I guess I just would like to understand some of the externalities to this particular methodology. Especially since many of the parallels to oil and gas fracking are present, and the environmental track record there is poor.
I guess I just would like to understand some of the externalities to this particular methodology. Especially since many of the parallels to oil and gas fracking are present, and the environmental track record there is poor.
I would too. Their white paper devotes an entire section to induced seismicity. There is less attention paid to steady-state water requirements. (Given it's just water and brine, and assuming natural prop pants, the threat to the water table seems de minimus, barring something nasty dissolving out of the rocks.)
Except twice as many wells, and less isolated geology.
Also, benefits of fracking is the generation of heat and positive pressure from the chemical reactions.
If they aren't netting the geothermal gains against the embedded energy in the injection chemicals, all we're seeing is energy accounting tricks, not a technical breakthrough.