8 cents per kilowatt for the systemk to make financial sense and pay foritself in, at three years. But that scenario doesn’t includes any carbon credits or green tax breaks that mighty be coming out of Washington to further benefit thebusiness