STEAM POWER FROM THE EARTH

For those of us interested in old steam power, perhaps it would
be a useful project to examine geothermal steam. At least it has an
intriguing name and that might excite our curiosity. First, though,
let us examine the very word itself. Geo comes from the Greek
meaning earth and, of course, we know that termal means heat. So,
there we have ‘geothermal’ meaning ‘earth
heat.’

Throughout the world there are many areas of geothermal activity
manifest at the surface in such forms as hot springs and geysers..
There are even more widespread areas of subterreanean heat below
the surface. We are not necessarily aware that they exist, but they
could be tapped through deep well drilling. Also, there is the hot
magma beneath the earth’s crust with energy beyond imagination
… if we could just get at it. But, let us not befog ourselves
with such esoteric sources as the earth’s magma and simply
grasp that which we can see and feel as we cross the width and
breadth of this land. Then let us examine the problems and
possibilities of generating steam power from the earth’s
heat.

There are a few places around the world where one can drill a
well not greatly different from an oil well and produce dry steam
(Umm, well, nearly dry) for direct use in a steam engine or steam
turbine. Probably the oldest commercial installation of this type
is in Larderello, Italy, where a 250 kilowatt generator (235
horsepower) went on line in 1913. The largest is undoubtly at the
Geysers area in California where presently some 800,000 kilowatts
of capacity are in service and more is being added. Up until around
1975 the New Zealanders had operated 192,000 kw at Wairakei Power
Station but that is being phased out due to technical and economic
problems. In 1970, the author witnessed some field tests of steam
producing wells near Reyjavik, Iceland, where power generation was
being studied. Around the beginning of 1978 the Icelanders started
up a 30,000 kw unit of a planned 60,000 geothermal development.
There have been some start-up problems associated with insufficient
steam production from the wells and there have been some steam
quality problems. But, Unit #1 is pumping power into the national
system.

So far, fairly extensive geophysical exploration around the
world has not revealed additional reservoirs of dry steam.
Generally, geothermal heat is in the form of hot water which can be
flashed into steam. And, in order to be hot enough to be useful in
generating steam power it must be very deep in the earth. Let us
see why this is true. One of the sources that we will want to
discuss in more detail as an active power project receives the
water at 550cF. In order for water to exist as a liquid at this
temperature it must be held at a pressure in excess of 1000 psig.
Therefore, it must occur at a depth below the surface in excess of
2400 feet (0.43 psig per foot of water column). Drilling wells to
this depth is no great problem, technically, but doing so into a
formation at 550°F is. Some of the very hottest oil wells such as
in Alaska are not over 180°F. This presents a real challenge.

Many of the geothermal fields of interest are at lower
temperatures and pressures. One in California is a 325°F or about
80 psig. And, there are some at not more than 180°F.

Thus it is that we can conclude that for us there are three
categories of geothermal energy. One is dry steam itself. Another
is very hot water which can be flashed into steam. And, we should
not overlook those situations where we really do not necessarily
have to make steam and turn it into something like electricity for
the ultimate consumers use to conserve our dwindling oil and gas
supplies. There are a number of direct heat applications in which
lower temperatures can be used.

In this latter case there is a very interesting application in
Fernley, Nevada, where some 27 million pounds of onions are
dehydrated each year using hot water from the Brady Hot Springs
formation. This is estimated to save 117 million cubic feet of
natural gas annually that had been used formerly in the drying
operation. Similarly, the city of Reyjavick, Iceland, is 75% heated
through a geothermal hot water distribution system operated at
about 200°F. But, for we steam engine folks we will stay with steam
power applications.

Steam well demonstration at Reyjavik, Iceland. Note vertical
separator vessel on left. Mixture from well enters in the middle
with rejected water and silt going out the bottom connection and
product steam off the top. Well is being ‘blown down’
before start of test.

However, for the record, there is one other possibility. That
one is called ‘hot dry rocks.’ There are areas where the
hot magma from the earth’s core has intruded into the outer
crust. Studies are being made on the speculation of very deep wells
drilled into the formation with water being injected to pick-up the
heat. That turns out to be a modification of our dry steam
method.

Since the Geysers area in California represents the most
outstanding application of the dry steam concept, that might be the
best one to examine. In 1847 William Elliott was hunting grizzly
bear in what is now Sonoma County, north of San Francisco, when he
discovered what he thought were ‘the gates of hell’ as he
witnessed fumaroles venting live steam. Later in 1956 a system
started out using 11,000 kw generators and has grown over the
years. The latest machine is a 135,000 kw unit and in a few years
the area will contain 1,100,000 kw of capacity. This, at first,
looks like a large amount. But, it is only a very small percentage
of the total power generation in the area by more conventional
means. And, it now looks as if the developers have about reached
the capability of the steam field. Most new steam plants built in
this country today are supplied with turbines for use with high
pressure high temperature (3500 psig 1000°F) steam. These are
around 600,000 kw each as an average. They are 4 times larger than
the Geysers largest machine. It does not follow that a plant 4
times larger costs 4 times as much. No, it costs only about 2 times
as much. So geothermal power has the laws of ‘economy of
size’ working against it. Furthermore, the heat or the steam is
not free. Even a 50,000 kw turbine will require many wells to
support it and the cost of these is comparable to the boiler of a
conventional plant and the fuel that it would burn. Someone once
said, ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch.’

