Multiple fracture zones is a great achievement, particularly in...

Multiple fracture zones is a great achievement, particularly in non-horizontal strata.

Engineered hot dry rocks favour horizontal strata. It?s awkward to circulate water from injection to production well if the fractures steeply dip away. It might have been better if the strata remained horizontal, thereby defining a broad horizontal zone from Hab to Jol.

At least the nature of the fractures at Jol are now know. This may be a future no-go area. Shame it takes tens of millions of dollars to find this out.

What has been playing on my mind for some time is that with the fractures being saturated does GDY even need to have circulation? Can water be drawn long-term from a single production well and that water replaced by surrounding or deeper water. Deeper water may even be hotter than that at 5 km. Excess water will still need to be returned to the ground but more for disposal than replenishment. Returned water will not need to be re-heated by the rock for re-use. Perhaps the cold water may sink deep under convection with hotter deeper water replacing it.

It may be that water is nowhere as free-flowing enough to behave in the under-ground sea scenario that I like to imagine. I understand multiple fracture zones are required to access water at sufficient rates. With my admittedly ambitious hot under-ground sea, steeply dipping fractures would be advantageous. If after stimulation Jolokia heats up to +300 degrees wouldn?t that be nice.

This might all be fanciful imaginings, but one thing?s for sure, GDY is really skilling up.