A firm which found itself at the centre of a storm over its plans to frack in Ryedale looks set to complete an extraordinary turnaround by helping launch the UK's first geothermal well, extracting clean, renewable energy from deep underground without disturbing the geology.
From next month Third Energy's Kirby Misperton KM8 well site, which was the focus of many months of heated protests after North Yorkshire County Council approved hydraulic fracturing for gas there in 2016, will become an operational test site for geothermal energy production, led by pioneering firm CeraPhi Energy2.
Ahead of the eight-week trial, CeraPhi says it has patented technologies to convert existing wells at the end of their life by plugging the bottoms and using circulating fluids in a closed tube system within the well to bring the heat found deep underground to the surface.
Unlike hydraulic fracturing CeraPhi's process does not interfere with any rock formation, sub-surface system or any fluids, and has been likened to the reverse process of a fridge, but without using carbon dioxide.
CeraPhi chief executive Karl Farrow said: "We are not touching the geology - sending water down the outside of the tubes to collect the heat before bringing the water up the tubing to the surface where the heat is then processed."
The company says there are a potential further 680 oil and gas wells which could be converted in the UK, including more than 200 between Lincolnshire and the North-East, and 12 in the Kirby Misperton area alone.
Tests have revealed the temperature at the bottom of the 3km deep KM8 well is about 110C and the firm is expecting to get up to 90C when transferred by liquid to the surface, which it says is sufficient to supply heat to up to 400 homes for about 40 years.
Click here to read the full article by Stuart Minting in the Yorkshire Post.
