ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,443, issued on April 15, was assigned to Quidnet Energy Inc. (Houston).
"Geothermal system and method" was invented by Howard K. Schmidt (Hockley, Texas) and Aaron H. Mandell (Walnut, Calif.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for geothermal resource development which comprises generating a plunging fracture at a wellbore using a dense fracture fluid. In one embodiment a compliant elastic material may be pushed to the propagating tips of fractures where they screen out the fracture tip and stop fracture propagation. The method may further comprise injecting additional fluid to increase the net pressure in the fracture, ...