GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
4000 miles underneath the surface of the earth is incredibly hot. In fact, scientists estimate that it’s over 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit. While this temperature is exceedingly hot, dangerous and must be avoided at any cost, if you took the initiative to drill approximately 3 to 4 miles underneath the surface of the earth, you will come across a hot rock that is a lot less dangerous with a temperature of about 300 to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This hot rock can be utilized as a steady source of heat, but would be very costly to harness.
Now, while harnessing heat from this rock can be overly costly, other options exist. In other places, just some few hundred feet underneath the earth’s surface, areas exist that have pooled together underground water and this hot rock to generate hot water streams. This water stream is the most economical heat source (geothermal energy) underneath the earth and can be utilized in a wide range of ways including heating homes, businesses and to power large farms or generate energy for greenhouses. The hot water can also be converted into steam and directed to turn a turbine, which powers a generator to produce electricity.
Geothermal energy is energy harnessed from the earth’s internal heat underneath the earth surface. To extract the energy, geothermal wells are drilled into the earth’s crust at a depth of about 3 to 10 km. The heat is extracted from inside the earth’s crust using different methods, but the most popular one is using water and steam. Hot water from the hot water reservoir below may be extracted and directly channeled to heat homes and buildings. This is achieved by circulating the hot water throughout the building or pumping the hot water via a heat exchanger, which emits the heat insides the building. The hot water can also be converted into steam and directed to turn a turbine, which powers a generator to produce electricity at a geothermal power plant.
Geothermal energy is clean, sustainable, environment friendly, cost-effective and reliable.Geothermal can be found from the shallow ground to hot water and hot rock found a few miles beneath the Earth’s surface. It can also be found deeper into the Earth’s interior due to the extremely hightemperatures and pressures of molten rock called magma.In the United States, most geothermal reservoirs of hot water are located in the western states, Alaska, and Hawaii.
Geothermal energy is a type of energy that can really make it easy for companies to get what they need without using a lot of fossil fuels in the process. In this article, we’re going to take a closer look at some of the most important pros and cons that are related to using geothermal energy for your home or for your business when it comes to energy.
What Is Geothermal Energy?
The word geothermal comes from the Greek words geo (earth) and therme (heat). So, geothermal energy is heat from within the Earth. We can recover this heat as steam or hot water and use it to heat buildings or generate electricity.
Geothermal energy is a renewable energy source because the heat is continuously produced inside the Earth.
Geothermal energy is generated in the Earth's core. Temperatures hotter than the sun's surface are continuously produced inside the Earth by the slow decay of radioactive particles, a process that happens in all rocks. The Earth has a number of different layers:
· The core itself has two layers: a solid iron core and an outer core made of very hot melted rock, called magma.
· The mantle surrounds the core and is about 1,800 miles thick. It is made up of magma and rock.
· The crust is the outermost layer of the Earth, the land that forms the continents and ocean floors. It can be 3 to 5 miles thick under the oceans and 15 to 35 miles thick on the continents.
People around the world use geothermal energy to heat their homes and to produce electricity by digging deep wells and pumping the heated underground water or steam to the surface. We can also make use of the stable temperatures near the surface of the Earth to heat and cool buildings.
Use of Geothermal Energy
Some applications of geothermal energy use the Earth's temperatures near the surface, while others require drilling miles into the Earth. The three main uses of geothermal energy are:
· Direct use and district heating systems use hot water from springs or reservoirs near the surface.
· Electricity generation power plants require water or steam at very high temperature (300° to 700°F). Geothermal power plants are generally built where geothermal reservoirs are located within a mile or two of the surface.
· Geothermal heat pumps use stable ground or water temperatures near the Earth's surface to control building temperatures above ground.
Direct Use of Geothermal Energy
There have been direct uses of hot water as an energy source since ancient times. Ancient Romans, Chinese, and Native American cultures used hot mineral springs for bathing, cooking, and heating. Today, many hot springs are still used for bathing, and many people believe the hot, mineral-rich waters have natural healing powers.
After bathing, the most common direct use of geothermal energy is for heating buildings through district heating systems. Hot water near the Earth's surface can be piped directly into buildings and industries for heat. A district heating system provides heat for 95% of the buildings in Reykjavik, Iceland.
Industrial applications of geothermal energy include food dehydration, gold mining, and milk pasteurizing. Dehydration, or the drying of vegetable and fruit products, is the most common industrial use of geothermal energy.