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AJ Rutherford

Professor Campbell

UWRT 1103-HO4

7 November 2019

A Steamy New Form of Energy: The Renewability of Geothermal Power

One of the biggest problems for our upcoming generation of engineers is finding ways to

conserve and produce clean, renewable forms of energy. The amount of carbon that we pump

into the air for the sake of powering our world is in fact killing it. Are there any alternative

sources of energy that are not just renewable but also sustainable and can produce a large amount

of energy? Is there some source of energy that could take over a large percentage of fossil fuel

energy production in our world? Is geothermal power the answer to these

questions?Introduction

Renewability both economically and environmentally

The earth hides immense amounts of heat and subsequently power just below the surface

in many places on earth. Geothermal energy is a way to harness a small fraction of this immense

power in a clean and renewable way. Geothermal power is categorized as a renewable source of

energy alongside solar, wind, and hydropower by The Office of Energy Efficiency and

Renewable Energy. Although it sounds like geothermal energy is an obvious answer for our

clean energy crisis, there are some drawbacks that for some might be reason enough to not

implement this form of energy production.

What is Geothermal Energy?

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To be able to understand the impacts and renewability of geothermal energy, one must

have a simple working knowledge of the inner workings of one of these power plants.

Geothermal energy is the harnessing of the natural heat that the earth possesses underground.

This is done by first pumping up a heated liquidsubstance, typically water in the form of steam or

a working fluid, to the surface. The working fluid is the name for any liquid that is used within

the piping systems of the geothermal power plants. The steam pressure created by the hot

substance is then used to power a turbine which, in turn, spins a generator producing the

electricity. After the steam or working fluid passes through the turbine, it is sent to a cooling

tower to be turned back into water and pumped back underground to be re-heatedfor re-heating

(U.S. Energy Information Administration).

There are three main types of geothermal power plants that describe the ways the heat of

the water can be harnessed as described by the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The

first is called a dry steam plant. These plants are the simplest and oldest method of harnessing

geothermal energy. In dry steam plants, steam is directly taken from underground in strategic

locations and pumped to a turbine. The second type of plant is a flash steam power plant. In these

systems, very high pressure, high heat water is pumped towards the surface and in a flash steam

tank is converted to steam to be used in the turbine. The third type of power plant according to

the U.S. Energy Information Administration is a binary cycle power plant. This type of plant, as

the name suggests is a two-step process. In the first step, hot water is pumped to a heat transfer

system which sucks the heat out of the heated water before it is pumped back down underground.

Next, the heat from the pumped-up water is transferred to a second liquid, which does not have

to be water, effectively turning it to steam to power the turbine. The liquid systems are separate

from each other in different piping systems and only interact through the heat exchanger.
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Two general piping systems are also used in geothermal energy according to Haley

Mechanical, an HVAC company that works with geothermal options on smaller scales: open

loop and closed loop systems. Open loop systems are the most common for large scale

geothermal operations. In open loop systems, . The water is pulled up from a natural

underground reservoir, and once the water is used it is pumped back into the ground. In a closed

loop system, the working fluid never leaves the piping system. In other wordsstead, it is kept in

the pipe and heated upthe working fluid is heated while still in the pipe using the underground

heat and various means of heat exchange instead of reentering the earth’s crust to be naturally

heated.

There are also other smaller systems that utilize geothermal heat. These are called

geoexchange systems and basically function as a small closed loop geothermal plant. The water

creates electricity to heat up or cool down houses and buildings. Geoexchange systems are much

smaller scale than geothermal power plants, and for the purpose of this paper we will be focusing

on geothermal power plants (French).

Is Silica Scaling Detrimental to Geothermal Systems?

One major problem of geothermal power plants that has plagued them from the start is

silica scaling, which is the deposits of minerals within geothermal pipes. Felix Setiawan and a

team of researchers based out of Indonesia, which has many geothermal plants, even goes as far

as saying in their article Kinetics of Silica Precipitation in Geothermal Brine with Seeds Addition Formatted: Font: Italic

that this silica scalingit is the single biggest reason that geothermal energy is such an

underdeveloped field of power production. When silica scaling happens, pipes are forced to be

replaced or repaired resulting in the shutting down of the power plant and high replacement or
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maintenance costs. This has been happening since geothermal plants were first created, and the

only remedy until recently has been to replace the pipes.

