Chapter 1 – Geothermal Reservoir and Hydraulics Design

1.01 Intro to Geothermal Energy (11 min.) Sample Lesson
1.02 Geothermal for Power Generation (22 min.)
1.03 Phase Diagrams of Pure Components (6 min.)
1.04 Steam Saturation Curve Example (5 min.)
1.05 Antoine Correlation (18 min.)
1.06 CO₂ Saturation Curve Example (3 min.)
1.07 How Steam Enthalpy Varies in a Closed Loop System (24 min.)

Chapter 2 - Geothermal Power Plants

2.01 Electricity Generation (22 min.)
2.02 Steam Flashing in the Vertical Section (13 min.)
2.03 Conduction or Convection (16 min.)
2.04 Decline Curve Analysis (DCA) (15 min.)
2.04a Fetkovich Charts (5 min.)
2.05 p/z Method to Calculate the Steam Boundary (13 min.)
2.06 Dry-Steam Reservoir IPR (15 min.)
2.07 Heat Loss in a Wellbore (31 min.)

Chapter 3 Closed-Loop Geothermal

3.01 Closed-Loop Geothermal Example (19 min.)

Geothermal Reservoir and Hydraulics Design / Chapter 1 – Geothermal Reservoir and Hydraulics Design

Lesson 1.01 Intro to Geothermal Energy

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Transcript

01. Lesson 1.01: Intro to Geothermal Energy 02. Where is the heat from?03. Where is the sources for that heat in the deep earth 04. Earth's Temperature Gradient 05. Tectonic Plates 06. Tectonic Plates - Map 07. Tectonic Plates...08. Direct Use of Geothermal Energy 09. Direct Use of Geothermal Energy...10. Geothermal Energy for Power Generation 11. Geothermal Energy for Power Generation...12. Comparison of Geothermal Energy to other renewable source of Energy: Wind 13. Comparison of Geothermal Energy to other renewable source of Energy 14. Sharjah in United Arab Emirates

01. Lesson 1.01: Intro to Geothermal Energy

Welcome to the course. This is the first portion of the course and we're going to talk about what is geothermalenergy? It's kind of an intro for the whole course. As we get more advanced in the hydraulics and reservoir aspects, you should know what's the geothermal and why the people does the geothermal operation and where the heat comes from.

02. Where is the heat from?

So the first portion is where is the heat comes from? So basically, everyone knows that we have Earth which its heat comes from the core.

03. Where is the sources for that heat in the deep earth

But the thing that most people doesn't know is where the root of that heat is. So at the time of the Big Bang and the formation of the Earth, we had some of the heat stays there, but conduction is coming through to the surface and lost to the outside of the Earth. So that's 50% of the portion of where the heat comes from. But the other portion is like, I've been teaching this course and a lot of people didn't know is decay of radioactive components. So as you know, we have a lot of potassium and uranium and thorium inside our mantle. And as they decay, they provide heat. It's like the nuclear power plants inside our formation, inside our Earth and that's responsible for that 50%. The other small portion is a frictional heating. As these tectonic formations are moving and they have some sort of a friction happening between them. So that's caused some heating, but that's very minimal.

04. Earth's Temperature Gradient

And that's how you can see the gradients across our Earth to get to the crust or lithosphere. That's a place that we're going to focus on. So that's the place that most geothermal operations are going on. So we can't reach anything under 400 km, that's for sure, so that's a major focus. But as the heat coming from this core to this portion, there's a lot of different mechanisms happening. So mostly here is conduction. And as we get in the mantle and lower part and the outer part of the core is convection because nothing is solid in there and things are moving so that causes convection. And in inner core, because everything is super dense, there are fluids but they are not mobile, so it's mostly conduction.

05. Tectonic Plates

So then we're going to talk about where is the location of the geothermal really we have to go and tap them as the first options. So we have traditional options which are normally close to the obvious locations. So the obvious location is if you're in the bath and you see the hot springs. So that's the place you know the Earth is close to the heater portion, so that's a good place to tap in.

06. Tectonic Plates - Map

And where are those locations located around the world? There are normally around these tectonic areas. So the parts that these tectonic surfaces are touching to each other. So these parts, we are close to the magma, we are close to the inner part of our Earth. So as you see, there are most of these geothermal power plants and all the operations happen close to those formations of these tectonic places.

07. Tectonic Plates...

So it's not weird if you say like and you know that we have a lot of these geothermal operations happens in Italy, US and Iceland. And really it is because these areas are the locations that we have a lot of heat available. So it's not about the technology in most applications, it's more about availability. So that's why we see a lot of operations happen in Indonesia and Philippines rather than happens in Germany. Because if you want to do in southern part of Germany, you have to go like 5 km deep to get to the geothermal operation and make the economics works. And in Iceland, you had less than 1,000 m. So that availability sometimes is dominant more than what is the technology available for those countries are.

