IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/rensus/v162y2022ics1364032122003367.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Deep geothermal energy extraction, a review on environmental hotspots with focus on geo-technical site conditions

Author

Listed:
  • Gkousis, Spiros
  • Welkenhuysen, Kris
  • Compernolle, Tine

Abstract

Knowledge about the environmental impacts of geothermal energy is important for understanding the role this technology could play in the transition towards sustainable energy production systems. In this study 30 life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on geothermal energy plants were reviewed, focusing on the major environmental hotspots and the cause-effect relationships between the geo-technical parameters and these environmental impacts. The variability in the reported environmental impacts is explained, and a more transparent picture of the geological, design and technical factors causing these impacts is provided by triangularly evaluating the reported results based on the plant's geo-technical characteristics (such as, well depth and geofluid temperature), the life cycle inventory, and the hotspot analysis results. The study focuses on six impact indicators that have been identified as high priority for geothermal energy by the GEOENVI project, as well as the water consumption impact. The results indicate that the impacts vary in magnitude and across different life cycle phases. Apart from the type of energy conversion technology used, differences in the geological and design parameters also introduce large variability in the impact results reported in the literature. Furthermore, all the reviewed LCAs adopt a static approach. Therefore, we present a research agenda that highlights the need to perform dynamic LCAs on geothermal energy exploitation plants to consider the changing context in which these technologies are operating.

