| Title | Supercritical Geothermal: Resources, Drilling Experience, and Technological Gaps |
|---|---|
| Authors | William KIBIKAS, Tatiana PYATINA, Meng MENG, Eva SCHILL, Nicole TAVERNA, Scott MELLO, Travis BROADHURST, Patrick DOBSON |
| Year | 2026 |
| Conference | Stanford Geothermal Workshop |
| Keywords | Supercritical conditions, drilling and well construction, testing and modeling |
| Abstract | Maximizing geothermal energy potential will benefit from the ability to drill and produce heat from greater enthalpy resources than are currently utilized. Supercritical geothermal wells ( greater than 373 ËšC and 22 MPa) have the potential to produce 5 to 10 times as much heat as traditional hydrothermal resources. However, attempts at supercritical drilling have in the past encountered near catastrophic issues during drilling and well construction, such as IDDP and Venelle-2, which have prohibited successful utilization. To understand the current limitations in supercritical drilling and well construction, a multi-laboratory collaboration is underway to identify supercritical resources and their downhole chemistries, characterize materials used in their drilling and well constructions, and identify technological and testing gaps of well construction materials for supercritical conditions. An industry and literature review of these resources was conducted to identify 45 wells where bottomhole temperatures exceeded 373 ËšC. These resources are all hydrothermal and have typically been found in volcanically active regions such as Hawaii, Iceland, and Kenya. Most supercritical wells were drilled with conventional methods and materials employed by the geothermal industry, with only a few wells drilled with the intent of reaching supercritical conditions and producing such as Venelle-2, IDDP, and WD-1. Collected data assembled for the project will be made publicly available on the Geothermal Data Repository (GDR) to guide future supercritical drilling efforts and materials R&D. This work was done by Mission Support and Test Services, LLC, Under Contract No. DE-NA0003624 with the U.S. Department of Energy, and the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development. |