GEOTHERMAL ENERGY

Five features that is essential in making a geothermal resource commercially viable: 1. large heat source 2. permeable reservoir 3. supply of water 4. overlying layer of impervious rock 5. reliable recharge mechanism Five things a geothermal exploration program should accomplish: Locate areas underlain by hot rock Estimate the volume of the reservoir, the temperature of the fluid in it, and the permeability of the formation Predict whether the produced fluid will be dry steam, liquid or a two-phase mixture Define the chemical nature of the geofluid Forecast the electric power potential for a minimum of 20 years Single-flash System The single-flash steam plant is the most commonly used in the geothermal power industry. Single-flash plants account for about 32% of all geothermal plants. They constitute over 42% of the total installed geothermal power capacity in the world. The unit power capacity ranges from 3 to 90 MW, and the average power rating is 25.3 MW per unit. A typical 30 MW single-flash power plant needs 56 production wells and 23 injection wells. These may be drilled at sites distributed across the field or several may be drilled from a single pad using directional drilling to intercept a wide zone of the reservoir. In either case, a piping system is needed to gather the geofluids from the production wells and transport them to the powerhouse and to the points of disposal.

The terminology single-flash system indicates that the geofluid has undergone a single flashing process, i.e., a process of transitioning from a pressurized liquid to a mixture of liquid and vapor, as a result of lowering the geofluid pressure below the saturation pressure corresponding to the fluid temperature. The flash process may occur in a number of places: (1) in the reservoir as the fluid flows through the permeable formation with an accompanying pressure drop; (2) in the production well anywhere from the entry point to the wellhead as a result of the loss of pressure due to friction and the gravity head; or (3) in the inlet to the cyclone separator as a result of a throttling process induced by a control valve or an orifice plate. It is often the case in a newly developed field that the flashing occurs in the wellbore initially, but with time as the field undergoes exploitation and the reservoir pressure declines, the flash point may move down the well and even enter the formation. Sometimes the term separated steam is used for this type of plant owing to the manner in which the steam is obtained for use in the turbine.

BCV Ball check valve; C Condenser; CP Condensate pump; CS Cyclone separator; CSV Control & stop valves; CT Cooling tower; CW Cooling water; CWP Cooling water pump; IW Injection well; MR Moisture remover; PW Production well; S Silencer; SE/C Steam ejector/condenser; SP Steam piping; T/G Turbine/generator; WP Water (brine) piping; WV Wellhead valve

There are specific places at a single-flash plant where emissions can occur during normal operation. These include: Wellhead and station silencers and mufflers Steam traps and drains from pipelines Vents from the noncondensable gas ejectors Water vapor plume from a wet cooling tower Cooling tower blowdown. Geothermal steam contains noncondensable gases such as hydrogen sulfide, H2S, carbon dioxide, CO2, methane, CH4, and others in very small amounts. Uncontrolled venting of steam releases all these gases to the atmosphere. Under normal conditions, these gases are isolated in the condenser, drawn into the ejectors, and if necessary, treated before release to the atmosphere. There are many reliable, cost-effective means for removing H2S if the amount that would be vented exceeds regulated limits [10]. The CO2 that is released from flash plants is not abated but constitutes a relatively minor source of greenhouse gases: flash plants emit about 0.06 kg/kWh compared with 0.59 kg/kWh for a

natural-gas-fired gas turbine and 1.13 kg/kWh for a coal-fired plant [18]. The separated brine contains practically all the dissolved minerals that existed in the geofluid in the reservoir but in higher concentrations. Some of the elements typically found in brines would adversely affect surface or groundwaters if allowed to mix with them. These elements include: Arsenic, As Lithium, Li Boron, B Magnesium, Mg Calcium, Ca Potassium, K Chloride, Cl Silicon, Si Fluoride, F Sodium, Na. The main way to prevent water contamination is to reinject the waste brine back into the reservoir. This is now the accepted means of disposing of geothermal waste fluids at plants around the world. Reinjection has the added benefit of restoring some of the fluid that was extracted during production and in providing pressure support in the reservoir. Poor siting of the injection wells, however, can cause premature cooling of the production wells.

