Monday, July 27, 2009

Turning Crusty Mines into Geothermal Powerhouses


Research suggests one way to help former mining towns, economically depressed from a mine's closure, is to turn the once sure-fire cash source into a geothermal power source.
"One way of making use of low-intensity geothermal energy is to convert mine shafts into geothermal boilers, which could provide heating and hot water for people living nearby", Rafael Rodríguez, from the Oviedo Higher Technical School of Mining Engineering, tells SINC. This type of energy, which is hardly used in Spain, is obtained from the internal heat of the Earth.

The engineer and his colleague María Belarmina Díaz have developed a "semi-empirical" method (part mathematical and part experimental) to calculate the amount of heat that could be produced by a mine tunnel that is due to be abandoned, based on studies carried out while it is still in use.
[...]
The study looks into geothermal exploitation of a two-kilometre-long mine shaft, in which the temperature of the rocks 500m below the surface is around 30º C. This is typical of many of the mining areas in Asturias, although it could also be applied to other parts of the world. Water could be forced in through tubes at 7º C and return at 12º C, a big enough heat gain to be of benefit to towns located above the mines.

Rodríguez and Díaz highlight the benefits of building geothermal boilers in mine shafts in that, aside from their predictable energy production levels, they also function practically as an open tube system "but without any risk of heat
contamination of aquifers".
- Brewskie

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