Geothermal - Science topic

Geothermal studies and its application are well established science. Good and sufficient literatures are available.

I agree with the previous answers, but would like to stress the importance of rock type or lithofacies when dealing with poroperm changes during burial. Finn mentions it in one of his replies. In my view, lithofacies are a first-order control of much of the diagenetic history of most clastics. Of course, temperature is important, and an elevated temperature is commonly the prime reason for low porosity and permeability (reservoir failure) in sedimentary basins worldwide. However, the issue for explorationists is about predicting which basins will likely see porosity preserved even in the face of relatively high geothermal gradients. To answer that question, we need to know the rock type or lithofacies because that sets up the textural and compositional factors, which greatly influence the diagenetic changes during burial. These variables are commonly either ignored or lightly dismissed when looking at poroperm prediction in basins. Looking through the literature at the hundreds of cross-plots of porosity vs permeability or porosity vs depth, we rarely see any plots expressed as a function of rock type or lithofacies. As a result, many of the conclusions made from these plots are meaningless because they are plots of very different rock types. Whether a sandstone is fine-grained or coarse-grained will have a fundamental control on its diagenetic history, including porosity and permeability. Whether a sandstone is an arkose with highly labile feldspars, or a quartzarenite and essentially "inert", will also significantly affect its diagenetic history. In other words, and to bring it back to the original question, if you are comparing porosity-depth trends between basins with different geothermal gradients, then you must separate the lithofacies in the data. In practice, this comes down to applying lithofacies to core/plug data. Sorting the apples and the oranges.

My name is Ann Robertson-Tait (not Ann Tait). Thanks for correcting!

Yes, research has been conducted on organic pollutants in geothermal fluids. Studies have identified the presence of trace organic pollutants such as benzene and xylenes in geothermal systems. These compounds, which can be both biogenic and abiogenic in origin, pose ecological and health risks even at low concentrations.

However, a review highlighted that benzene, a precursor for many bioaccumulative and toxic aromatic compounds, is a significant contaminant in various geothermal systems.

Moreover, research has focused on dissolved organic compounds in geothermal fluids used for energy production. Understanding the composition of these organic compounds is crucial for assessing their impact on geothermal energy utilization and environmental safety.

Dear Irabella Fuhrmann

I hope this message finds you Irabella Fuhrmann well!

I wanted to share some insights regarding the influence of geothermal heat collectors on soil microbial biomass, which I believe could be quite relevant to this ongoing discussion about sustainable practices in different projects.

Recent studies have shown that the operation of geothermal heat collectors can create localized soil temperature variations that significantly affect microbial activity. For instance, the Austrian Housing Research Survey from 2006 revealed that soils above these collectors can experience temperature differences of 2–6°C, especially during colder months. This temperature shift tends to suppress microbial activity in the upper soil layers, where most biological processes occur, leading to a decrease in microbial biomass. Many microorganisms thrive within specific thermal ranges, and this alteration can disrupt their metabolic efficiency.

Additionally, these temperature changes can lead to shifts in microbial communities, favoring cold-tolerant species and potentially reducing biodiversity. This shift can have cascading effects on essential soil processes, such as organic matter decomposition and nutrient cycling. Moreover, the heat exchange process may influence soil moisture levels, further complicating microbial dynamics and possibly slowing down decomposition rates.

To better understand and address these challenges, I recommend exploring literature from journals like "Soil Biology and Biochemistry" and case studies on the effects of ground-source heat pumps on soil ecology. It would also be beneficial to investigate research from Austrian and German teams focusing on geothermal installations, as they often provide valuable insights into local climatic and soil implications.

I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this. How do you Irabella Fuhrmann think we can design or manage geothermal heat collectors to mitigate any adverse effects on microbial biodiversity and promote sustainable soil health? Looking forward to your insights!

The deadline has been moved to the 14 April 2024.

Best wishes,

Dear Martin Schmieder ,

The question is good. 'Geotherm' If used in Hungarian likewise as a foreign word. In this language it is used as an adjective. meaning: heat attributable to Earth (emitted by this planet).

But in your question the term is: Geothermie...'

This affix 'ie' change the adjective 'geotherm' into a noun: 'Geothermie'.

