The Earth is under increasing
stress owing to carbon emissions. Clean energy forms constitute an area of increasing
technological interest. Geothermal energy is a clean alternative energy form that
can be harnessed from the Earth’s core. The use of geothermal energy resources is
gaining substantial interest in many countries, as an integral part of 21st century clean energy solutions and meeting stringent emission requirements. The
objective of this research is to investigate an alternative approach to clean and
renewable geothermal energy utilization through geothermal ground water pressure
applied within a water turbine. The groundwater pressure from the candidate geothermal
sites considered is applied to drive a water turbine for the generation of electrical
energy. The geothermal candidate sites are low-temperature (i.e. <60℃) geothermal springs, where it is not beneficial to apply low temperatures
in a Rankine cycle steam turbine due to the low enthalpy. Simple calculations are
conducted to estimate the electrical energy output of each candidate site. This
may technically be regarded as a thermodynamic problem, albeit one that does not
require full thermodynamic cycle analysis. The results of the simple non-rigorous
analysis indicate that the electrical energy generation potential is greater when
using geothermal water pressure (2.5 MWe) than when using
low geothermal temperature (0.005
MWe).
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