By: James Edwards and Siobhan Coughlan

o What is Geothermal Energy? o Facts About Geothermal Energy o How is Geothermal Energy Used? o How Does Geothermal Energy Work? o Household Technical Image o Advantages of This Energy Form o Did You Say This Had Any Disadvantages? o Canada’s Hot Spots For Geothermal Energy

o Geothermal energy means earth heat, it is heat that originates from within the earth’s interior o Earth’s geothermal energy comes from the intensely hot core o Geothermal energy comes mostly from two primary sources:  Primordial heat, this source is a result of the mass and energy of cosmic matter colliding at high speeds that created earth a large dense piece of space debris; as the outside of the earth cooled it became denser acting as a insulator for the intensely hot core allowing it to stay hot for the lifespan of earth  Radioactive decay, during the creation of the earth a large portion of the elements and minerals that constructed the core and outer shell above were radioactive materials, these materials slowly decay and produce additional thermal energy helping to heat the earth’s interior  There is two sources that provides a very small almost negligible amount of thermal energy for the surface helping to create geothermal energy also; these include solar absorption of the earth’s surface and the volcanic activity that allows thermal energy to seep up to the upper layers of the earth

o For every kilometer you travel into the earth the temperature increases 30 degrees Celsius, this represents the earth’s temperature gradient (a global average) o The Ring of Fire is an area that follows along the edges of South America, North America, Russia, Asia, and down to Australia; it is an area of high tectonic plate movement which allows for more geothermal energy to be produced, these areas highlighted in the photo to the right are ideal areas for usage of geothermal energy o Geothermal energy is heat and naturally produces hot pools of water known as hot springs as shown in the photo

o Geothermal energy is used to create geothermal electricity by way of using dry steam power plants, flash steam power plants, and binary cycle power plants; all of these plants follow the same premise for producing electricity from the thermal energy that geothermal energy contains o It is also starting to be used throughout the world as a heating source for houses, buildings, and warehouses in some cases o Geothermal energy is also used in heat pumps which are similar to the heating systems used in houses, buildings, and warehouses, but they have a reversible flow whereas during the warmer weather these pumps will take warm air in the area and pump it into the earth and then during cooler weather it will pump warm air from the earth and pump into the area to warm it up

o The basic idea of geothermal energy and the way that it works is quite simple, basically using a series of high strength piping that goes deep beneath the ground to a point where the temperature is high enough to heat the fluid, then it is pumped back up through the piping to the surface where the hot fluid then enters a heat exchanger, the heat exchanger works by taking the heat of the heated fluid and exchanging it to the secondary fluid, this fluid then will usually become steam as a result of the large amount of heat applied to it, this steam pushes a turbine which is hooked up to a generator that also turns, thus producing electricity that can be put to the grid  The only power plant that uses two fluids and a heat exchanger to pass the thermal energy from one medium to another is the binary cycle power plant  The two other power plants called “flash steam power plants” and “dry steam power plants” these use one fluid that become heated then turns to steam in one way or another in each and the condensate left is sent back down to be reheated  The system for taking the steam to produce electricity never changes, you take your steam and just allow it to flow into a chamber to build up and turn a turbine that is directly hooked up to a generator to make the electricity

o To start with looking at this energy form from an environmental stand point, it is a clean and safe energy source o The hot water used for steam can be regenerated simply by reinjection back into the ground so it is a very repeatable process o Also geothermal energy power plants are unaffected by weather, or surface conditions, geothermal energy is always being produced and will be as long as the planet continues to live o In certain areas geothermal energy power plants are extremely price competitive against the standard fossil fuels o Also because of the eternal amount of geothermal energy, this means price fluctuation is basically eliminated compared to fossil fuels price fluctuation as a result of the decreasing amount of them over time based on the usage of them

 Geothermal energy has excellent applications in the world of heating systems because of it high efficiency, and the fact that heat pumps allow you to reverse the flow of heat either from out of the earth to the area or heat into the earth away from the area  As time goes on and the world becomes more familiar with this energy form, it could possibly be placed on a massive scale with pipes travelling longer distances to heat much larger areas such as cities, towns, villages, etc., this is based on how much research we put into the idea on how to make it become functional on massive scales

o Some may say that this system is very expensive to create and operate and over time costs to much to operate and maintain  Incorrect, yes at the beginning the process of drilling the holes to put the piping down to a depth deep enough to facilitate usage of geothermal energy can be costly, but once the system is in place it is almost no maintenance, and it has low probability for failure as it is all just pipes, fluid, and steam; the only things to break down are the turbine and generator most likely and all electricity systems have both of these so it’s not dependent on the system there hooked up to o Another misconception of geothermal energy is that this energy will not be able to produce a large enough amount of electricity to be used efficiently  Incorrect, geothermal power plants in one of the three forms that they can be built, when running with proper maintenance and good operators these power plants can produce easily enough electricity for a city, simply because of large scale of these plants just like any other power plants can produce consistent amounts of electricity when everything runs as it should just like any other power plant o An over-hyped fear of geothermal power plants is that by merely drilling to put the pipes into the ground it can produce massive earthquakes  The issue with this is people think that drilling will always produce earthquakes, but this is incorrect in fact today’s drilling methods are very sophisticated,, also there is detection systems

o Areas in Canada where this would work best are along the Pacific Ocean coast line of British Columbia and also along the Pacific Ocean coast line of the North West Territories, these are areas of Canada where tectonic plate movement is most frequent and powerful allowing for geothermal energy production o Also areas along the Atlantic Ocean coast line like New Found Land, Nova Scotia, Quebec’s far eastern coast, and New Brunswick are also areas in a tectonic plate collision areas that allows for some geothermal energy to be created also

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BKleN3w1NIUM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=117&ei=HN_TTcvHFKbdiAK2tvidBA&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgeothermal%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26biw%3D1003%26bih%3D415%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1&iact=rc&dur=172&sqi=2&page=2&ndsp=10&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:11&t x=81&ty=60t:429,r:1,s:11&t x=81&ty=60 o Image used on title slide:  pictures.net/wordpress/&usg=__ZVg3ldw4WVgPNAE8eZn6KNdzoO0=&h=514&w=686&sz=91&hl=en&start=78&sig2=nXltXDRqWx6jay4apLUzEg&zoom=1&tbnid=ulKN9io31lvKyM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=197&ei=qfTVTb3lB8PFgAey6- WdBw&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhot%2Bsprings%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en- US:official%26channel%3Dnp%26biw%3D1440%26bih%3D817%26tbm%3Disch0%2C25080%2C2508&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=339&vpy=170&dur=3483&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=85&ty=70&sqi=2&page=4&ndsp=25&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:78&biw=1440&bih=817 o Info used on “What is Geothermal Energy?” slide:  / / o Info used on “What is Geothermal Energy?” slide:  o Image used on “Facts About Geothermal Energy” slide:  o Image used on 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