Ridgeway Arizona Oil Corp. (Ridgeway), a wholly owned subsidiary of Enhanced Oil Resources Inc. (TSX-V), (the “Company”) is pleased to announce the initial investigation and evaluation of the St Johns Dome as a potential site for low-temperature CO(2)-based geothermal power production technologies.
Ridgeway has been informed that its joint venture partner, GreenFire Energy, has received notice of the award of a $ 2.0 million grant from the U. S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Program. This grant, combined with Ridgeway’s contributions, will be focused on initiating research and potential development at the St Johns Dome for CO(2) based geothermal energy. This is the first geothermal project of its kind that has received DOE funding to use CO(2) as the geothermal fluid instead of water.
The St Johns Dome, located in Apache County, Arizona and Catron County, New Mexico, is believed to be the largest undeveloped CO(2) and helium resource in North America. Ridgeway operates approximately 235,000 acres within the St Johns Dome and has drilled in excess of 40 exploration and appraisal wells over the past fifteen years. “The Company remains focused on delivering CO(2) to Permian Basin for its enhanced oil recovery projects and extracting our helium resource,” Mr. Barry Lasker reports. “However, the potential to produce significant amounts of renewable energy and sequester CO(2) within the St Johns Dome as well is an exciting opportunity that we are eager to evaluate.”
The St. Johns Dome is considered to be an optimal location at which to generate CO(2)-based geothermal electricity. This is due to its combination of a large volume of low cost natural CO(2), the potential presence of a thermal reservoir underlying the dome area and a local connection into the power grid. The region in which the St. Johns Dome is located also contains six major coal-fired power plants that collectively emit about 90 million tons of CO(2) per year. If carbon capture technologies are deployed in the future, these facilities can provide the GreenFire JV with additional CO(2) for added power production, while sequestering that CO(2) at the same time. As power plants around the world begin implementing carbon capture and sequestration, many additional sites for CO(2)-based geothermal energy projects may become available.
“Exactly one year ago we announced our joint venture agreement with GreenFire Energy,” stated Mr. Barry Lasker. “It is exciting to see them receive this award and know that we are one step closer to investigating their technology. We shall provide further details as they come to hand.”
SOURCE Enhanced Oil Resources Inc.
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