The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the selection of seven projects totaling nearly $11.4 million to advance geothermal energy development. The projects will focus on accelerating the research and development (R&D) of innovative geothermal energy technologies in America.
University of Oklahoma is one of the awarded universities. Project team includes Dr. Salehi (Project PI) and Dr. Teodoriu (Co-Pi) and Dr. Ahmed (Co-PI) all from MPGE. This multi-million dollar project (approximately 2.5 million) has partners from Louisiana State University and Penn State. The research team will be developing and testing smart lost circulation materials (LCM) that use shape memory polymers activated by geothermal temperature to prevent the loss of fluid into fractured rock next to the drilled wellbore; the smart LCM expands within the fractures to reduce non-drilling time (NDT) and strengthen the wellbore in high temperature geothermal drilling operations.