Geothermal energy is a gift from the mother Earth

At the current rate of energy consumption, mankind has long been concerned about the finite nature of the resources used, in particular oil and gas. And this makes you think about the use of other, non-traditional sources of energy. As one of such sources, according to the plans of scientists, geothermal energy can act.

In its essence, it is the energy that the regions in the depths of the earth possess. According to research of scientists, there is a temperature gradient of 20-30 ° C per kilometer inland. At a depth of 10 km relative to the surface, the temperature can reach very high values (up to 300 ° C). This internal temperature allows obtaining geothermal energy sources.

In some cases, they are visible and operate without any additional effort. Just enough to remember the valley of the geysers in Kamchatka, or many other areas where geysers and hot springs beat from the ground. This geothermal energy can not be used simply so that it can be used, it is necessary to build some machines that will be able to capture this energy, and it will turn into something more familiar for us, the same electricity.

To date, there are two ways to make use of geothermal energy:

- Direct use of heat;

-Electricity generation.

Unfortunately, direct use of heat is possible only in certain places, for example, in Iceland and Japan. In this way, either hot water from sources is used to heat rooms, or to install heat exchangers, often directly in mines.

To generate electricity, special geothermal power plants have to be built . In this case, geothermal energy is also used in several ways:

-In the case is directly dry steam, obtained from mines leading to heated areas in the depths of the earth. In these mines, the water is pumped into the interior, it heats up and turns into steam. This dry steam enters the turbine blades, which drives the generator armature, resulting in the latter producing an electric current;

- heated water is used, it comes under pressure from the depth to the evaporator, where the pressure drops sharply, the water evaporates, and the resulting steam enters the turbine blades, which directly turns the generator armature;

- the so-called "binary" method is used. In this case, the geothermal energy heats the water. This water enters the heat exchanger, where, thanks to the heat exchange, another carrier with a lower vaporization temperature is heated than water. The resulting steam enters the turbine, and it drives the anchor of the generator generating the current.

In all these cases, the water remaining after the evaporation processes can be used to heat the rooms.

In such ways geothermal energy can be used for economic needs.

It should be noted that the first geothermal station was built in Italy already in 1904, it still works today. There are many other similar geothermal power plants, in California, about 5% of the electricity comes from geothermal power plants, they work in El Salvador and Iceland.

The reserves of geothermal energy are truly inexhaustible and many times exceed the available reserves of fossil fuels. For geothermal stations, the disadvantage is that they can be located in places where there are hot springs. However, stations have already been developed and tested that allow obtaining geothermal energy in any place.

Thus, the above information allows us to consider geothermal energy as one of the possible options for providing energy for the depletion of fossil resources.