"Champagne pool", Waiotapu,
New Zealand. |
Harnessing the furnace beneath our feetMost people are familiar with spectacular thermal areas like Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park, or the geysers of Iceland. Countries like Italy, Iceland, New Zealand, Japan, the U.S., and Indonesia have been making use of such geothermal heat with major power stations for decades. These typically use very active geothermal areas to generate steam.
Yet the Earth's heat is not limited to such areas. The temperature of the Earth increases routinely as a function of depth wherever we are. Increasingly, with ever more efficient technologies, this fact is being used to heat water, not just steam, and harness this energy - even around the UK. Unlike other renewables such as wind or solar, this energy stream is constant and reliable, and as long as the earth's core and mantle has radioactive elements - and that's a pretty long time - it will continue. PAETORO is further researching applications of geothermal heat in the UK, and compiling a database of related information. We are also interested in the joint exploration for hydrocarbons & minerals, in conjunction with geothermal exploration, particularly in Europe, the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. |
Many geothermal efforts are focussed on radioactively hot intrusive bodies for electricity generation, and engineering fractures to enhance permeability. PAETORO's current geothermal focus is instead on hot water aquifer exploration, not very dissimilar in nature to exploring for hydrocarbons. In these resources the permeability is there already, so provision of adequate hot water volume is less of a commercial risk. It also means a hydrocarbon failure case in oil and gas exploration - targeting similar geological reservoirs - need not always be a commercial failure, if a hot water resource also has value. This depends on temperature, permeability, sand thickness, and availability of a local hot water market. New strides are being taken in joint exploration for geothermal with mineral and hydrocarbon resource exploration in Netherlands, Iceland, USA and Canada. PAETORO recognises this as an activity likely to accelerate in future years.
These hot aquifers may not always be suitable for steam and electricity generation, but warm water in such reservoirs is a vastly underutilised resource globally, and new non-disruptive technologies exist for exploring for them cheaply in the built-up urban and industrial areas where they are most commercially attractive. In particular see the ADR and UK geothermal blog posts below.
These hot aquifers may not always be suitable for steam and electricity generation, but warm water in such reservoirs is a vastly underutilised resource globally, and new non-disruptive technologies exist for exploring for them cheaply in the built-up urban and industrial areas where they are most commercially attractive. In particular see the ADR and UK geothermal blog posts below.