GEOCOGEN Project – Part 3

Geothermal Heat

We humans have used geothermal heat for many centuries in very limited fashions – hot water springs, Roman baths, a few rudimentary geo-steam power plants, even distributed town heating.

Iceland, Italy, New Zealand, the Philippines, and the USA have captured more of the geological heat available in their volcanic environments than anyone else. But that’s due to geological oddities that are not available to about 98% of the world.

So what is there? Think about it – everywhere in the world, some places deeper, some shallower, there is the heat of the core of the earth seeping up through the bedrock. The typical temperature gradient is about 3°C (5°F) per 100 meters (330 feet). What this means is that there is a furnace underneath all of us, and if we go far enough down, it’s hot enough to measure up to a thermal or nuclear power plant boiler.

The question is, how do we tap this heat?

Almost 30 years ago, Process Engineer Kurt Brunnschweiler in Switzerland proposed the very idea of tapping this heat for our domestic and industrial use. The problem with his system was that the engineering, construction, and mining equipment needed for such a project did not exist at that time.

Today, it does exist.

Let’s look into the project and see what is involved. The things that we need to make this work – now we’re talking about the daily operation of such a project – are the following:

1. A way to get the heat to the surface
2. A way to convert the heat to energy
3. A way to transport this energy to the consumers nearby

To be continued …

Thanks for looking in,

Jimmy Craig
for
Sue & Craig Websites

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Note: The name GEOCOGEN and the GEOCOGEN trade mark are registered trademarks of ICEC Holding AG and GEOCOGEN AG – all rights reserved. Read more about GEOCOGEN at http://geocogen.net

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GEOCOGEN Project – Part 3

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