Seequent | World Engineering Day

Seequent

PARTNER STORY

“We can unlock incredible innovation and opportunity when we understand what’s happening in the underground.”

Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all.

Seeing the unseen

Subsurface modeling

For centuries, geoscientists and engineers have struggled to map the unseen world beneath our feet. Global subsurface software leader Seequent makes world-leading products that help geo-science professionals understand what is happening in these previously hidden spaces.

Seequent is the Bentley Subsurface Company. Its cutting-edge technology is underpinned by a pioneering 3D modeling program developed by scientists from the University of Canterbury. It now operates in more than 145 countries while proudly maintaining headquarters in New Zealand.

Seequent customers use its software to collate vast data sets into seamless models that reveal what’s below ground. Seequent helps organisations in the mining, civil engineering, energy, and environmental sectors by giving them the confidence to make better decisions faster.

“We can unlock incredible innovation and opportunity when we understand what’s happening in the underground,” says Kathleen Gould, Account Executive at Seequent.

Where in the world?

Seequent is evolving the way mining, civil engineering, energy, and environmental organisations work with a better understanding of the underground. Seequent operates in more than 145 countries while proudly maintaining headquarters in New Zealand.

Steaming ahead

US power company Calpine Corporation owns and operates the world’s largest geothermal electrical operation. The Geysers, its Northern California operation, is in a vast geothermal field that has provided the surrounding region with renewable energy for nearly 65 years. But due to over development, the steam pressure from those reservoirs began to decline in the 1980s. The future of the power generation was threatened, so an innovative solution was needed.

Wastewater from Lake County was identified as a solution and construction of the Southeast Geysers Effluent Pipeline began in 1995, with delivery of recycled water to The Geysers commencing in 1997. The 40-mile pipeline delivers approximately 8 million gallons of recycled water daily to The Geysers for reinjection into the reservoir, helping maintain steam pressure. Partnership on the Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge Project followed and today, these two projects provide up to 20 million gallons of reclaimed water daily, replenishing the reservoir.

Above ground, Bentley’s software models the pumped recycled water for reinjection underground. There, it becomes superheated steam, which powers the turbines, generating green electricity for 825,000 homes and businesses. Alongside Bentley, Seequent software is essential to Calpine’s management of this natural resource. When planning to drill new wells, geologists have access to the data they need.

“The Seequent software model allows us to visualise in great detail and with high accuracy exactly where a new well will be situated,” says Steve DeOreo, Senior Geologist at Calpine.

What does a sustainable future look like?

Seequent is committed to providing software solutions that enable their customers to accelerate the transition to clean energy. Use of Seequent’s software by Calpine is a great example of SDG 7, which aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all.

Geothermal energy is part of this carbon-neutral future and a precious resource that Seequent is helping the communities of Northern California to use wisely.

“It’s what sustainable engineering is all about – harnessing reliable, clean energy for generations to come,” says Gould.

Did you know?

Seequent software is used by all of the world’s ten largest civil engineering design firms, eight out of ten of the world’s largest mining companies, and seven out of ten of the world’s largest environmental consultancies.