Since the Hungarian language of science has adopted many words from German, the origins of which are sometimes Latin and sometimes Greek, so the meaning here is clear

These kinds of words reffers to scinece 'geologia' (Geologie), szeimologia (seismologie),... (in this two is marked sciense with the Greek word: log (logos: basis)...

In case of geokémia (Goethermie), geokémia (Geochemie): it should also mean science!

In Hungarian, we encounter the incorrect approach described by you in the same way: geothermal is confused with the geothermie meaning: 'A „geotermikus” kifejezés görög eredetű, jelentése: földi meleg belső hőség( a szó szerinti jelentése).' ('The term "geothermal" is of Greek origin, meaning: Earth's warm internal heat (its literal meaning).''

You can find it here in the first sentence:

https://geoeng.hu/geotermia.html)

At the same time, in a scholarly narrative, we use the interpretation described here, as is also the case in Germany, 'I think'.

Regards,

Laszlo

I used the mass flow rate of the ORC*(enthalpy at exit-enthalpy at inlet)

I would say that for systems without natural convection (classical geothermal doublets in confined aquifers) where the cold water is re-injected, sweep efficiency is the ratio between the produced heat and the maximum heat that can be extracted from the system of control. Then, I think you will have areal and vertical sweep efficiencies which are defined by thermal disturbEd areas and finally the thermal efficiency which should account for the magnitude of the change in temperature after injection of the cold water: (T0- T(t))/(T0- Tinj) for a rock with constant porosity and thermal properties. I say this following an analogy from enhanced oil recovery concepts. T0: initial temperature, Tinj: injection temperature T(t): temperature after a certain time t.

According to GK - Geothermal Power Plants in India, geothermal energy in India is still in the experimental stage, but the potential capacity is more than 10,000 MW. The Geological Survey of India has found around 340 hot springs across India. There are seven geothermal provinces and a few geothermal springs in India. These resources have been mapped by the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and suggest that India could have 10 GW of geothermal power potential, as per the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

India’s first geothermal energy project is being implemented by ONGC Energy Centre (OEC) in collaboration with the Union Territory of Ladakh and Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council, Leh. This project aims to put India on the world map for geothermal power. The project involves exploratory-cum-production drilling of wells up to 500 meters depth and the setting up of a Pilot Plant of up to 1 MW power capacity in the first phase.

According to the article A review on geothermal energy resources in India: past and the present, the most promising geothermal fields in India are Puga Valley in Jammu and Kashmir; Manikaran, Himachal Pradesh; Bakreshwar, West Bengal; Chhumathang in Jammu and Kashmir; Unai, Maharashtra; Tattapani in Chhattisgarh on the Narmada River in Central India.

All right. With an increase in CO2, the eruption increases, only CO2 is a consequence and not a cause. Periods of increasing CO2 concentration are associated with cycles of geological (geodynamic) activity.

Simply, by using a propitiate hybrid power cycles and an efficient storage systems.

explain your idea

Thank you very much for your insight

Dear Isaiah Adelere,

I understand that your question does not have a unique answer, and it is made in geographical units ("...I intend to use 4 half-degree aeromagnetic sheets for geothermal analysis with the intention of a 10' by 10' block size...."). I will try to help with the following explanation:

First of all, you must put in geological/structural/tectonic context, it means: if your scenario is related to a relatively high heat flow regime, the window size should be small enough to estimate the Curie point depth (CPD) because it is expected to be shallow. In contrast, if your geological scenario is considered a low heat flow, it should be large enough to estimate the deeper CPDs. It means several window sizes you must test, and the appropriate length must be selected based on the criteria of the minimal block size that does not cut off the spectral peak (Ravat et al., 2007).

On the other hand: if you have land, airborne, or satellite data, the filtering effect of anomalies could be critical, also the spectral answers. Therefore, the question is: Which is your data source for your research? Satellite magnetic data complement the existing local and regional data sets by providing a globally unified data set. It means: the local structures below the minimum wavelength content cannot be resolved in such a data set, therefore: you must choose the window size for FFT and CDPs estimation according to or in the function of your dataset.

