(GP/GT) for Additional Water Supply in the Lower Rio Grande

BACKGROUND
As one of the prime contractors for the U.S. Department of Energy
(DOE) at The Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL), EG&G Idaho,
Inc. is presently evaluating potential direct uses for geopressured
resources, as are a number of industries, firms, organizations, and
educational institutions. In addition, EG&G Idaho, Inc. (hereafter
referred to as INEL) is spearheading the formation of an industrial
consortium that would use the available energy in geopressured resources
for multiple uses. Some of the uses under consideration include
desalination, agriculture/aquaculture, sulfur frasching, the use of
supercritical processes for detoxification of pollutants, brine
production, power generation using natural gas driven engine generators
or binary cycle power plants, food and other types of processing,
chemical extraction, thermally enhanced oil recovery, and others.
A broad based infrastructure of designers and developers are
available to apply their expertise toward the application of hydrothermal
direct use projects for geopressured resources as a result of the
development of hydrothermal energy. The use of hydrothermal resources in
the United States (U.S.) for direct use projects was mostly limited to
pool/health spa applications and for space and district heating before
about 1973. With the oil price increases of the 1970s, the DOE initiated
numerous incentive and technical programs that caused significant growth
of the hydrothermal direct use industry. These activities resulted in
numerous applications in agriculture, aquaculture, space conditioning,
industrial uses, and various types of processing (Lunis and Lineau,
1988).
In recent years, DOE has been sponsoring the Geopressured-Geothermal
Research Program, which includes the operation of three test wells in the
Gulf Coast area. On behalf of DOE, the INEL provides technical support
for the assessment and evaluation of the technical and production
characteristics of this undeveloped resource. One result of these
activities was the initiation of an industrial consortium at Rice
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