51²è¹Ý

Coal and Geothermal: A Path Forward

January 10, 2018

Presentations from the workshop are available on the Past Presentations page.  A Summary is also available. 

Why:

Numerous U.S. coal power plant sites have recently or will soon be shut down, and many are near the end of their economic useful life.  Rather than close these plants altogether, impacting baseload capacity and employment, this workshop provides a path forward to dramatically lowering emissions while still providing baseload power by utilizing geothermal energy at the same sites.

What:

Determine method to transition coal fired power generation plants to geothermal power plants, leveraging existing infrastructure including permits, grid connectivity, skilled workforce, physical footprint, an existing customer base, etc.  Suitable sites are believed to exist at numerous coal plants around the country and even outside of the U.S. 

How:

Certain coal plants are located within sedimentary basins where oil and gas industry activity has provided a greater understanding of the heat resources below them.  To reach and extract the usable heat as a resource will require a series of Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) production and injection wells at each coal plant site to generate enough power to replace the coal fired generation.  This is not a trivial effort in terms of time or money, so the idea is to add the geothermal capacity in stages as wells are brought online.  The power plant could retain their income stream and maintain their commitments to deliver a given capacity as they initially provide power consisting of both coal and geothermal generation, transitioning to all geothermal by the end.  

Who:

Coal plant and industrial site owners and operators, experienced subsurface and surface geothermal well and heat transfer engineers, key technology and service companies, finance and investment bankers, and regulatory agency personnel are invited to apply.  Accepted participants will be expected to ‘roll up their sleeves’ and help work out approaches for moving coal and/or industrial sites to geothermal plant conversion from the drawing board, through non-subsidized financing, to completed projects.   

When and Where:

The full day workshop is Wednesday, January 10, 2018 on 51²è¹Ý’s Campus in Dallas, Texas.  The workshop registration fee of $795 includes complimentary access to the Power Plays conference, which begins the evening of January 10^th, and concludes late afternoon on Thursday, January 11, 2018.  A limited amount of expense reimbursement is available to qualified workshop participants.  

Questions? Email geothermal@smu.edu

Download the Workshop Flier