Silica scaling is the buildup of mineralsaterial inside the underground pipes that restricts

and eventually cuts off flow through those pipes. If exposed to the right heat and pH balance,

brine, which is the mixture of fluids running through the pipes, will begin to deposit silica,

which is a sandy substance, as scales along the pipe. Theses scales will continue to build up until

maintenance is needed. There have been many studies focused at fixing this major issue, and

most have come to no good conclusion for fixing this problem until quite recently (Setiawan).

A group of engineers and researchers in Indonesia led by Setiawan are working

ondeveloping a way to reduce or completely get rid of silica scaling. They achieve this by

forcing the deposit of silica to precipitate or break down allowing it to flow away by activating it

with silica seeds. The injection of the silica seeds into the piping system both breaks down and

prevents further development of silica scaling. The silica within the brine of the system naturally

wants to bond to the piping which creates the scaling, but when the seeds are put into the system,

they restrict the silica from bonding. These seeds have silica gel in them, and the silica gel has a

high affinity to bond with the silica meaning it wants to bond to these silica deposits; therefore,

the silica cannot bond with the piping walls because it has already bonded to these seeds

(Setiawan).

This is a major step in the development of geothermal power as a larger source of energy

for countries around the world. This discovery begs for the further development of geothermal

energy. The problem of the working fluid pipes getting clogged according to Setiawan’s research

has been a major deterrent for many people. Now that this obstacle has been overcome,

geothermal power plants are much more reliable, and I foresee a much greater interest and
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funding to be put into geothermal once this solution becomes more well known and more widely

put into effect.

The silica gel within the seeds has a high affinity to bond with the silica in the brine which stops

the silica from wanting to bond to the pipes.

This solution is good. Why is it good? Tell me. Explain stuff. How does it help people or back up

the renewability of geothermal energy?

Pricing

Geothermal power plants are very expensive operations that require much pre-planning

and site designation. The upfront cost of drilling the holes for the pipes needed to transport the

working fluid is very high according to Brian Higgins, a representative for GreenFire Energy,

which is a company that specializes in geothermal systems, but that is not where the most

devastating costs come into play. Maintenance costs can be extremely high because of buildups

in the pipes according to Setiawan, and these buildups can even cause the pipes to back up and

possibly bustfailures. The most devastating cost highlighted by Higgins is a total failure of the

system. This can be caused by a couple different things. Commonly, drilling can begin for a

plant only for it to turn out to be a dry well with no usable reservoir of water. Another reason for

failure is depletion of thermal resources, which are the stockpiles of heated water underneath the

ground, in the reservoir although this is usually remedied by pumping water back into the well,

but that sometimes just is is sometimes not enough to keep the system running.

Location

Geothermal energy solutions are highly restricted by their placement. Geothermal energy

requires extremely high underground temperatures that not all areas in the world have access to.

If the temperature is too low or there is not enough hot water underneath the surface, the
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expensive drilling procedure can result in a failed power plant that becomes a dry well (Higgins).

The most successful applications of geothermal energy are in areas located on very active

seismic plates like along the Rring of Ffire, which is the fault lines around the Pacific Plate that

are active and produce extreme heat and commonly volcanoes. There is a large presence of

geothermal energy along the Asia/Ppacific area. One country that is a very good example of a

prime location is the Philippines. It possesses some of the largest geothermal power plants in the

world because of its location directly on the Rring of Ffire, and geothermal power makes up a

large amount of its national power production (Rocco).

Because of these locational restrictive properties of geothermal power plants, there are Formatted: Indent: First line: 0.5"

many places that they could not at all be implemented. For example, here in America, there are

many geothermal plants towards the west coast as fault lines are more active there, but it would

be virtually impossible to build a geothermal plant on the east coast because of the lack of

activity and required heat. Coolio tell me how this affects stuff.

Heating Issue

A need for a specific location brings up another issue with geothermal power. Heat is

always present underground, but it is a matter of reaching it. If the plant is not in a prime

position, more drilling is required to reach the depths needed to reach this heat, and. Ddeeper

drilling is expensivepensive, and at some point, a maximum distance is reached. Water needs a Formatted: Highlight

about When using water as a working fluid, a minimum of 300 degrees Fahrenheitthe water

needs to be heated in an area that is at least 300 degrees Fahrenheit to effectively power a

system, and the efficiency of the heat collection decreases as the minimum heating temperature

is approached (energy.gov). Sometimes when drilling wells, according to Higgins, planners are
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unable to detect that there is a lack of water in the proposed area which leads to a dry well if the

drilling is carried through. Thise inability to consistently heat water by finding functioning

drilling sites is a major deterrent for the further improvement of geothermal power.

