The Pohang Geothermal Power Plant research group, which received criticism that it did not inform the citizens of Pohang City about the earthquake risk of geothermal power generation, has been concentrating on building the results of the geothermal power generation project and the earthquake occurrence details in detail.

Three years ago, the European Union research team applied Pohang Geothermal Power Plant for new water injection technology for three months before the earthquake.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, and the Pohang Earthquake Research Center, research institutes with offices in Germany and Switzerland were involved in the water injection work at the Pohang Geothermal Power Plant from August 7th to 14th,

According to the website, DISTRESS is funded by the EU, and aims to improve the economic efficiency and eco-friendliness of geothermal power generation and to reduce earthquake induced earthquakes.

Dystress participated in the water injection in August 2017, which took place three months before the 5.4 Pohang Earthquake of November 15, 2017, and its activities were introduced in the January 30th International Geophysical Journal.

This paper, authored by the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources, said that Geo Pohang was the first to apply a repair stimulus system called "soft cyclic stimulation" to a real geothermal field rather than a laboratory environment.

This method is expected to reduce the risk of induced earthquakes through a faster water injection cycle than before, "the paper said.

According to the paper, a total of 1,756 cubic meters of water was injected into the PX-1 passageway from August 7 to 14, 2017 using this method, and a total of 52 triggered earthquakes were detected at the time of injection and immediately after.

All earthquakes were small earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 1.9.

It is unclear whether the water injection at this time affected the Pohang Earthquake.

The Pohang Earthquake Research Institute has announced that the water injection in the PX-2 passion triggered the Pohang Headquarters.

The citizens of Pohang have not been aware of what happened at the geothermal power plant, and the geothermal research group poses a problem that they did not provide accurate information about the earthquake risk.

However, the main sponsor NexGee, as well as researchers from the Institute of Geological Resources and Seoul National University, have submitted several papers to the overseas academic journals about the Pohang geothermal power plant and the earthquake.

In the case of the Internet, we discussed the challenges of the Pohang geothermal power plant by mentioning the possibility of a micro-earthquake due to water injection in the "EGS geothermal power generation and reservoir repair stimulation technology"

Seoul National University, NEXGIO and Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources will hold the first repair stimulus from the PX-2 passion of Pohang geothermal power plant from January 29 to February 20, 2016, .

At the World Geothermal Congress held in Australia in April 2015, I explained in detail the process and difficulties of drilling the geothermal power plant at Pohang Geothermal Power Plant.

(Photo: Yonhap News)