Deep impact

By KYLE ARNOLD World Staff Writer - 11/3/2009


Ken Oglesby sees a future where every home has a geothermal pump in its backyard for heating and cooling, and where holes drilled 6 miles deep produce enough electricity to power entire communities.

Oglesby and his Tulsa-based company, Impact Technologies LLC, are on the cutting edge of geothermal drilling and research. The technology involves drilling holes 30,000 feet into the Earth and tapping the heat from rocks that are as hot as 572 degrees.

"The goal is to get many megawatts at each site," said Oglesby, who has been working in drilling research for about 30 years for companies such as Chevron Corp.

Last week Oglesby learned that his company will get a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy aimed at developing new drilling technology.

The grant was among $338 million in DOE awards that came as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — the $787 billion economic stimulus package. The funding law also includes money for other green technologies such as high-speed commuter rail and electric cars.

Geothermal power is catching on in eco-friendly energy circles because the heat can be used to produce electricity on a large scale, Oglesby said, and some current applications even use geothermal energy for heating and cooling homes.

Two other Oklahoma outfits also will be getting DOE grant money. ClimateMasters in Oklahoma City was granted $233,000 and Oklahoma State University was awarded $250,000, both to research ground source heat pumps.

Specifically, Impact Technologies' grant gives the company money to research the drilling of the 30,000-foot holes.

"The conditions that deep are much different than they are at shallower levels," Oglesby said. "It's so hot, and the models say there is something like 15,000 pounds per square inch of pressure."

Impact Technologies' plan is to drill small holes, just an inch or two in diameter, but that is complicated by the heat and pressure.

"We have to figure out what kind of materials we need for the drills and the pipes, fluids and everything you need to drill," Oglesby said.

Instead of using drills to crush and grind rocks and soil, Impact Technologies' equipment shoots abrasive particles at high velocities to erode its way down. Oglesby said the technology is faster and more powerful than current techniques.

The company has six employees who design, patent and build prototypes for drilling rigs. The DOE grant will last three years and be used to test the project, which Oglesby said is about 15 years old.

"We've already spent about $4 million testing this, so this will cover about half of what we've done so far," he said.

The deep drilling, or Enhanced Geothermal Systems, will likely be used in industrial settings and for power plants. Eventually, however, Oglesby said he hopes to set up a company to develop geothermal units for individual residential homes.

"Everyone should have a geothermal pump in their backyard," he said. "You can cut your heating and cooling bills by 50 percent this way."



Kyle Arnold 581-8380
kyle.arnold@tulsaworld.com


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Tulsa World Reader Comments
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Hawktalk, (11/3/2009 8:46:04 AM)
What's it take to drill a 30,000 foot hole in the ground ? If the figure is $200,000 or $300,000, the payback will be several lifetimes.

LocalBoy, B.A. (11/3/2009 10:01:22 AM)
The way I read it, they're going to spend $2.4 million just figuring out how they think it should be done. I'm pretty sure 30,000 feet of hole costs a whole lot more than $300,000, even if only 1" or 2" in diameter.

OPEN YOUR EYES TULSA, Tulsa (11/3/2009 10:06:32 AM)
Geothermal is the way to go. You get limitless free and non-polluting energy. The only opposition are the people profiting off of coal and nuclear.

Hawktalk, (11/3/2009 11:45:41 AM)
We have four 200 foot wells under our driveway that supply 59 degree water to our geothermal system. Cheap to run, heats and cools the whole house. In fact, our power bill goes down in the summer. The unit also heats the floor in the main level.

JLB, Tulsa (11/3/2009 11:49:03 AM)
I agree there are other forms of energy that we need to tap into but to "give" a company $2.4 million dollars to "research" in this economic climate is preposterous and typical of the current administrations thinking that we can throw money at the problem and solve it. Assinine! It's about as ludicrous as spending $ 350K dollars to install a GPS unit on a helocopter to research radioactive rabbit feces. Utterly assinine! When are the American people going to have a belly full of this and say ENOUGH?

Hawktalk, (11/3/2009 12:33:53 PM)
Local Boy: You're probably right. A pal at Amoco said the company spent close to $4 million on one very deep and dry hole in eastern Iowa, of all places. This was in the late 70s during one of the energy scares...

yep, Tulsa County (11/3/2009 8:04:07 PM)
But this will cause global earth crust warning!!! Help, we need Al Gore to start spreading the word and stirring up fear-mongers, with no basis on real science about global crust warming (oh yes, and make millions of personal income doing so).

yep, Tulsa County (11/3/2009 8:04:47 PM)
Typo: "global earth crust warming"

Elusive, the burbs (11/3/2009 8:12:15 PM)
Geothermal is a good thing if you can afford the initial costs.



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