Bacterial Overgrowth & Deposits in Water Wells

NDR, a public radio and television broadcaster, recently reported a delay for the geothermal well in Schwerin (Germany).

Bacterial overgrowth and loose particles are mentioned as reason.

Unfortunately, this can delay geothermal projects, even though there was no problem at the beginning at all.

“I absolutely get it, as I’ve seen bacterial overgrowth and hard deposits on water monitoring wells for waste deposits, tunnelling and constructions by real time video inspections,” says Dr Claudia Steiner-Luckabauer, HOT’s Principal Petrophysicist and geothermal expert. “To me, deposits, scaling and bacterial overgrowth must be expected and are part of the geothermal assessment, to be tackled up front.”

➡ Most of the inspected wells had soft bacterial overgrowth, which was easy to remove. It fell off by touching the filter casing with the camera.

➡ Hard deposits, occluding the filter slots, require cleaning.

About the Author

• Dr Claudia Steiner-Luckabauer is the Principal Petrophysicist and geothermal expert at the HOT Energy Group. She has been working in a leading role on numerous integrated reservoir characterisation and field development projects, focussing on integrated petrophysical evaluation and formation evaluation.
• As HOT’s subject matter expert, Claudia has extensive experience assessing mature oil fields, heavy oil fields, gas condensate fields, gas fields, underground gas storage, clastic and carbonate settings, low-salinity environments, unconsolidated reservoirs, and fractured reservoirs (chalk, carbonate, granite basement, sandstone). She is also an experienced instructor of academic and industry workshops on various topics in geosciences and has authored numerous papers.