The methodology that I recommend using to estimate Curie point depth is founded on the 2-D radial average power spectral (RAPS) analysis of magnetic anomaly data described basically by three foundational works:

The input dataset of a magnetic anomaly - the emphasis for land research - must reduce the influence:

The depth estimation from your RAPS advises you that the optimal square window dimension is about 10 times the estimated depth (Chiozzi et al., 2005). Thus, you should divide your work area/zone of interest (in km/m units) into square subareas of such as for example 300 km x 300 km to say you an accurate value, each of them overlapping with respect to each other in a step increment, for example, 100 km, and then applying the 2-D FFT RAPS method individually to get Zo and Zt. The computation requires an extensive dataset for estimating Curie point depth.

Best regards, Mario E. Sigismondi

MICP

Below are some review papers that can be a good start:

- Insights into geothermal utilization of abandoned oil and gas wells, DOI:

- Geothermal energy extraction using abandoned oil and gas wells: Techno-economic and policy review, DOI:

- Repurposing abandoned wells for geothermal energy: Current status and future prospects, DOI:

Good luck,

Omar

dear Zhonghe Pang,

it seems 500 C are reached in a well in Japan, at 3700 m depth.

See, Huang Hefu, study on deep geothermal drilling into a supercritical zone in iceland, report 2000, number 7, the united nations university.

Looking at your question about geothermal impacts more closely - I am not sure if you are looking specifically at impacts on the marine environment or impact in general. The environmental impact of a geothermal power plant depends on the type of plant being used, Binary power plants use a heat exchanger and the produced geothermal brines are generally all reinjected so there is virtually no interaction between the produced fluids and the environment aside from heat transfer to a secondary fluid to generate steam to drive the turbine. More conventional high temperature flash plants use steam produced from the sub-surface directly to spin the turbines and these fluids can contain things like sulphur and nitrogen compounds that have negative environmental impacts. However, unless a geothermal plant is located adjacent to the coast I would not expect any significant effects on the marine environment, although some could occur.

I suspect you are asking the wrong question. You might ask, "Given such-and-such a system of this size and design, operating at these conditions (flow, temperature, etc.) what might one expect to see by way of heat transfer to or from the ground?" The information you have stated is incomplete and not nearly enough to evaluate the performance of such a system. You might begin with a tentative design based on one that has been successful in a similar setting and see how that reacts compared to the expectations you have, which have not been stated. You must have some expectations? watts? degrees? cost? life expectancy?

Please see the attached excel file. It might help you in plotting your data. The only issue is that it can plot only up to 30 samples.

Patricia Fehrentz

HYDROTHERM is good.

Welcome to the real world. Get back to the basics. Study how the data was acquired and processed, describe it, and recommend improving it. Establish the basic geologic questions and discuss the data regarding these questions. Keep in mind that chaotic seismic data may relate to chaotic geology. Consider recommending a different geophysical technique.

Hello Yassir;

here you find a website for different types of satellite data, including magnetic, gravity, topography and other.

You will have to create an account.

all the best

Bai Lige The most advanced method of monitoring physical property changes in the subsurface is time-lapse seismic. What can be observed is changes in arrival times of seismic reflections signals, and the reflections amplitude. Both signals are sensitive to the propagation velocity of seismic waves and the bulk density.

If you want to monitor geothermal processes, you have to understand how temperature changes affect seismic properties (velocity and density). Typically geophysicist subdivide rock into the rock-frame properties and the fluid properties occupying the pore space. The rock frame properties and the fluid properties are then "averaged" using a suitable equation. The classic equation is Gassmann equation. Fluid properties (Density and bulk modulus, from which you can calculate P-wave velocities) are often calculated using Batzle and Wang equations (the classic paper is Batzle and Wang, 1992, Seismic properties of pore fluids). These equations allow calculation of the temperture-dependence of fluid properties. The effect of temperature on the rock-frame takes is slightly more complex. The major effect is probably that temperature changes causes thermal expansion/contraction of the rock, which causes stress/strain changes in the rock-frame, which in turn cause velocity changes. A good place to start reading is "The Rock Physics Handbook" by Mavko, Mukerji and Dvorkin, and the references therein.

Before you move to any statistical methods, I would suggest that you try to understand the magnitude of temperature change on both fluid properties and rock-frame properties and get a sense of the percentage velocity (and density) change. These changes will depend very much on geological properties (such as porosity and mineralogy). I concur with Ernest Berkman that some focus on the geological setting is very important. A geothermal site in a hot granite (with low porosity and permeability) will behave very differently from a geothermal site in sedimentary rock with high porosity/permeability and a slightly elevated temperature.

