Electricity hydrothermal energy

Fiydrothermal plants produce electric power at a cost competitive with the cost of power from fossil fuels. Besides generating electricity, hydrothermal energy is used directly to heat buildings. Across the United States, geothermal hot-water reservoirs are much more common than geothermal steam reservoirs. Most of the untapped hot-water reservoirs are in California, Nevada, Utah, and New Mexico. The temperatures of these reservoirs are not hot enough to drive steam turbines efficiently, but the water is used to boil a secondary fluid, such as butane, whose vapors then drive gas turbines. 

Electric Power Generation. Hydrothermal steam and hot water resources having temperatures ia excess of about 150°C are generaHy suitable for the production of electricity (see Eig. 3a). Because electricity is easy to market and transport, it is the only product of hydrothermal energy which permits the resource to be utilized at some distance from its actual location. 

Zhang, R., Zhou, J., Wang, Y. (2012). Multi-objective optimization of hydrothermal energy system considering economic and environmental aspects. Electrical Power and Energy Systems, 42(l) 384-395. 

Fig. 6. In a binary electricity generation plant, the hydrothermal water from the weU, A, is passed through a heat exchanger, B, where its thermal energy is transferred to a second, more volatile working fluid. The second fluid is vaporized and deflvered to a turbine, D. After exiting the turbine the spent working fluid is cooled and recondensed in another heat exchanger, E, using water or air as the coolant, F. It is then fed back to the primary heat exchanger to repeat the cycle. Waste hydrothermal fluid, C, can be reinjected into the producing field.

The main advantage of geothermal energy is that it can be exploited easily and inexpensively in regions where it is abundantly available in hydrothermal resen/oirs, whether it is used for electricity production or for dircct-usc heat. Gcothcrmally produced electricity from dry-steam sources is vei y cheap, second only to... 

The nanoparticle-fluid interfacial energy values may be substantially different in fluids other than deionized water. Furthermore, interfacial energies may decrease more for one polymorph than another in some solutions. This could significantly perturb size-temperature-pressure phase relations. The solution will also affect reaction kinetics because, under hydrothermal conditions, mass transfer can occur via the liquid, an electric double layer will develop around each nanoparticle, substances can be adsorbed onto surfaces, and nanoparticles may dissolve. The effects of particle size on reaction kinetics are considered below. 

Horacio R. Corti was bom in Buenos Aires in 1949. Ph.D. in Cheinistry at the University of Buenos Aires (1979), where he is FuU Professor of Physical Chemistry at the Faculty of Sciences, and postdoctoral fellow at the Central Electricity Research Laboratories (Surrey, UK). He is also Principal Researcher of the National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET) and head of the Fuel Cells Group at the Department of Physics of Condensed Matter, National Commission of Atomic Energy. His research areas include the transport phenomena, thermodynamics, and electro-chemistry of hydrothermal, supercooled, and glassy aqueous systems, and proton exchange membrane fuel cells. He has published more than 100 articles in international journals, authored several text and technical books, and supervised 10 Ph.D. theses. 

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