Accident in Geo-Thermal Well Proved Profitable

Energy demands of the world are growing a high rate and it is the engineers’ duty to make it up to it, but not at the cost of nature or environment. This thing only sounds simple but it is not. With the world focusing on the non-conventional sources of energy, the geothermal energy has come under the spotlight. The geo-thermal wells are a natural source of heated water (or steam). If we go by statistics, geo-thermal wells are currently supplying to as much as 60 million people across 24 different countries. The United States of America has shown a noticeable 15% increase per annum in the geo-thermal well installations.

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In any power plant what we do basically is that we produce steam from water, use the steam to make the turbines run and produce the electricity. In thermal or nuclear plants, we have to generate heat in order to heat water and convert it in to steam. The show does not end there. We have to heat the water in order to convert it into a superheated steam. The more heated it is, the more we produce. So in case of a geo-thermal energy well, we get the naturally heated water in the form of steam to run our turbines. This way, we are able to cut down on the coal (or other) fuel consumption elimination the other environmental ill effects associated with it. In the year 2009, Landsvirkjun Power Company started drilling for a geo-thermal well in the region Krafla Caldera, Iceland. Initially, they were determined to dig upto 2.5 miles but had to stop at approximately half of the depth. This was because they found magna (molten rock from Earth’s core) seeping into the well. Though this was an accident, it came as a boon. The engineers found out that with that magna seeping into the well, the well started giving off steam at a much higher temperature than usual. The well produced steam at about 750F or 400C that is almost three to four times than an average well. Now, we know that the more heated the steam is, the more we produce, the single well produced as much as 3 to 4 normal wells could. So the engineers were amazed to see the well producing enough to enlighten 25,000 to 30,000 homes.

Looking at the huge increase in the production, there is a proposal of digging more of such wells. However, the limitation of the geo-thermal wells is that they need to be in regions with high tectonic activities. With this, the danger of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are unavoidable. So before digging such wells, we must think twice about the future also. After all, just for the sake of higher energy production, we can not put the lives of the workers there at stake. Another technical difficulty in the way is that so far, we have not been producing steam at such high temperature and pressure. So, we currently do not have proper turbine designs that can handle that high temperature and pressure steam from well. Yet, it is said that necessity is the mother of invention. So now that we have a necessity, invention shall be just round the corner.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-# Image Credit: Geothermal Power Plant | Geothermal | Renewable Energy | GeothermalPowerPlant.com

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