The coal phase-out in Germany by 2038 constitutes a major challenge for regions and industries. Technologies, energy sources and labor markets are changing fundamentally. But there are also opportunities for local actors that are worth to be explored. Even old mines could contribute to the success of the transition of energy production. The German Parliament installed the Fraunhofer Institute for ...
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GeoLaB – The Geoscientific Future Project for Germany
Geothermal energy can play an important role in the decarbonization of the German energy system. In order to make the great potential of geothermal energy in the crystalline basement economically viable, measures are taken to enhance existing permeable structures. However, a prerequisite for the public acceptance of such Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) is the minimization of possible induced seismicity. Their ...
Read More »Renewable Geothermal Energy – Latest Developments in Geothermics in North Rhine-Westphalia: New Finds. New Projects. New Research Facilities.
Geothermal resources have huge future potential and could well replace much of our fossil-fuel and nuclear based heat and electricity supplies. Geothermal energy is climate neutral and is available all year round. However, it presents significant technological challenges and is highly capital intensive. This applies both to near-surface geothermics and, more especially, to deep-level geothermal operations, where deep wellbores have ...
Read More »Geothermal Energy Utilisation in Austria
By late 2020 a total of 77 deep geothermal wells had been drilled within the territory of Austria, representing a cumulative length of some 135 km. About two thirds of this figure, both in terms of number and cumulative length, comprised boreholes sunk in sedimentary basins, while the remainder were drilled in the Eastern Alpine units and consisted exclusively of ...
Read More »The Impact of Geothermal Energy on Natural Gas Production
Natural gas is besides from crude oil and coal one of the most important energy resources. However, during the depletion of a reservoir, the occurrence of liquids, e. g., water, condensates, is a well known phenomenon worldwide. Depending on the gas composition and the physical boundary conditions (pressure, temperature), water and/or condensate can precipitate out of the gas stream as the ...
Read More »The Innova Rig 418 Deep Drilling Rig – A Successful Model for Producing Geothermal Wells?
The aim of this article is to provide an overview of the main stations of the Innova Rig Terra Invader 418 drilling rig from Herrenknecht Vertical GmbH, Schwanau/Germany, and its positioning on the national and international geothermal market since it was launched. The main features, advantages and benefits of the drilling rig are discussed, such as, e. g., sound protection during ...
Read More »The Current Legal Framework for Geothermal Drilling
Geothermy is a raw materials production process and therefore it has a close association with mining law, unless the activity in question is strictly property related. However, even in this latter case mining regulations will take effect if the drilling extends to a depth of more than 100 m. A general operating plan is not in fact required in this ...
Read More »Opinion Leaders in the Digital Age – Social Network Analysis for Renewable Energies on Twitter
Evaluating opinions, sentiments and relationships within groups become increasingly easy due to wide availability of data on social media platforms. This article discusses aforementioned aspects for a Twitter network consisting of 37,760 German tweets related to renewable energies which were collected for the year 2019. Besides identifying the most frequent words like energy revolution, CO2, power, Germany and coal, this ...
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