To better harness heat energy, a few different companies have come up with different

systems involving the use of CO2. These systems involve a closed loop system that is either

flash steam or binary cycle that use supercritical CO2 as the working fluid. Supercritical

substances are materials that have been heated so hot that they reach a critical point and are both

a solid and a liquid. In the supercritical state, CO2 shows properties of both liquid and gaseous

meaning it has density like a liquid but also the viscosity of a gas (Supercritical Fluid

Technologies). The CO2 is pumped underground in a closed pipe and is heated by the

surrounding water and hot rocks. Then, using a the binary cycle system along with a heat

transfer, the working fluid is heated to a gaseous state to spin the turbine heats up the working

fluid that turns the turbine (Ahmed).

One of the companies that has decided to delve deeper into the benefits of using

supercritical CO2 is GreenFire Energy, and Higgins from GreenFire Energy highlights the many

reasons why using CO2 as a working fluid is better than water. The first, is that using CO2 is

very environmentally friendly. When using water as a working fluid, you must create a brine or

mixture that can potentially be harmful to the environment if the pipes burst and the liquid was

released, but while using CO2, there does not have to be a mixture. Although the name carbon

dioxide usually is talked to about in relation to alongside global warming and smog, there are no

smog or chemical leaks into the atmosphere when using CO2 because of the closed loop binary

system that it utilizes. There is also no liquid leaking in the pipes making it safe for the more

local environment and animals.

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The second reason why supercritical CO2 is better isare because of performance reasons

also outlined by Higgins. Supercritical CO2 is highly compressible allowing it to produce a very

strong thermosiphon, which is a form of heat transfer where the hot and cold liquids mix and

naturally exchange heat (Weisend). (DEFINE THERMOSIPHON). Carbon dioxide is also much Formatted: Font: Not Bold, No underline

better at harnessing heat than water mixtures, and it does it much more efficiently. Because of

this high level of efficiency, turbines are not required to be as large and can run at smaller sizes

with higher numbers of production. According to tests done by GreenFire, carbon dioxide

produces more power than water as a working fluid in flash steam and binary cycle power plants.

Carbon dioxide’s efficiency has also been highlighted in another report done by Higgins

and his associates. In this report they outline the use of CO2 in dry geothermal wells. Many

geothermal pipes get drilled and an attempt is made to produce power, but it fails because of a

lack of efficiency due to the water mixture or temperature. Using carbon dioxide as a working

fluid within the system, these dry wells can be used to produce a small amount of power because

of the high efficiency of using supercritical CO2 as a working fluidthe carbon dioxide, which has

a very high heat efficiency, collects heat that water or other working fluid would not be able to

utilize.

These solutions will allow for more cost-effective power plants in the future because of

the higher efficiency of using carbon dioxide. A higher effectiveness of these power plants will

entice more people to fund these projects because the costs will be lower.

This solution is good. Why is it good? Tell me. Explain stuff. How does it help people or back up

the renewability of geothermal energy?

Kenya as a Working Example of the Benefits of Geothermal Energy

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Kenya is a great example of the effects economically that geothermal energy has on a

country. Amy Yee, an award-winning journalist for the New York Times, did a study in 2018 of

the effects of geothermal energy in Kenya. Geothermal energy makes up a whopping 47% of its

national energy production. Kenya is located on an active fault location giving it the perfect

opportunity for geothermal power production. The leaders of the country have determined that

geothermal is a reliable source of energy to invest millions into to supply the country with much

needed electricity. Supplying the country with electricityproviding electricity to the majority of

places that do not have them is a very lofty goal because 60 percent of its population is not

connected to reliable power, but it is doable and because “the electrification rate is hovering

around 5 percent even though 84 percent of unconnected households are within 200 meters of a

connection point,” quoted said Sanjay Chandra, director of new energy development at the

consulting firm ICF International, in Yee’s article (qtd. in Yee). This means that although the

connection rate is very low, it is possible to connect a large percentage of houses to power

without a nearly impossiblen insane operation.

