Innovative Method for Geothermal Energy Extraction
The intent is to furnish a means of access to a virtual limitless supply of clean and economically competitive geothermal energy using a novel heat exchanger based on the principles of radiators in internal combustion engines. Earth itself is the heat engine and hot sedimentary aquifers furnish the environment for building a Naturally Enhanced Geothermal System, namely GenaSys.
A tiny bit of the geothermal energy is harvested presently in natural ‘hot spring-like’ systems broadly similar to Yellowstone. But until now attempts at widespread energy harvesting using manufactured synthetic or Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) have been decidedly unsuccessful as measured by forty years of effort and over one billion dollars expended. This failure centers on a fundamental design flaw that is fully circumvented by the present RAD-EGS design introduced by Prof. Bruce Marsh and colleagues.
To appreciate this fundamental design advancement, it is important to understand how the GenaSys emulates the actual Natural Geothermal Systems. At Johns Hopkins University, we developed the idea of GenaSys and using analytical and numerical modeling we analyze various aspects of it.
We are in the process of building the prototype of this geothermal system.