Double-flash System The double-flash steam plant is an improvement on the single-flash design in that it can produce 1525% more power output for the same geothermal fluid conditions. The plant is more complex, more costly and requires more maintenance, but the extra power output often justifies the installation of such plants. Double-flash plants are fairly numerous and are in operation in nine countries (about 14% of all geothermal plants). The power capacity ranges from 4.7 to 110 MW, and the average power is about 32 MW per unit. The fundamental new feature is a second flash process imposed on the separated liquid leaving the primary separator in order to generate additional steam, albeit at a lower pressure than the primary steam. For double-flash plants, the addition of the second flash process increases the number of possible arrangements. Practically, the alternatives are as follows:

Separators and flashers at each wellhead, with high- and low-pressure steam lines to the powerhouse, and hot water pipelines from each production well to the injection wells. Two-phase pipelines from each well to the powerhouse, with separator(s) and flasher(s) at the powerhouse, and short high- and low-pressure steam lines to turbine(s), and hot water pipelines from powerhouse to injection wells. Two-phase pipelines from several wells to satellite separator/flasher stations in the field, with high- and low-pressure steam lines from satellites to powerhouse, and hot water pipelines from satellites to injection wells. Two-phase pipelines from several wells to satellite separators in the field, with high-pressure steam lines and hot water pipelines to powerhouse, with flasher(s) at the powerhouse, short low-pressure steam lines to turbine, and hot water pipelines from the powerhouse to injection wells. The design differs from the single-flash plant in that a flasher F has been added and there is a lowpressure steam line from it to the turbine in addition to the high pressure one from the separator. The turbine shown is a dual-admission, single-flow machine where the low pressure steam is admitted to the steam path at an appropriate stage so as to merge smoothly with the partially expanded highpressure steam. Other designs are possible; for example, two separate turbines could be used, one for the high-pressure steam and one for the low-pressure steam. In this case, the turbines could exhaust to a common condenser or to two separate condensers operating at different levels of vacuum. For larger power ratings, say, 55 MW or higher, double-flow turbines would be a good choice in order to minimize the height of the last-stage blades.

BCV Ball check valve; C Condenser; CP Condensate pump; CS Cyclone separator; CSV Control & stop valves; CW Cooling water; F Flasher; G Generator; HPT High-pressure turbine; IW Injection well; LPT Low-pressure turbine; MR Moisture remover; PW Production well; SE/C Steam ejector/condenser; SP Steam piping; T/G Turbine/generator; TV Throttle valve; WP Water (brine) piping

Dry-steam system Dry-steam plants were the first type of geothermal power plant to achieve commercial status. Their history goes back more than 100 years to 1904 when Prince Piero Ginori Conti built and operated a tiny steam engine using the natural steam jets that issued from the ground at Larderello in the Tuscany region of Italy. Since the geofluid consisted solely of steam, it was fairly easy to hook up a mechanical device to take advantage of the available energy. Dry-steam plants tend to be simpler and less expensive than their flash-steam cousins in that there is no geothermal brine to contend with. Although there are only two major dry-steam fields in the world Larderello and The Geysers, in northern California, U.S. there are 61 units of this type in operation, about 12% of all geothermal plants. These plants account for 2,471 MW installed or nearly 26% of the total geothermal worldwide capacity. The average dry-steam unit has a rating of just over 40 MW. Large dry-steam reservoirs have been discovered only in two areas of the world: Larderello and The Geysers. There are limited dry-steam areas in Japan (Matsukawa), Indonesia (Kamojang), New Zealand (Poihipi Road section of Wairakei), and the United States (Cove Fort, Utah). The general characteristic of a dry-steam reservoir is that it comprises porous rock featuring fissures or fractures, either occluded or interconnected, that are filled with steam. Whereas the steam also contains gases such as carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and others in trace amounts, there is little or no liquid present. Once the steam reaches the powerhouse, a dry steam plant is essentially the same as a singleflash steam plant. The turbines are single-pressure units with impulse-reaction blading, either singleflow for smaller units or double-flow for larger units (say, 60 MW or greater). The condensers can be either direct-contact (barometric or low-level) or surface-type (shell-and-tube). For small units, it is often advantageous to arrange the turbine and condenser side-by-side, rather than the more usual condenser-below-turbine arrangement seen in most power plants. With the exception of the particulate remover (PR) in place of the cyclone separator (CS), the flow is identical a single-flash plant.