Geothermal energy has had a positive impact on Kenya not only regarding its power

production, but also its economic standing as a country is improving because of this investment

being made by the government. This proves that geothermal energy, if implemented in the right

areas, can be a major asset in the total power production of a country. The fact that Kenya, an

underdeveloped country, is investing so much money into this form of energy also proves that it

is a reliable form of energy. Kenya is also full of land that is protected by many conservation

efforts which also shows that geothermal energy is a clean source of energy; otherwise; it would

not be used as such a large source of energy in Kenya.

Conclusion
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Through my research of this topic from many different viewpoints, I personally believe

that geothermal energy should be developed and implemented much more than it currently is. I

think that the pros outweigh the cons by far. Also, I have discovered and shown in this paper that

many of those cons can be remedied. The only problem that is unfixable is that some areas just

do not have enough heat for a geothermal power plant to work. Although those areas will never

see this form of energy, I think that it should be much more developed in areas that can produce

geothermal power.

A big question that needs to be asked is if people and governing bodies will support this

form of energy. I think awareness needs to be brought to geothermal power. It is not very well

known, and I think that if more people know about it then more funding will be provided for this

form of energy both in the private, support from the general population, and public sector,

support from the government. Many major initiatives have been started by people that lead to

worldwide or countrywide reform and change. One recent example of this was the push to eat

healthier which resulted in many large restaurant chains adding more healthy options to their

menus. If a push like this were to happen with geothermal energy, I think that it would be greatly

beneficial in preserving the amazing world we live in.

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Works Cited

“About Supercritical Fluids.” Supercritical Fluid Technologies, Supercritical Fluid

Technologies, http://www.supercriticalfluids.com/company-information/about-

supercritical-fluids/. Accessed 29 Nov 2019.

Ahmed, Waqas, and Adil Javed. “CO2 As a Working Fluid in Geothermal Power Plants:

Comparison of Recent Studies and Future Recommendations.” Stanford University,

Stanford University, 26 Feb. 2014,

https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAstandard/SGW/2014/Ahmed2.pdf. Accessed 7

Nov. 2019.

Chapman, Eric. “Open Loop vs. Closed Loop Geothermal Systems.” Haley Mechanical, Haley

Mechanical, 25 June 2019, https://haleymechanical.com/geothermal-repair-

maintenance/blog/open-loop-vs-closed-loop-geothermal-systems/. Accessed 7 Nov.

2019.

French, Roger. “Ground Source Heat Exchange.” Sustainable Sources, Sustainable Sources,

http://geoexchange.sustainablesources.com/. Accessed 29 Nov. 2019.

“Geothermal Explained- Geothermal Power Plants.” U.S. Energy Information Administration,

U.S. Energy Information Administration, 19 Dec. 2018,

www.eia.gov/energyexplained/geothermal/geothermal-power-plants.php. Accessed 7

Nov. 2019.

Higgins, Brian, et. al. “GreenFire Energy Closed-Loop Geothermal Demonstration at the Coso

Geothermal Field.” GreenFire Energy, GreenFire Energy, 2019,

http://www.greenfireenergy.com/resources.html. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

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Higgins, Brian. “Using Supercritical CO2 for Closed-Loop Geothermal.” GreenFire Energy,

GreenFire Energy, 5 Feb. 2016, http://www.greenfireenergy.com/resources.html.

Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

“Low Temperature & Coproduced Resources.” Energy.gov, Office of Energy Efficiency and

Renewable Energy, www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/low-temperature-coproduced-

resources. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Rocco, Anthony. 2016 Geothermal Power: International Market Update. Geothermal Energy

Association, Oct. 2016,

https://www.academia.edu/4275557/Geothermal_Energy_International_Market_Update_

Geothermal_Energy_Association. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Setiawan, Felix, et al. “Kinetics of Silica Precipitation in Geothermal Brine with Seeds Addition:

Minimizing Silica Scaling in a Cold Re-injection System.” Geothermal Energy - Science,

Society, and Technology, vol. 7, article 22. SpringerOpen,

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40517-019-0138-3. Accessed 7 Nov. 2019.

Weisend, John. “Thermosyphons.” Cryogenic Society of America, Cold Facts, 5 July 2012,

https://cryogenicsociety.org/resources/defining_cryogenics/thermosyphons/. Accessed 29

Nov. 2019.

Yee, Amy. “Geothermal Energy Grows in Kenya.” The New York Times, The New York Times,

23 Feb. 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/02/23/business/geothermal-energy-grows-in- Field Code Changed

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