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Geothermal |
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Energy generated by heat and stored beneath the Earth's surface is referred to as Geothermal power. Coming from the Greek words ‘geo’, meaning earth, and ‘therme’, meaning heat, the Geothermal helps in the generation of electricity. The largest group of Geothermal power plants in the world is situated in The Geysers, a geothermal field in California. Till the year 2007, Geothermal power supplied less than 1% of the total world's energy. Usually three different types of power plants are used to generate electricity from Geothermal energy, viz the dry steam, flash, and binary depending on temperature, depth, and quality of the water and steam in the area.
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In all case of electricity generation, the condensed steam and remaining Geothermal fluid is injected back into the ground to pick up more heat. In some situation, the natural supply of water creating steam from the hot underground magma deposits has been exhausted and processed wastewater is injected to refill the supply. Most Geothermal fields have more fluid recharge than heat, so re-injection can cool the resource, until and unless it is carefully managed. There are a number of advantages of using Geothermal energy over traditional fossil fuel based sources.
From an environmental point of view, the energy yoked is clean and safe for the surrounding environment. Besides, as the hot water used in the Geothermal process can be re-injected into the ground to produce more steam the process is also sustainable. On top of that the Geothermal power plants are unaffected by changing weather conditions. Geothermal power plants work day and night, continually, making them base load power plants. From an economic point of view, Geothermal energy is tremendously price competitive in some areas and reduces the dependence on fossil fuels and their inherent price unpredictability. Because of its abundance, the Geothermal energy can also be sold to outside sources such as neighboring countries or private businesses that require the extra energy.
In spite of these there are several disadvantages of Geothermal energy. The foremost are a number of environmental concerns behind Geothermal energy. Construction of the power plants can unfavorably affect land stability in the surrounding region. A concern especially with the Enhanced Geothermal Systems, here water is injected into hot dry rock where no water was there before. Besides, the flash steam and dry steam power plants also emit low levels of carbon dioxide, sulfur, and nitric oxide. However, there are ways by which the Geothermal plants can be built with emissions-controlling systems, injecting these gases back into the earth, thereby reducing carbon emissions to less than 0.1% of those from fossil fuel power plants.
Geothermal power is produced in over 20 countries all over the world including Iceland, the United States, Samogitia (Lithuania), New Zealand, Mexico, Italy, France, Nicaragua, Russia, the Philippines, Costa Rica, Indonesia, the People's Republic of China and Japan. The world's largest producer of Geothermal energy is Chevron Corporation. Even the Canadian government, which officially notes some 30,000 earth-heat installations for providing space heating to Canadian residential and commercial buildings, reports a test geothermal-electrical site in the Meager Mountain-Pebble Creek area of British Columbia, where a 100 MW facility could be expanded.
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