STATUS AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

The Geopressured-Geothermal Program, sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) began in 1976 with the Wells of Opportunity. This early research concentrated on resource characterization at several locations in Texas and Louisiana. More recently, t he program has included we1 1 operations and supporting university research in geoscience and engineering. Long term flow t esting, reinjection of brine, and scale prevention were accomplished at the Gladys McCall Well. The Pleasant Bayou Well provided additional data for modeling and predicting geopressured reservoir behavior. This year a hybrid power system (HPS) was constructed at Pleasant Bayou in cooperation with the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI). This is the first conversion of the geopressured-geothermal resource to electricity. An economic review of geopressured-geothermal resource development concludes that using off-the-shelf technology, electricity can be produced for $0.125/kWh from a Gladys McCall type resource