The challenge with multi-physics is to know which effects are first order, and which effects you can safely neglect. You can of course display the results of all the various multi-physics effects in a statistical sense with correlation matrices. It always helps to first understand the underlying physics.

Good luck with your research,

Jorg

In both cases, I had the opportunity to open the papers mentioned in my reply.

Sorry,

Jorge

Specific location and monetary power do matter, the whole world is not like Iceland as but the political bias is surely eminent:

Some successful projects, where initiated by a few engaged ecological experts:

However, this is a case of a very wealthy community and may not be applicable generally as Mahmood M. Barbooti mentioned already, with respect to deep drilling costs (between: 2,5 and 5km).

The EROI is, imo, decisive:

Hello !how are you!how is thé reseach

Rudyshyn Sergii D. Enviromental Demention of Sustainable Development of “BiospereSociety” System: Discourse “Golden Section”. Екологічний вимір сталого розвитку системи “біосфера-суспільство”: дискурс “золотий перетин” . Сталий розвиток — ХХІ століття. Дискусії 2021: матеріали VII Міжнародної науковопрактичної конференції / Національний університет “Києво-Могилянська академія” / за ред. проф. Хлобистова Є.В. Київ, 2021.С.140-147. Електронне видання. ISBN: 978-617-7668-33-5. URL : https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yuri-Kindzerski/publication/357680371_Sustainable_development_-_XXI_century_Discussions_2021_in_Ukrainian/links/61d9e68cb8305f7c4b2ee617/Sustainable-development-XXI-century-Discussions-2021-in-Ukrainian.pdf

..

An important question worth doing a survey in some geothermal areas in the world e. g. Travale in Tuscany North western Italy. California, Iceland or New Zeland. of course theses must be classifies in categories by climate similarities.

I suggest reading Giggenbach, 1984, Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, Geothermal solute equilibria. Derivation of Na-K-Mg-Ca geoindicators. Werner assessed hot fluids at "full equilibrium" (agreement of chemical geothermometers), vs those diluted. I hope that you have access to this publication; Kyudai library should have it, at least in paper if not digitial. I attach the principal page; he also provides blank diagrams with which to plot data.

Hello Younas Mahmood ,

The book by Carslaw and Jaeger, [1], gives some examples of problems concerned with heat conduction in soil, and discusses where to find information for the thermal properties of soil. The book by Incropera and DeWitt, [2], has some thermal properties of soils and concrete listed in its Appendix A.

[1] H. S. Carslaw, J. C. Jaeger; Conduction of Heat in Solids, 2nd Ed.; Oxford University Press; 1959; pp. 81-85, see the footnotes on p. 82.

[2] Frank P. Incropera, David P. DeWitt; Fundamentals of Heat and Mass Transfer, Second Edition; John Wiley & Sons; 1985; pp. 755-784.

Regards,

Tom Cuff

Chena Hot Springs Resort uses two 200kW Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) geothermal energy power plants to generate energy, the first in Alaska. The resort moved the diesel generators used in the past to a backup role since July 2006, and it is successful in reducing the cost from 30 cents/kWh to 5 cents/kWh. The resort owners have plans to increase the powerplant's work output from 200 kW to 1MW. An increase to 730 kilowatts was accomplished.

There are few papers out there by L. Richard, H. Helgeson and E. Shock. Laurent Richard and Jeffrey Dick might be a good researchers to reach out to.

Good luck with your literature search.

Domagoj Vulin Structured grids for ANSYS CFD solver simulations are commonly build with ICEM/CFD Hexa, if they are preferred or required.

Regards,

Dr. Th. Frank.

Dear Fatima Zahra Haffou,

This hydrocarbon reservoir subject is well developed.. So you can find a good resolution with it studying.

