Utah Forge Inc
423 Wakara Way, Suite 300 , Salt Lake City, Utah, United States

Our mission is to enable cutting-edge research and drilling and technology testing, as well as to allow scientists to identify a replicable, commercial pathway to EGS. In addition to the site itself, the FORGE effort will include a robust instrumentation, data collection, and data dissemination component to capture and share data and activities occurring at FORGE in real time. The innovative research, coupled with an equally-innovative collaboration and management platform, is truly a first of its kind endeavor.

UTAH FORGE: PATHWAY TO SUCCESS

All deliverables at FORGE will focus on strengthening our understanding of the key mechanisms controlling EGS success, specifically how to initiate and sustain fracture networks in basement rock formations. This critical knowledge will be used to design and test a methodology for developing large-scale, economically sustainable heat exchange systems, paving the way for a rigorous and reproducible approach that will reduce industry development risk and facilitate EGS commercialization. R&D activities may include, but are not limited to, innovative drilling techniques, reservoir stimulation techniques and well connectivity and flow-testing efforts. The site will also require continuous monitoring of geophysical and geochemical signals.  Additionally, dynamic reservoir models will play an integral role in FORGE by allowing the site operator to synthesize, predict, and verify reservoir properties and performance. R&D activities will have open participation via competitive solicitations to the broader scientific and engineering community.  As advancements in EGS are made over the course of FORGE's operation, R&D priorities are likely to shift and change in response. As a result, FORGE will be a dynamic, flexible effort that can adjust to and accommodate the newest and most compelling challenges in the energy frontier!

FORGE UTAH WILL

• Provide an underground laboratory for developing and testing innovative tools and stimulation techniques for developing EGS reservoirs
• Extend existing technologies developed for oil and gas beyond current capabilities to successfully produce electricity from hot crystalline rocks
• Demonstrate technologies that can be applied across the USA
• Provide domestic and international scientists and students with funds for research to expand future energy security and availability
• Demonstrate suitability and safety of large-scale geothermal energy development to the public

FRONTIER OBSERVATORY FOR RESEARCH IN GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Utah FORGE is a dedicated underground field laboratory sponsored by DOE for developing, testing, and accelerating breakthroughs in EGS technologies to advance the uptake of geothermal resources around the world. It is located near the town of Milford in Beaver County, Utah, on the western flank of the Mineral Mountains. Investigations will commence in 2020 as the facility is being constructed and continue through 2024. Competitive funding rounds will be open for public application to attract outstanding programs of innovative research and development in geothermal engineering and science. Near term goals are aimed at perfecting drilling, stimulation, injection-production, and subsurface imaging technologies required to establish and sustain continuous fluid flow and energy transfer from an EGS reservoir.