Incidentally, it should be theoretically possible to build
geothermal steam turbines up to the 600,000 kw (800,000 horsepower)
size. The steam conditions would be about the same as those of
nuclear plants. These machines would be multiple casing designs
much like those at Three Mile Island or at Oyster Creek Nuclear
Power Station. The well field, however, to support such a gigantic
machine would be enormous and the problems of transport of the high
pressure water or steam would be extremely expensive to solve.
There is an economic balance between machine size and well field
size. We tend to forget just how concentrated an energy package we
have in a pound of coal or a gallon of oil.

High temperature water in the 550°F range is fairly widespread
throughout the western part of the United States. This temperature
level permits nearly the highest geothermal theoretical cycle
efficiency. Thus, it presents the best economic possibility in the
field of geothermal heat recovery.

Any good steam man will tell you that if you reduce the pressure
on a body of hot water some of it will flash into steam. That is
just the process that is used in the system that we will now
examine. First, a deep well, say 2400 feet, is drilled onto a hot
water formation. The well casing is perforated. The hot water can
now flow across these holes into the well tubing and some of the
water will flash into steam. This steam acts just like it does in a
coffee perculator. It lifts a slug of hot water up the casing to
the surface where it flows into a pressure vessel through a valve
where the pressure is again reduced to the operating pressure and
the useful steam is formed.

This steam is really quite dirty. There is silt and salts and
noxious gasses in it. It becomes necessary to separate the silt and
entrained water. The flow enters the separator vessel tangentially
and much of the undesirable matter is thrown out by centrifugal
force. Steam scrubbers in the top of the vessel further clean the
steam before it goes to the engine or turbine. Do you remember the
crinkled copper mesh scrubbing pads that were used in the kitchen?
Chore Girl was a trade name for one. Make a mat of these for the
steam to pass through and you have an effective steam scrubber.
Naturally, the noxious gasses pass on through with the steam, but
except for environmental problems in having these ultimately
released into the atmosphere they can be forgotten.

Perhaps the best known installation of this type is in old
Mexico at Cerro Prieto, south of Mexacali on the border with
California. In this installation the temperature is only 360°F and
it is of the flash type.

Geothermal fluids can be contaminated to the point where steam
is not suitable for turbines. Then the heat is used to boil a
second fluid such as butane or LPG. This then brings us to the
‘binary cycle.’ In these types the water is always kept
under high enough pressure that steam is never formed. The water
has its heat extracted in a heat exchanger system and this heat
goes into a secondary working field. There are a number of working
fields that could be used. Among them are the flurocarbons such as
Freon as used in refrigerators. Amonia could also be used.
Thermodynamically the fluid that seems most attractive is benzene.
But, taking into consideration such things as safety, both health
and fire, and considering costs as well, it would seem that butane
wins.

It is interesting to note that probably the most outstanding man
in the binary cycle development is Mr. J. Hilbert Anderson of York,
Pennsylvania. A man of great creativity and vision from the very
heart of IMA country.

Magma Power Company has built a 11,000 kw demonstration plant
using this binary cycle at East Mesa, California. It is currently
undergoing completion and initial operation. There have been many
paper studies to determine whether or not at these lower
temperatures of about 350°F it would be better to use a low
temperature flash system or a binary system. The arguments are
complex and involved far beyond the scope of the present
discussion. Suffice it to say that for the moment the final
decision making data is not in and it could still be considered to
be a stand-off with specific local conditions at a specific site
being the final determining factors.

It would seem then that we do have the technology to extract
geo-thermal energy once we have either the steam or the hot water
at the earth’s surface. There would appear to be very little
incentive for the government to promote research in the area of
equipment and machinery. On the other hand, we do need to learn how
to drill for hot high pressure water. And, the DOE is sponsoring
work in the drilling technology field. Also, we do need to
delineate the areas of our nation where significant geothermal
fields are located for possible future use. Here again, there is
exploratory drilling going on in Texas and along the East Coast. At
first one might think, ‘Why aren’t we more aggressive in
developing geothermal energy?’ The answer to that question is
both economic and geographic.

For our economic evaluation let us look at one of the flash
systems now under government sponsorship in its development. It is
a 50,000 kw plant projected for New Mexico. The total project is
set at about $100 million with perhaps a quarter of this tied up in
the wells. Using the usual privately owned public utility type
economic evaluation system we find that power produced from this
plant will cost about 5.5/kwh. By the time transmission and other
overheads are added we are looking at 7 power. Just drilling the
wells alone represents about 2/kwh. It could be marginally
attractive in the 1990s if nuclear power is further delayed in its
development. It shares an economic similarity with nuclear power in
that it too has high investment costs but low fuel cost. We might
call the 2/kwh geothermal well cost its ‘fuel’ cost. The
nuclear equivalent in the 90s would be something like 1/kwh.

As we presently understand the existence of high temperature
water, the geography is presenting a limitation. In general, the
occurrence of exploitable geothermal energy is west of the
Continental Divide. Much of it is either remote from areas of need
or shares its geography with relatively low cost western coal
deposits with which it must compete. The fuel cost of a
coal-burning plant built in the same area for operation in the 90s
is expected to be around 1.8/kwh.

With this kind of an economic outlook for geothermal power it
cannot have a high position in our list of energy priorities. It
takes its place along with the other alternates. So, as long as we
have some coal in the ground to dig then dig we must to dig
ourselves out from under the economic cloud of high-priced energy.
Geothermal is something for the longer term. Let us not be misled
into thinking that the massive injection of tax dollars into
research will materially change the outlook. It is today a
technically viable alternate but is not economically competitive
with either coal or nuclear fueled plants. There will continue to
be isolated unique applications such as the onion drying case or
some district heating perhaps. Beyond that it is not likely to be
an alternative that will supply any significant amount of our needs
in the immediate future.