Regards,

Laszlo

Hello El Mehdi Jeddi ,

Let me paraphrase your request. You are given the amount of helium present in water in units of μmol/mol (μmoles of He/moles of H₂O), and you would like to convert the units to ppm on a mass basis (grams of He/10⁶ grams of H₂O = μgrams of He/grams of H₂O). Note, the demoninator is actually the solution or mxiture of H₂O and He, but since the amount of He is so small compared to H₂O, it (the He) can be ignored. It would seem that the original units, μmol/mol, is equivalent to ppm on a mole basis, i.e., μmoles of He/moles of H₂O = moles of He/10⁶ moles of H₂O, and you simply want to convert it to ppm in a different basis, such as mass. Have I restated your question correctly? If the answer is, yes, then, I believe, the conversion should be done to both the numerator and denominator as follows to yield the desired conversion factor (CF): [μmoles of He /moles of H₂O] x [4 μgrams of He/μmole of He] x [1/(18 grams of H₂O/mole of H₂O)] = [μmoles of He /moles of H₂O] x CF, where CF = 0.222 μgrams of He - moles of H₂O/μmole He - grams of H₂O.

Regards,

Tom Cuff

Before we chose the fluid we need to know the following :

•the PH of the Fluid used for leaching.

•Type of ore we want to extract

For example, if we want to extract the sulfides minerals such as pyrite as you know that the pyrite is dissolved in an oxidation environment whereas it is precipitated in a reduction environment. For that reason, we need fluid that provides an oxidation Environment for the ore, and we need to control the Ph value, and it should be high (increasing basically) and also prevent the precipitation of mineral ions in the well of extraction and the geothermal system (incrusting). and also to prevent clogging, and to increase the concentration of dissolved minerals in the fluid.

Isaiah Adelere: the Ahmed reference is good, but your question is following geothermal interpretation and analysis, I understand.

Therefore, you should also take into account three critical aspects:

1) the size of the grid you used, means the area/dimension of interest in your research.

2) the "type" of anomaly that you use as an input.

3) the method that your choose.

1) As all of you know, when you have a grid, you can separate the answers from the regional and residual ones' contributions. And, in my own experiences, this is a critical point. If you are interested to know, by the way, the depth of the basement, maybe it's better to try the RAPS source estimation depth from the residual anomaly. On the other hand, if you are interested to know the Curie depth interface, or maybe the deepest crustal boundaries, so, you can try with the total / regional.

2) You consider the size of the grid for RAPS solutions: the bigger, the deepest sources, even for total, regional or residual anomalies. Maybe you are using the EMAG version of the grid. I use the RAPS as a general indicator of the possible responses, how many main interfaces are there in my project, to follow the objective to convert to depth the anomaly, by SPI or AS, not to estimate the centroid to geothermal analysis. You must think about this aspect.

3) Remember about the method that you choose is the centroid spectral method, and hence you must define in the RAPS two components that represent the best-fit edges for the near and the far roots, and the depth to the bottom of the root is reached from by subtraction.

My best wishes to all of you.

Mario

Mario E. Sigismondi

I hope this will help if the language is not a problem.

Dear Kumar,

I really appreciate for such an important question. I found really good comments in the responses.

Cheers,

Rahim

You might think in a simple way that 3 things are needed for EGS, are those temperature(min 150 C), fractures, and fluid. And you will have at least one of them if you drill deep enough(temperature). The challenge here is that you have to add other two things(fractures, fluid). You connect the wells by fractures. For this reason unlike oil&gas fracking, we actually want Frac hits in EGS. The answer is going longer when you think the processes and physics behind. Don't forget that we are pumping cold water and this will have consequences such as matrix is gonna shrink, fracture apertures becomes larger, at least near the injector, and near the producer you are gonna see high temperature.

Yes I am agreeing with you.

Dear Abdelhakim Merdjani ,

This link maybe useful for you :

Well,

Through the data of the satellites synchronized with the Earth, we can find the extent of variance between the continental or desert regions in the area near the water bodies, especially the closed ones. The effect of local weather conditions (the transfer of latent heat to the atmosphere) is estimated before determining the exact values of the thermal deficiency.

Regards

Meryem Redouane, you may find this of benefit

Well,

Vitrinite reflectance (Ro)

It is a measure of the thermal maturity that can be performed on plant materials and is calculated from the maximum temperature values.

Ro%= (0.0180*Tmax. °C)-7.16,

Vitrinite Reflectance (Ro%)

• Low maturity source rocks 0.0 -0.55%

• Oil window 0.55%- 1.15%

• Condensate – wet gas window 1.15% -1.40%

• Dry gas window > 1.40 %

Hydrogen Index whom correlating with T_max to estimate the maturity and burial depth.

HI=Hydrogen Index= HI = (S₂*100)/TOC%, Where.

