One of the most fascinating things about geothermal drilling rigs for sale in Australia is that it can unite industry leaders and expert minds together, particularly those who are not just solely focused on drilling aspects, but more so on how their level of expertise can bring in more value to the overall drilling process.
Before we try to dig deeper on this, let us try to have a good grasp of what geothermal drilling is all about.
What is Geothermal Drilling?
There is a broad range of activity that is involved in geothermal drilling, starting from what is considered as shallow (which comes with a depth of 200m deep) down to the ground to what is seen as very deep (this is more than 6,000m).
The shallow wells utilize the heat that the sun radiates. This is held in the formation, known to many in the industry as the ground source heat or GSH. In the case of deep wells, they usually make use of elevated temperatures brought about by various geological activities such as magmatic or volcanic systems, hydrothermal systems, and even igneous rocks heating right from the core of the earth. Fluids from such are normally heated up at depth.
Depending on where the temperature originates, the generated heat can be taken advantage of to produce electricity to power up, say, steam turbines for various industrial and residential applications.
Deeper geothermal wells can be adopted to drilling techniques, although most of the time they are considered as not the best fit to the kind of formations that we usually come across in geothermal fields. Add to that, they can also lay the foundations for high costs, with respect to the price at which geothermal power can be sold for.
Increasing Demand for Geothermal Drilling
While demand for geothermal energy is on the rise, we can anticipate that this is going to cause a big surge in industry-specific equipment. Becoming more evident here is the movement of gas and oil drilling equipment manufacturers into this sector, even though the equipment is only reconditioned and that costs remain soaring high. Â
While a handful of geothermal areas share some good amount of parallelism to gas and oil areas, the subtle distinction that is needed for a successful well can be easily missed. The primary areas that need to be taken into account are where the geology is making the difference to those that are encountered in oil and gas wells, such as metamorphic and igneous.
The distinguishing formation characteristics here are reputed to have high strengths, heavily folded or faulted, high abrasion, and are zones where fluids quickly disappear, never leaving a track.
Risks in Geothermal Wells
It has been established that safety and security risks coming along with oil and gas wells due to the extremely combustible gases. They are ever-present in the rock and ground formations, which is essentially also the fundamental reason why, in the first place, we are drilling for wells.
Hot fluids also pose a high-risk potential to geothermal wells, most especially at high pressures. To the point that when you start drilling into them, the fluid will quickly turn into steam. Needless to say, it is difficult to control.Â
One can imagine heating a can of fruit in water mixed with sugar and you put it inside a preheated oven that is around 250 degree Celsius for several hours. Then afterwards, you take it out to pierce the top to make a hole on it. It is going to be a big blast for sure.
This brings us to this conclusion here now. Geothermal drilling rigs for sale in Australia are the construction of conduits that gives us access to the elusive heated formation. When this happens, then we can exploit them for energy consumption. The application of which can be for industrial needs or residential use.
