Geothermal

Geo + thermal = earth and heat i.e. earth’s internal heat

Earth’s core temp. & pressure can be as high 7000k and 360 GPa.

Where does it comes from

1. The Earth’s internal heat

2. Heat energy from the Sun

About 80% of the Earth’s internal heat comes from radioactive decay of minerals, while the remaining
20% can be sourced back to planetary accretion (the formation of our planet).

General Use of this energy

1. Geothermal Electricity Generation
The current installed geothermal power capacity is about 10 715 MW, which is distributed
among 24 countries.
2. Geothermal Direct Heating
The world’s total installed capacity of geothermal direct heating was estimated to be 28 GW in
2004.
Direct heating can be combined with geothermal electrical power plants

Most common appliances of direct heating:

 District heating
 Greenhouses
 Timber mills
 Hot springs and bathing facilities
 Agriculture
 Snow and ice melting
 Desalination (processes that remove salt and other minerals from saline water)
 Various other industrial processes
 Below is a picture of Blue Lagoon geothermal spa with Svartsengi Power Station
in the background. Svartsengi is located in Keflavik in Iceland and has an
installed capacity of 76.5 MW. Some of the surplus hot water is used in the
bathing resort nearby and the rest is sent through a series of pipes to nearby
districts for various other direct heating purposes. About 95% of Iceland’s
buildings are heated with geothermal energy.

3. Residential Geothermal Heating and Cooling

Convention heat pump- heat extracting device form source to sink, it uses high grade energy
Ground source heat pump (GSHP) – energy transfer takes place between a building and a
ground source.
Just 3 meters (10 feet) below the surface, stable temperatures of around 10 °C (50 °F) can
be found.
http://energyinformative.org/geothermal-heating-and-cooling-systems/
Video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ZGBhy48YI&list=SPACD8E92715335CB2&index=7&featu
re=plpp_video

How a Geothermal Power Plant Generates Electricity

Videos :
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjpp2MQffnw

Heating boilers are not present in geothermal steam power plants and no heating fuel is
used.

There are several different main types of geothermal plants:

 Dry steam
 Flash steam
 Binary cycle
What these types of geothermal power plants all have in common is that they use steam
turbines to generate electricity.

Production wells – (red on the illustrations) are used to lead hot water/steam from the
reservoirs and into the power plant.

Rock catchers – only hot fluids is sent to the turbine. Rocks can cause great damage to
steam turbines.

Injection wells – (blue on the illustrations) ensure that the water that is drawn up from the
production wells returns to the geothermal reservoir where it regains the thermal energy
(heat) that we have used to generate electricity.

Most geothermal power plants extract water, in its vapor or liquid form, from the reservoirs
somewhere in the temperature-range 100-320°C.

1. Geothermal Dry Steam Power Plants

Water that is extracted from the underground reservoirs has to be in its gaseous form.

Geothermal steam of at least 150°C is extracted from the reservoirs through the production
wells.

Dry steam is the oldest geothermal power plant type.

2. Geothermal Flash Steam Power Plants

Geothermal flash steam power plants uses water at temperatures of at least
182°C.

http://energyinformative.org/how-a-geothermal-power-plant-generates-
electricity/

3. Geothermal Binary Cycle Power Plants

The water-temperature can be as low as 57°C (135°F).