S₂= Hydrocarbon cracked from Kerogen (mg HC/g rock).

TOC% = Total organic carbon (%)

Q; Is the orogenic sediment oil-bearing horizons or not, if yes, it is useful, if not it is not useful.

Regards

Dear Dr. Essam,

Please check this: http://www.infrared.avio.co.jp/en/products/ir-thermo/lineup/ts7302/index.html

We used such technology in our paper (Fujimitsu, Y., Setyawan, A., Fukuoka, K., Nishijima, J., Ehara, S., Saibi, H. (2007) GEOPHYSICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF UNGARAN VOLCANO, CENTRAL JAVA, INDONESIA. Proceedings of 29th New Zealand Geothermal Workshop (5 pages).

If your study area is bigger, than I suggest you use Thermal Remote Sensing Images (OLI / Landsat 8). I have a paper under review on this topic and can share or check papers of Dr. Md. Mia Bodruddoza

Hope it helps.

Regards,

Hakim

Hi Peter,

The following link may be useful for you:

https://www.hazardouswasteexperts.com/heavy-metal-waste-regulation-which-substances-make-up-the-rcra-8-metals/

Good luck,

All of the best wishes Megan Riekki

Good luck

Thanks to you Dr. Renaud Di Francesco

Dear Francisco

Please take a look at the article titled below:

Authors: Derek E. Milliams (Corupdate Inc.) | Dawn Cottage (Corupdate Inc.) | Robert N. Tuttle (Corupdate Inc.)

Document ID: NACE-03090

If you couldn't find the article let me know. may I have it in my documents

Regards

Research Institute of Petroleum Industry (RIPI)

E-mail: b.hosseinimonjezi@yahoo.com

hosseinimonjezib@ripi.ir

Here, you may decide whether you have a heating or a cooling load. For a recovery heating load, you may need to have a heat exchanger with a determination of flow properties, system size, and operational performance. To cover cooling loads you need more items to have an adsorption system, which you may find in literature.

The minimum temperature that allows generating electricity using geothermal energy depends on several factors such as:

• The means by which thermal energy is converted into electrical energy.

• The flow of thermal energy from the geothermal source.

• The amount of electricity that is intended to be generated.

By controlling these aspects, an estimate of the minimum operating temperature of the system can be obtained.

I agree with Hanyi Wang .

Limestones, due to their chemical nature, have much higher cohesion and tend to fail preliminary in Mode I (tensile). The majority of preexisted natural fractures are filled by calcite cement and are challenging to reactivate both in shear and in tensile.

If horizontal stress anisotropy (SHmax-Shmin) is high enough, multistage hydraulic fracturing of horizontal wells will lead to a family of planar tensile fractures partially filled by proppant. This system of high fractures surface area will create a strong anisotropy of conductivity in the direction of current SHmax. Meanwhile, EGS fracture system conductivity will be more isotropic.

If your question is related to groundwater quality degradation due to possible mixing with geothermal water, then collect samples from the groundwater aquifer, analyze them and compare with samples outside of the scope of the geothermal field. Most of heavy metals are aboundent in geothermal water, together with fluoride etc. There are many other geochemical indicators depending on the type of geothermal system that you working on.

Dear Mr. Nazaruddin Sinaga, here is the picture of the condenser. Sorry, I can't give the detailed technical drawing because it is confidential. But I'm sure, this schematic will clearly explain which type condenser I try to explain. Thankyou.

This paper of a colleague of mine might help you.

(author: Peter van den Engel)

Hi

So its clearly that the granite minerals don't dissolve or weather in such range of temperature. Therefore you have got such similarity in chemical composition. Furthermore the changing of temperature affect only the speciation distribution of each element, so that the total concentration of it remain the same.

Best regards

A hydrothermal system is one that included fluid, heat, and permeability in a naturally occurring geological formation for the production of electricity. A geothermal resource requires fluid, heat, and permeability to generate electricity. Conventional hydrothermal resources contain all three components naturally.

Present, little more in the future.

For large scale energy production, geothermal is limited to favorable natural occurrences: you must sit over a volcano with own water circulation (Iceland, Larderello, California). Wherever it was feasible (profitable), it has been done.

The proportions in those two cases are not small, Larderello outputs about 1 GigaWatt, at very low cost.

