Geothermal aquifers offer green potential but quality checks required

The aquifer thermal power storage (ATES) system, which makes use of geothermal warmth as a renewable power supply, is without doubt one of the options to lowering gas consumption and carbon dioxide emission. This technique shops warmth underground in aquifers, utilizing groundwater as a warmth medium. The warmth is then extracted as wanted in response to the season to effectively warmth and funky buildings.

Its use is principally increasing in Europe, and its widespread introduction is predicted in Japan. Nevertheless, common inspection is required to make the most of these programs with out faults.

This reality turned evident when a analysis group led by Specifically Appointed Professor Harue Masuda on the Osaka Metropolitan College City Resilience Analysis Heart recognized clogging that occurred within the plumbing pipe of an ATES properly at a facility in Osaka. The findings are published in Geothermics.

Of their findings, iron oxyhydroxide precipitation occurred after a vent was by chance left open, permitting for air to enter the geothermal wells by way of plumbing pipes.

In flip, an oxygen-rich surroundings shaped and iron oxyhydroxide unfold by way of the piping, inflicting a clog, leak, and subsequent mixing of groundwater between two aquifers at totally different depths of every properly. Thankfully, pure microbial exercise resolved the clog and restored the groundwater.

Statement of this chain of occasions revealed that it’s essential to guage the water high quality earlier than the properly is put into operation, and to repeatedly monitor for long-term use of the ATES system.

“The results of this research show that geochemical analysis of groundwaterwhich has not been emphasized in the engineering field until now, is effective and essential for the stable, widespread use of the ATES system,” said Professor Masuda.

“We believe that by proposing a method for monitoring water quality as a guideline, we can establish the ATES system as a technology that can be used for the long term.”