In essence, “super-hot rock” geothermal, is the type of geothermal energy production that seeks to tap into extremely deep, extremely hot rock. It can be said also that it is a form of EGS (Enhanced/Engineered-Geothermal-Systems).
At extremely high heat, the performance of geothermal doesn’t just rise, it takes a leap. When water exceeds 373°C and 220 bars of pressure, it becomes “supercritical,” a new phase that is neither liquid nor gas.
Commercial super-hot-rock geothermal energy could make a transformational contribution to global energy system decarbonization.
Deep hot drilling poses a significant challenge for the development of super-hot-rock geothermal, to tackle this, innovative “non-contact – non-mechanical” drilling methods, also called “energy drilling” are being developed. Once these technologies become robust and applicable, they should significantly improve drilling speed and economics, thus further enabling economic access to greater depths.
These methods basically soften or melt rock through energy directed downhole. Two principal energy drilling methods are currently being tested: Plasma Drilling and Millimeter-Wave Drilling. GA Drilling (Slovakia) is preparing to test its Plasmabit drill in the field in the coming year, while Quaise (USA) is developing the Millimeter-Wave drill.
Super-hot-rock is a high-energy-density, zero-carbon, always available energy source that could potentially be accessed worldwide for baseload power, heat, hydrogen production and industrial process energy. Super-hot-rock could be economically competitive with most zero-carbon technologies and capable of being deployed rapidly in much of the world. Super-hot-rock promises a small environmental footprint and could potentially repower or replace many existing fossils fuel energy facilities.
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