But there are few of lucky places like those. Maybe we can still install some large electric plant on the oceanic ridges?

I have read that home-scale geothermal heating can be done wherever you want, but i'm not so sure.

Please refer : Geothermal source potential for water desalination - current status and future perspective. Renewable and sustainable energy reviews, Volume 57, may 2016, 1038-1065.

See please:

Thanks a lot for your kind help in this: much appreciated

Dear Abhijit Mukherjee,

Peter's answer is right in terms of isotope fractionation. However, in the case of hydrothermal environments, the trtium of hot water and steam mainly depends on that of the recharge water, due to the following facts: 1) hydrogen is rare in minerals and therefore tritium; 2) old water traped in the minerals in whhatever forms, is tritium free, because of radioactive decay through time; 3) in-situ generation of tritium by the rocks is minor, usually less than 2 TU. There is litereiture on this.

In conclusion, tritium can be used as a tracer to test possible connection between a deep geothermal reservoir and a shallow freshwater aquifer.

Hope it helps, cheers!

Zhonghe

You may need to have an understanding of heat sources, heat and heat flow measurements, and heat transfer mechanisms.

Dippipo's Geothermal Power Plants (now on it's 4th ed) is a handy reference.

The United Nations University - Geothermal Training Program (UNU-GTP) publishes works by students as well as papers presented in short courses. The International Geothermal Associatio (IGA) also publishes papers in the their conferences.

Here is a fast one: http://www.thorndoncook.com/documents/StarttoSteam-Plant-Design.pdf.

Clearly, for starters, reading on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and IFC-IGA series on best practices will surely help you in your work.

Some examples:

1. http://www.ifc.org/wps/wcm/connect/topics_ext_content/ifc_external_corporate_site/sustainability-at-ifc/publications/publications_handbook_geothermal-bp

2.

Do click on the links for more info.

Geothermal Education Opportunities in USA - Colleges and Universities

A compilation of Geothermal Energy Association (2010). See the link - may be useful.

See this also: https://www.gns.cri.nz/Home/Our-Science/Energy-Resources/Geothermal-Energy/Training

Regards

A review of geophysical methods for geothermal explorationArticle

Exploration of geothermal resources is important from the energy point of view. Geophysical methods are among the three main disciplines applied on the surface to explore geothermal resources, including geology and the chemistry of thermal fluids. This paper presents various geophysical methods of exploring geothermal

Isotope composition of geothermal water is usually distinguishable from that of cold groundwater, in addition to salinity and temperature.

I would just like to take action on the premise because I'm not totally agreeing.

According to UNCTAD statistics on world maritime transport, in fact, oil transport has increased over time as indicated on page 5 of the following report:

Dear Christian,

If the KI is so high, it probably indicates there is a significant contribution from a swelling component which broadens the 10A-reflection. Hence you are not measuring the KI of an "illite" but of an interstratified illite/smectite mineral with probably quite some smectite layers.

Do you mean ? 

Best regards.

Dear Prem Depan Nayak,

regarding the mobile devices that seem to be neglibile...

Consider a smart phone to be charged with 5000mAh at 3.7V and calculate the losses which could be in a regime of maybe 5%.

5Ah*3.7V=18.5Wh. 5% of this is as low as 0.925Wh. Assume it is 1Wh.

Now go to older battereis with less efficiency like NiCd or Nimh and you loose 2Wh.

Not that much, right?

Now multiply with the numbers of smartphones around the world and add about 50% to consider tablet computers as well.

Megawatthours saved - every day.

Now correlate the same to individual mobility in passenger cars.

A single 3MW windmill will get you about 6 Million kWh per year.

Assuming a demand of 20kWh/100km, this is sufficient to do 30.000.000 kilometers in electric vehicles at zero emission.

Assuming demand of gasoline of 7L/100km and 120gCO2/km this saves 2.100.000 liters of gasoline.

Currently in europe, CO2-burden to electricity is 0.5kg/kWh.

The single windmill just saved 3000 tons of CO2 in energy generation and 3600 tons of CO2 in traffic. Every year.

Just because Li-Ion batteries can do the trick.

I'd say, this is quite a contribution to help fighting global warming.

Cheers - Martin

GNS Science, a New Zealand Government Research Institute experienced in geothermal analyses of many kinds, provide these services. Link below.