Mitigation of Calcium Sulfate Scaling in Geothermal Production Wells

摘要

Geothermal power generation is growing due to the need for clean renewable energy. The geothermal resources can generate base load power at lowest cost with minimum environmental impact. Fouling mitigation and corrosion control are big challenges in harvesting geothermal energy. Salton Sea resource contains hyper-salinity brines at temperatures approaching 700 °F. At the Hudson Ranch development the majority of the scale is iron-silicate. However, in the high temperature areas of the plant, such as the production gathering system and high pressure separator, the scale can also contain calcium sulfate. Computational modeling was used fo predict the precipitation of calcium sulfate based on brine and steam parameters. The paper discusses the impact of scaling in surface equipment and the use of scale inhibitor to prevent scale deposition in the production well as well as in the surface piping between the wellhead and high pressure separator.