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'The Geysers', a geothermal power field located 72 miles (116 km) north of San Francisco, California, is the largest geothermal development in the world. It is currently outputting over 750 MW.
Calpine Corporation - The Geysers The Geysers consists of 21 separate power plants that utilize steam from more than 350 producing wells.^[1] The Calpine Corporation operates and owns 19 of the 21 facilities. The other two facilities are operated by the Northern California Power Agency.

Contents

Description

History

See also

References

External links

Description

The Geysers geothermal development spans an area of around 30 square miles (78 km²) in Sonoma and Lake counties in California, located in the Mayacamas Mountains. Power from The Geysers provides electricity to Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Marin, and Napa counties. It is estimated that the development meets 60 percent of the power demand for the coastal region between the Golden Gate Bridge and the Oregon state line.
Steam used at the Geysers is produced from a greywacke sandstone reservoir, that is capped by a hetrogeneous mix of low permeability rocks and underlaid by a Felsite intrusion.RESERVOIR RESPONSE TO INJECTION IN THE SOUTHEAST GEYSERS, 1991 (pdf) Steve Enedy, Kathy Enedy, John Maney, Sixteenth Workshop on Geothermal Reservoir Engineering 1991. (accessed 2007-05-16) Gravity and seismic studies suggest that the source of heat for the steam reservoir is a large magma chamber over 4 miles (7 km) beneath the ground, and greater than 8 miles (14 km) in diameter.
Cascades Volcanic Observatory (USGS) - Clear Lake Volcanic Field, California
Unlike most geothermal resources, the Geysers is a dry steam field, which means it mainly produces superheated steam. Because the power plant turbines require a vapor phase input, dry steam resources are generally preferable. Otherwise, a two-phase separator is required between the turbine and the geothermal wells to remove condensation that is produced with the steam.

History

The Geysers was first discovered in 1847 during John Fremont's survey of the Sierra Mountains and the Great Basin by William Bell Elliot. Elliot called the area "The Geysers," although the geothermal features he discovered were not technically geysers, but fumaroles. Soon after, in 1852, The Geysers was developed into a spa for The Geysers Resort Hotel, which attracted the likes of Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Mark Twain.
A History of Geothermal Energy in the United States

See also

★ Geothermal energy in the United States

★ Geothermal power

References

1. The Geysers (brochure), Calpine Corporation, 2004.

External links

★ Calpine to Increase Renewable Energy Production at The Geysers; Calpine and Santa Rosa to Expand Geysers Recharge Project