AltaRock Energy
AltaRock Energy Inc. is a privately held corporation that focuses on the development of geothermal energy resources and enhanced geothermal systems. It is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and has a technology development office in Sausalito, California. AltaRock has filed patent applications and holds exclusive licenses for related intellectual property related to EGS.
In 2008 it started its first project near The Geysers in California to demonstrate the ability of EGS to be a reliable, renewable and clean source for the production of electric power.
AltRock's efforts to expand EGS technologies have been encouraged by a 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report that concluded EGS has the potential to provide 100 GWe or more for the U.S. by 2050.
Co-founded in 2007 by Andrew Perlman, Susan Petty, and other business partners, AltaRock has received backing from investors such as Google.org, Advanced Technology Ventures and Vulcan Capital, as well as demonstration grant funding from the United States Department of Energy.
Projects
The Newberry EGS Demonstration
The company currently has a demonstration project underway about 30 miles south of Bend, Oregon in the Deschutes National Forest. The Newberry EGS Demonstrationis located on an existing Federal lease designated for geothermal use and is supported by a committee that includes representatives of the community, environmental groups, government and the geothermal industry.
AltaRock's Newberry EGS demonstration will create an EGS reservoir in the high-temperature, low-permeability rock present on the northwest flank of the Newberry Volcano. The demonstration will use hydraulic shearing and other drilling techniques to induce and sustain fluid flow and geothermal heat extraction, culminating in the conceptual design of a commercial-scale well field and power plant. Water usage
and induced seismicity
analyses for the demonstration site have been completed and conclude the project poses little risk to the area or to local communities.
The Geysers Demonstration
In 2008, AltaRock started a demonstration project at The Geysers geothermal field. The field has hundreds of megawatts of unused electric power generating capacity due to its lack of steam, caused by several decades of reservoir depletion. At The Geysers, AltaRock intended to re-drill a well originally drilled in 1988. Three attempts were made to re-drill the well from various depths, but the drilling assembly became stuck each time in an unstable serpentinite formation. Drilling at The Geysers demonstration site has been suspendedwhile the company evaluates a number of alternative well locations at the Geysers and elsewhere for demonstrating this technology.