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Geothermal heating is the use of geothermal energy to heat buildings and water for human use. Humans have done this since the Paleolithic era. Approximately seventy countries made direct use of a total of 270 PJ of geothermal heating in 2004.
Earth's internal heat travels along geothermal gradients and powers most geological processes. [3] It drives mantle convection, plate tectonics, mountain building, rock metamorphism, and volcanism. [2] Convective heat transfer within the planet's high-temperature metallic core is also theorized to sustain a geodynamo which generates Earth's ...
In geothermal heating projects the underground is penetrated by trenches or drillholes. As with all underground work, projects may cause problems if the geology of the area is poorly understood. In the spring of 2007 an exploratory geothermal drilling operation was conducted to provide geothermal heat to the town hall of Staufen im Breisgau.
The Sonoma Calpine 3 geothermal power station of The Geysers. Geothermal energy in the United States was first used for electric power production in 1960. The Geysers in Sonoma and Lake counties, California was developed into what is now the largest geothermal steam electrical plant in the world, at 1,517 megawatts. Other geothermal steam ...
Geothermal power is highly scalable: a small power station can supply a rural village, though initial capital costs can be high. [54] The most developed geothermal field is the Geysers in California. In 2008, this field supported 15 stations, all owned by Calpine, with a total generating capacity of 725 MW. [55]
Geothermal gradient is the rate of change in temperature with respect to increasing depth in Earth's interior. As a general rule, the crust temperature rises with depth due to the heat flow from the much hotter mantle ; away from tectonic plate boundaries , temperature rises in about 25–30 °C/km (72–87 °F/mi) of depth near the surface in ...
Closed-loop geothermal systems (also known as “advanced geothermal systems” or “AGS”) are a type of engineered geothermal energy system containing subsurface working fluid that is heated in a hot rock reservoir without direct contact with rock pores and fractures.: [1] [2] [3] Instead, the subsurface working fluid stays inside a closed loop of deeply buried pipes that conduct Earth’s ...
Geothermal activity is a group of natural heat transfer processes, occurring on Earth's surface, caused by the presence of excess heat in the subsurface of the affected area, usually caused by the presence of an igneous intrusion underground. [1]