Location: WECC - Western Electricity Coordinating Council
This activity represents the exchanges associated with 1 meter of drilling of a borehole for deep geothermal power generation. The inventory reflects the conditions for a well with a depth of 5000m (exchanges do not scale linealry with depth). Geothermal drilling profits from the experience gained in onshore oil and natural gas drilling. This data set is based on a data set comprised in the book 'Energy from the earth'. (see field 'published source' for more details). The life cycle inventories established for this dataset on geothermal power is based on the literature information provided in the book (see published source). Data are representative for geologic conditions in Switzerland and as first approximation used for this activity. Uncertainties are adjusted accordingly. If this activity is used for drilling at remote locations, diesel should be used as energy source for drilling instead of electricity.
Undefined unit processes (UPRs) are the unlinked, multi-product activity datasets that form the basis for all of the system models available in the ecoinvent database. This is the way the datasets are obtained and entered into the database by the data providers. These activity datasets are useful for investigating the environmental impacts of a specific activity (gate-to-gate), without regard to its upstream or downstream impacts.