08. Direct Use of Geothermal Energy

One of the things about the geothermal operations. So now we know where are the locations that we're going to tap in and talk about the geothermal operation, but the other thing is what are we going to do with that geothermal? And the first thing first is just the direct use of heat. And direct use of heat has been around from the Roman times. So the Roman times, they had a heated bath and they had used these hot springs for bathing and swimming. So that's one part of a geothermal and it's still being used like it's been used conventionally in a lot of aspects. But there are other points to this. We also have space cooling, which is other way of heating but is also happening because the refrigeration mode always needs some sort of a thermal mode to add it to be the cooling. And in countries like Kenya, Hungary and Netherlands, had been a lot of greenhouse heating happening.

09. Direct Use of Geothermal Energy...

And in the countries like Mexico, we had the dehydration of the fruits. So they make these pineapples and mangoes sun-dried systems or they do the same thing in Greece as sun-dried tomatoes. So this is a picture I put it as like a comic here. And the guy, that's a real picture, he throws in the marshmallow. And it's kind of a thing that happens in Iceland and a lot of kids does that. But you see the same process happens in the real life. New Zealand does the milk powder out of the milk using the geothermal energy. So you have this free heating, so why you not use it? So you can do on any applications that you use that you need the heat source of.

10. Geothermal Energy for Power Generation

So these are the countries top-down that have a lot of geothermal power generation. So it's obvious that the United States ranks in first. But we see countries like Indonesia and Philippines are ranked in second and third and that's really because the availability they have on the geothermal energy. And they are sparse islands. That makes the case hard but because they have so much availability of the geothermal, that's the thing country goes with. And for a lot of people, they think Iceland is the #1. It's not, it's at #9 in the world as a matter of geothermal operation.

11. Geothermal Energy for Power Generation...

And you see where these locations are located around the world. And if you take a look at my tectonic picture, you see a lot of tectonic locations happens in these areas. And you know that Turkey is one of the most earthquake-prone countries, so they have a lot of potential. So if you have a potential of earthquake, that means you are close to the tectonic. So you see a lot of geothermal happens here. The same thing here in the United States. And you don't see anything here because reaching the geothermal energy is super hard in those east parts.

12. Comparison of Geothermal Energy to other renewable source of Energy: Wind

What's the benefit of having geothermal versus other sustainable energy forms like wind and solar? Wind and solar are unpredictable matters, during the day and during the year. Wind is very unpredictable, so that's why they call it an intermittent source of energy. And as you see, the wind generation along the days here is happening. But the energy that you need and the power and the load that you need is pretty routine, but your wind is not pretty routine. So that's the difference is. So this "Net" one is a difference between what wind provide versus what we needed. And you see, so there is no way that wind can provide you kind of a consistent way of energy.

13. Comparison of Geothermal Energy to other renewable source of Energy

Solar on the other side is very consistent, but they have a very limited time frame. So normally they have a time frame starting around peak up at 10:00, finish at 02:00 PM sort of thing. So in that portion, and it's obvious. Once you have night, there is no sun, you don't have solar energy. So and you see the need of the gross demand on this one is kind of not following the way the solar really provide us. The solar provide so much energy at this time, but that's a time a lot of people stay at work and having lunch. They're not using the AC because they're not at their places, they're not watching TV, they are at work. And so it's kind of a vice versa that we need sort of thing. And they can just a very limited time. There are options like using a battery, but as you know, the batteries also have a lifetime. And we didn't get to the lifetime of this lithium yet but we're going to get to it at some point. So that's why you see a lot of presentations about the geothermal. They're referring the geothermal as a battery of the energy. So all these gaps can be managed by using the geothermal energy.

14. Sharjah in United Arab Emirates

And one of the big challenges, not in places like California, which we don't have this type of windy sands or like sort of having the sands over the solar panels, but that's very common in the Middle East. And as we have this same stability pick up in these countries of the Middle East, especially the United Arab, and you see this is at Sharjah, and it takes a lot of energy to clean up these sands and that have to be routinely happens. If you have a solar panel which is covered by the dust, that means zero energy. So that's kind of a maintenance issue. And the issues happen in Austin, the freezing of the turbines, the wind turbines. We know a lot of issues with the maintenance of the wind. But geothermal on the other side is simple. It follows the same thing that the oil and gas really does day to day, drilling well, operating this stuff. And so that's the option that provides a lot of potential for eliminating that intermittency and also less maintenance is required.
All right. So this is it for this intro part. And now, we know about what the geothermal is, where is the heat comes from and where are the locations that we can operate it as the most economical options. For the next lessons, we're going to talk about how we can use this heat and utilize this heat to use the power. And then we go on to the design aspects of it, like hydraulics and reservoir aspects.