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Near-surface profiles (less than 80 m depth) of temperature gradient are similar in central, southern and western sectors at roughly 70 °C per km and do not exceed 270 °C, even at higher temperature wells to the west. [14] The primary well descends vertically 6,000 feet (1.8 km), then continues 5,000 feet (1.5 kilometers) at a 65 degree angle.
The highest concentrations are located in the Mayacamas Mountains and Imperial Valley of California, as well as in Western Nevada. The first geothermal area to be exploited for commercial electricity generation was The Geysers , a complex of 22 geothermal power stations located in Sonoma and Lake counties of California , which was commissioned ...
As of 2007 plant construction and well drilling cost about €2–5 million per MW of electrical capacity, while the break-even price was 0.04–0.10 € per kW·h. [10] Enhanced geothermal systems tend to be on the high side of these ranges, with capital costs above $4 million per MW and break-even above $0.054 per kW·h.
The study of Massachusetts Institute of Technology "The Future of Geothermal Energy – Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century" (2006) points out the essential importance of developing an economical deep geothermal boring technology. With old boring technologies, bore price rises exponentially with ...
Upper estimates of geothermal resources assume wells as deep as 10 km (6.2 mi). Drilling near this depth is now possible in the petroleum industry, although it is an expensive process. The deepest research well in the world, the Kola Superdeep Borehole (KSDB-3), is 12.261 km (7.619 mi) deep. [21]
Construction of this unit, the first geothermal single flash plant in Utah, began in 1981 and was completed in 1984. Blundell Unit 1 consists of three injection wells and four production wells, with depths between 2,500 and 6,500 feet used to produce 2.25 million pounds per hour of heated geothermal brine at a temperature of 450°F.
Below that, in the deeper layer, the temperature is effectively constant, rising about 0.025 °C per metre according to the geothermal gradient. The "penetration depth" [3] is defined as the depth at which the temperature variable is less than 0.01 of the variation at the surface. This also depends on the type of soil:
The geothermal production well reached a depth of 5,275 m (17,306 ft) and the fluid injection well 2,393 m (7,851 ft). [3] [1] Between August 2020 and July 2021, the wells underwent a series of injection tests to analyse the hydrology within the fractured geothermal reservoir.