THE HEYUAN FAULT, SOUTH CHINA: A DEEP GEOTHERMAL PROSPECT – THE ROLE OF FAULT INTERSECTION RELATIONSHIPS AND FLUID FLOW Lisa Tannock1 and Klaus Regenauer-Lieb1 1School of Petroleum Engineering UNSW Australia 2052 Sydney Australia
[email protected] Keywords: Heyuan fault, geothermal resources, hot While their current geothermal energy production is springs, structural controls, quartz reef. relatively low (28 MWe) in comparison to other countries, e.g. USA (3.5 GWe), Indonesia (1.3 GWe), New Zealand (1 ABSTRACT GWe) and Italy (0.9 GWe) (Bertani 2015), China have This pilot study investigates the Heyuan Fault, Guangdong, demonstrated their greener-energy intentions, and resources, as a potential site for a geothermal power plant. The study by becoming one of the world leaders in direct heat focuses on two principal hypotheses: (i) that there are production (18 GW thermal) closely followed by USA (17 preferred locations of hot spots at fault intersections and (ii) GW thermal), Sweden (6 GW thermal), Turkey and that a combination of processes may be acting to contribute Germany (each 3 GW thermal) (Lund and Boyd, 2015). to the elevated surface heat flow. Although geothermal electric power generation is in its infancy in China, they have ambitious plans to triple their Hot springs manifest at the surface along the Heyuan fault, geothermal power production in the next five years in a bid concentrated in clusters occurring at intersections of cross- to reduce coal consumption and improve air quality cutting faults. Chinese literature attributes the elevated heat (Chinadaily.com.cn, 2016). flux to radioactive decay of a large granite pluton; however, additional heat sources may need to be considered to explain This study focusses on a geothermal prospect situated in the the heat flow maxima above 85 mWm-2.