“Good Practice” Guide for Managing Induced Seismicity in Deep Geothermal Energy Projects in Switzerland

Wiemer, Stefan and Kraft, Toni and Trutnevyte, Evelina and Roth, Philippe (2017) “Good Practice” Guide for Managing Induced Seismicity in Deep Geothermal Energy Projects in Switzerland. Other. Swiss Seismological Service (SED).

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Abstract

Switzerland is facing a challenging turn in its energy policy. Nuclear power plants, which cover 39% to 45% (in winter) of the national electricity consumption, will be phased out over the next decades. Strategies for future energy supply1 include deep geothermal energy as a potential resource of both heat and electricity generation that is extremely large, nearly CO2 free, domestically sourced and probably reliable (e.g. Hirschberg et al. 2015). Both high-profile, deep geothermal energy projects initiated in Switzerland in the last 10 years have been stopped – with financial losses exceeding 100 Mio. Swiss Francs – partly because of felt induced earthquakes and the concerns they caused. Other types of geoenergy projects using the deep underground have been experiencing similar challenges around the globe, such as fracking-related waste-water disposal in the eastern United States, fracking-induced earthquakes in United Kingdom and western Canada, ground-waterextraction-related induced earthquakes in Spain or gas-reservoir depletion-related earthquakes in the Netherlands. Managing induced seismicity has thus increasingly become one of the most pressing challenges for geothermal and other geo-energy applications that alter the stress and pore-pressure conditions in the underground (Kraft et al., 2009; Giardini, 2009; Zoback et al., 2012; Ellsworth, 2013; Grigoli et al., 2017). As a consequence, the topic of induced earthquakes is now high on the agenda of many research institutions worldwide, leading to a strong increase in the number of scientific, peerreviewed publications (Figure 1). The knowledge and understanding of induced seismicity is evolving rapidly.

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Item Type: Reports (Other)
Subjects: Methodology > Other-additional study
Inducing technology > Geothermal energy production
Project: S4CE > ST GALLEN: geothermal project