In Alberta, the Geothermal industry would like to convert some of the 77,000 abandoned oil wells into Geothermal electric plants. Oil wells consider hot water, that contains gigajoules of energy a waste product and paying to have it trucked it away. In North Dakota, a micro geothermal generation plant that fits into two shipping containers is now producing 250kW of power from two wells. This could be a great plan for Alberta. Even after the water is used to produce electricity the still warm water could be used to heat greenhouses in the winter, heat homes, melt snow, and a myriad of other uses. One can only image the uses farmers and towns would make of these resources.
Converting this resource to geothermal energy would not only put oil workers back to work as much of the technological training in the geothermal field is the same as the oil industry. In addition to that, it would create more permanent higher quality job opportunities than the oil industry produces.
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| Heat Map of Alberta Showing Key Hot Zones |
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