C Condenser; CP Condensate pump; CSV Control & stop valves; CT Cooling tower; CWP Cooling water pump; IW Injection well; M Point of maximum enthalpy for saturated steam; MR Moisture remover; PR Particulate remover; PW Production well; SE/C Steam ejector/condenser; SP Steam piping; T/G Turbine/generator; WV Wellhead valve Dry-steam geothermal plants have very low potential impact on the environment. The geofluid consists of only steam no liquid so there is no mineral-laden brine to dispose of. The noncondensable gases in the steam are isolated in the condenser and removed by means of vacuum pumps or steam-jet ejectors, and they can be treated to remove hydrogen sulfide, if it is present in objectionable levels. The sulfur from certain types of abatement systems is in pure form and may be sold commercially or disposed of in an appropriate landfill. The excess condensate from the cooling tower is reinjected as is any liquid trapped from the steam transmission pipelines.

Binary Cycle System Binary cycle geothermal power plants are the closest in thermodynamic principle to conventional fossil or nuclear plants in that the working fluid undergoes an actual closed cycle. The working fluid, chosen for its appropriate thermodynamic properties, receives heat from the geofluid, evaporates, expands through a prime-mover, condenses, and is returned to the evaporator by means of a feedpump. The first geothermal binary power plant was put into operation at Paratunka near the city of Petropavlovsk on Russias Kamchatka peninsula in 1967. Today binary plants are the most widely used type of geothermal power plant with 162 units in operation, generating 373 MW of power in 17 countries. They constitute 32% of all geothermal units in operation but generate only 4% of the total power. Thus, the average power rating per unit is small, only 2.3 MW/unit, but units with ratings of 710 MW are coming into use with advanced cycle design. Several binary units recently have been added to existing flash-steam plants to recover more power from hot, waste brine. The lower the resource temperature the worse the problem becomes for flash technology. Indeed at such low temperatures it is unlikely that the wells will flow spontaneously, and if they do, there is a strong likelihood of calcium carbonate scaling in the wells. One way to prevent the scaling problem is to produce the geofluid as a pressurized liquid by means of down-well pumps. When

geofluids are produced this way, it is generally not thermodynamically wise to then flash the fluid in surface vessels and use a flash-steam plant. It is simpler to pass the geofluid as a compressed liquid through heat exchangers and dispose of it in injection wells still in the liquid phase. The thermodynamic irreversibilities associated with the flash process are replaced with irreversibilities from heat transfer across a finite temperature difference. With imaginative design of the heat exchangers, these losses can be minimized. The production wells are fitted with pumps that are set below the flash depth determined by the reservoir properties and the desired flow rate. Sand removers may be needed to prevent scouring and erosion of the piping and heat exchanger tubes. Typically there are two steps in the heatingboiling process, conducted in the preheater where the working fluid is brought to its boiling point and in the evaporator from which it emerges as a saturated vapor. The geofluid is everywhere kept at a pressure above its flash point for the fluid temperature to prevent the breakout of steam and noncondensable gases that could lead to calcite scaling in the piping. Furthermore, the fluid temperature is not allowed to drop to the point where silica scaling could become an issue in the preheater and in the piping and injection wells downstream of it. Thus the chemical problems can be eliminated in principle.

C Condenser; CP Condensate pump; CSV Control & stop valves; CT Cooling tower; CWP Cooling water pump; E Evaporator; FF Final filter; IP Injection pump; IW Injection well; M Makeup water; P Pump; PH Preheater; PW Production well; SR Sand remover; T/G Turbine/generator Geothermal binary plants are among the most benign of all power plants regarding environmental impact. Since the geofluid is pumped from the reservoir and returns entirely to the reservoir after passing through heat exchangers, the potentially harmful geofluid never sees the light of day. Furthermore, the cycle working fluid is contained completely within pipes, heat exchangers and the turbine, so that it too never comes in chemical or physical contact with the environment. The only possible form of pollution from a binary plant might be called thermal pollution, i.e., the amount of heat that must be rejected from the cycle in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics. Geothermal plants of all types discharge more waste heat per unit of power output than other thermal power plants. In the case of a basic binary plant, the amount of thermal power that needs to be absorbed by the surroundings is about nine times the useful power delivered by the plant.