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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.
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 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]
The Geysers is the world's largest geothermal field, containing a complex of 18 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 350 wells, located in the Mayacamas Mountains approximately 72 miles (116 km) north of San Francisco, California. Geysers produced about 20% of California's renewable energy in 2019. [4]
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 ...
A solar chimney can serve many purposes. Direct sunlight warms air inside the chimney causing it to rise out the top and drawing air in from the bottom. This drawing of air can be used to ventilate a home or office, to draw air through a geothermal heat exchange, or to ventilate only a specific area such as a composting toilet.