Anke Friedrich
Managing Principal Investigator Joseph Moore in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, says that “this next phase allows us to build on our important achievements and to further develop and de-risk the tools and technologies necessary to unlock the potential of next-generation geothermal power.”
That’s one hefty piece of good news. But there’s more, and it’s rooted largely in the form of one woman: G&G alumna Anke Friedrich. This past September Friedrich convened a 10-day workshop at Utah FORGE for students from the U and from her home base of Germany where she has an appointment as endowed professor of geology at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich. (She is also an adjunct in Geology & Geophysics at the U.) “It was extremely important to me to have this workshop authentically at the site where things are happening,” she says, “because it has this sense of urgency that really makes it special and different.”
A recent recipient of the U’s Founder’s Day Alumni Award, Friedrich says it was “priceless” to have the project’s two principal investigators on site—along with Moore, John McLennan, U professors with appointments at the Energy & Geoscience Institute. The setting too, is priceless: Milford Valley in Beaver County, Utah, a place of burgeoning alternative energy operations, including the two geo-thermal plants in operation along with windmill and solar farms running like giant stitches in the dry steppe at the foot of the Mineral Mountains. In the middle of it, to the west, is the FORGE site which includes the double-wide “container” classroom with internet, screens, a kitchen and—very important—air conditioning.
'Liquid gold'
Ten students were the focus of the unique place-based workshop, but a total of twenty-seven participants threaded through the 10-day event, including imported faculty and experts for half-day visits. Additionally, there was a visit from a YellowScan drone and an opportunity to learn how to fly these devices and operate LIDAR to get high surface resolution for fractures wherein is found “liquid gold”—water at a piping hot temperature of at least 275 °C.
Workshop cohort with Anke Friedrich, far right. The site for Utah FORGE is at the foot of the Mineral Mountains with most of the exploration going on, naturally, underground.
Some of that water is naturally circulating, a classic convection system in the earth. Other hot water used for generating turbines for electricity has to be recruited through fracking and inserting surface water underground where it is heated by natural forces, then re-surfaced. All of this has to be done using seismic monitoring via the U’s Seismograph Station where professor Kris Pankow, who helped organize the workshop, is associate director. The monitoring is in concert with geological data collected from drill cores at the geothermal site as well as 3D models of fractures on the surface of nearby mountains using the YellowScan drone.
Giving back
Though a daunting task, it is a deeply calculated and calibrated one, and, happily, a recent benchmark test at Utah FORGE has proven successful. Students from both sides of the Atlantic are there, feeling the heat and doing hands-on research to better experience the process of hydro-fracking in the geothermal industry. For Friedrich this unique experience, which will be repeated, is also a way to give back to the community she encountered as an undergraduate when she came to the U in 1989 as a competitive skier. (Last year she was inducted into the Crimson Hall of Fame for winning three of the four NCAA Championship races she entered.)
But this time she’s in the Beehive State to indelibly “give back” in a way that “is really worth sharing with students, young scientists, and even colleagues.”