Suggested Citation

  • Gkousis, Spiros & Welkenhuysen, Kris & Compernolle, Tine, 2022. "Deep geothermal energy extraction, a review on environmental hotspots with focus on geo-technical site conditions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:162:y:2022:i:c:s1364032122003367
    DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2022.112430
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032122003367
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.rser.2022.112430?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lorenzo Tosti & Nicola Ferrara & Riccardo Basosi & Maria Laura Parisi, 2020. "Complete Data Inventory of a Geothermal Power Plant for Robust Cradle-to-Grave Life Cycle Assessment Results," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, June.
    2. Amponsah, Nana Yaw & Troldborg, Mads & Kington, Bethany & Aalders, Inge & Hough, Rupert Lloyd, 2014. "Greenhouse gas emissions from renewable energy sources: A review of lifecycle considerations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 461-475.
    3. Frick, Stephanie & Kaltschmitt, Martin & Schröder, Gerd, 2010. "Life cycle assessment of geothermal binary power plants using enhanced low-temperature reservoirs," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2281-2294.
    4. Tian, Xueyu & You, Fengqi, 2019. "Carbon-neutral hybrid energy systems with deep water source cooling, biomass heating, and geothermal heat and power," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 413-432.
    5. Zhang, Ruirui & Wang, Guiling & Shen, Xiaoxu & Wang, Jinfeng & Tan, Xianfeng & Feng, Shoutao & Hong, Jinglan, 2020. "Is geothermal heating environmentally superior than coal fired heating in China?," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    6. Lu, Shyi-Min, 2018. "A global review of enhanced geothermal system (EGS)," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 81(P2), pages 2902-2921.
    7. Treyer, Karin & Bauer, Christian & Simons, Andrew, 2014. "Human health impacts in the life cycle of future European electricity generation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(S1), pages 31-44.
    8. Hondo, Hiroki, 2005. "Life cycle GHG emission analysis of power generation systems: Japanese case," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 30(11), pages 2042-2056.
    9. Liu, Wen & Ramirez, Andrea, 2017. "State of the art review of the environmental assessment and risks of underground geo-energy resources exploitation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 628-644.
    10. Dawo, Fabian & Fleischmann, Jonas & Kaufmann, Florian & Schifflechner, Christopher & Eyerer, Sebastian & Wieland, Christoph & Spliethoff, Hartmut, 2021. "R1224yd(Z), R1233zd(E) and R1336mzz(Z) as replacements for R245fa: Experimental performance, interaction with lubricants and environmental impact," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    11. Riccardo Basosi & Roberto Bonciani & Dario Frosali & Giampaolo Manfrida & Maria Laura Parisi & Franco Sansone, 2020. "Life Cycle Analysis of a Geothermal Power Plant: Comparison of the Environmental Performance with Other Renewable Energy Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-29, April.
    12. O'Sullivan, Michael & Gravatt, Michael & Popineau, Joris & O'Sullivan, John & Mannington, Warren & McDowell, Julian, 2021. "Carbon dioxide emissions from geothermal power plants," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 990-1000.
    13. Atilgan, Burcin & Azapagic, Adisa, 2016. "Renewable electricity in Turkey: Life cycle environmental impacts," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 649-657.
    14. Thráinn Fridriksson & Almudena Mateos & Pierre Audinet & Yasemin Orucu, 2016. "Greenhouse Gases from Geothermal Power Production," World Bank Publications - Reports 24691, The World Bank Group.
    15. Moya, Diego & Aldás, Clay & Kaparaju, Prasad, 2018. "Geothermal energy: Power plant technology and direct heat applications," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 889-901.
    16. Didier Beloin-Saint-Pierre & Annie Levasseur & Manuele Margni & Isabelle Blanc, 2017. "Implementing a Dynamic Life Cycle Assessment Methodology with a Case Study on Domestic Hot Water Production," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 21(5), pages 1128-1138, October.
    17. Maria Laura Parisi & Melanie Douziech & Lorenzo Tosti & Paula Pérez-López & Barbara Mendecka & Sergio Ulgiati & Daniele Fiaschi & Giampaolo Manfrida & Isabelle Blanc, 2020. "Definition of LCA Guidelines in the Geothermal Sector to Enhance Result Comparability," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-18, July.
    18. Pehnt, Martin, 2006. "Dynamic life cycle assessment (LCA) of renewable energy technologies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 55-71.
    19. Ansarinasab, Hojat & Hajabdollahi, Hassan & Fatimah, Manal, 2021. "Life cycle assessment (LCA) of a novel geothermal-based multigeneration system using LNG cold energy- integration of Kalina cycle, stirling engine, desalination unit and magnetic refrigeration system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 231(C).
    20. Buonocore, Elvira & Vanoli, Laura & Carotenuto, Alberto & Ulgiati, Sergio, 2015. "Integrating life cycle assessment and emergy synthesis for the evaluation of a dry steam geothermal power plant in Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 476-487.
    21. Bayer, Peter & Rybach, Ladislaus & Blum, Philipp & Brauchler, Ralf, 2013. "Review on life cycle environmental effects of geothermal power generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 446-463.
    22. Saner, Dominik & Juraske, Ronnie & Kübert, Markus & Blum, Philipp & Hellweg, Stefanie & Bayer, Peter, 2010. "Is it only CO2 that matters? A life cycle perspective on shallow geothermal systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(7), pages 1798-1813, September.
    23. Xia, Z.H. & Jia, G.S. & Ma, Z.D. & Wang, J.W. & Zhang, Y.P. & Jin, L.W., 2021. "Analysis of economy, thermal efficiency and environmental impact of geothermal heating system based on life cycle assessments," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    24. Mélanie Douziech & Lorenzo Tosti & Nicola Ferrara & Maria Laura Parisi & Paula Pérez-López & Guillaume Ravier, 2021. "Applying Harmonised Geothermal Life Cycle Assessment Guidelines to the Rittershoffen Geothermal Heat Plant," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(13), pages 1-14, June.
    25. Asdrubali, Francesco & Baldinelli, Giorgio & D’Alessandro, Francesco & Scrucca, Flavio, 2015. "Life cycle assessment of electricity production from renewable energies: Review and results harmonization," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 1113-1122.
    26. Soltani, M. & Moradi Kashkooli, Farshad & Souri, Mohammad & Rafiei, Behnam & Jabarifar, Mohammad & Gharali, Kobra & Nathwani, Jatin S., 2021. "Environmental, economic, and social impacts of geothermal energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    27. Lacirignola, Martino & Blanc, Isabelle, 2013. "Environmental analysis of practical design options for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) through life-cycle assessment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 901-914.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gkousis, Spiros & Thomassen, Gwenny & Welkenhuysen, Kris & Compernolle, Tine, 2022. "Dynamic life cycle assessment of geothermal heat production from medium enthalpy hydrothermal resources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    2. María Dolores Mainar-Toledo & Maryori Díaz-Ramírez & Snorri J. Egilsson & Claudio Zuffi & Giampaolo Manfrida & Héctor Leiva, 2023. "Environmental Impact Assessment of Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant for Heat and Electricity Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-21, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gkousis, Spiros & Thomassen, Gwenny & Welkenhuysen, Kris & Compernolle, Tine, 2022. "Dynamic life cycle assessment of geothermal heat production from medium enthalpy hydrothermal resources," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 328(C).
    2. Menberg, Kathrin & Heberle, Florian & Bott, Christoph & Brüggemann, Dieter & Bayer, Peter, 2021. "Environmental performance of a geothermal power plant using a hydrothermal resource in the Southern German Molasse Basin," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 20-31.
    3. Maria Milousi & Athanasios Pappas & Andreas P. Vouros & Giouli Mihalakakou & Manolis Souliotis & Spiros Papaefthimiou, 2022. "Evaluating the Technical and Environmental Capabilities of Geothermal Systems through Life Cycle Assessment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-30, August.
    4. Riccardo Basosi & Roberto Bonciani & Dario Frosali & Giampaolo Manfrida & Maria Laura Parisi & Franco Sansone, 2020. "Life Cycle Analysis of a Geothermal Power Plant: Comparison of the Environmental Performance with Other Renewable Energy Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(7), pages 1-29, April.
    5. Buonocore, Elvira & Vanoli, Laura & Carotenuto, Alberto & Ulgiati, Sergio, 2015. "Integrating life cycle assessment and emergy synthesis for the evaluation of a dry steam geothermal power plant in Italy," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 476-487.
    6. Soltani, M. & Moradi Kashkooli, Farshad & Souri, Mohammad & Rafiei, Behnam & Jabarifar, Mohammad & Gharali, Kobra & Nathwani, Jatin S., 2021. "Environmental, economic, and social impacts of geothermal energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    7. Anderson, Austin & Rezaie, Behnaz, 2019. "Geothermal technology: Trends and potential role in a sustainable future," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 248(C), pages 18-34.
    8. Maryori Díaz-Ramírez & Snorri Jokull & Claudio Zuffi & María Dolores Mainar-Toledo & Giampaolo Manfrida, 2023. "Environmental Assessment of Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant based on Exergy Allocation Factors for Heat and Electricity Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-17, April.
    9. Lorenzo Tosti & Nicola Ferrara & Riccardo Basosi & Maria Laura Parisi, 2020. "Complete Data Inventory of a Geothermal Power Plant for Robust Cradle-to-Grave Life Cycle Assessment Results," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-19, June.
    10. Zheng, Shuxian & Zhou, Xuanru & Tan, Zhanglu & Liu, Chan & Hu, Han & Yuan, Hui & Peng, Shengnan & Cai, Xiaomei, 2023. "Assessment of the global energy transition: Based on trade embodied energy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).
    11. Sigurjónsson, Hafþór Ægir & Cook, David & Davíðsdóttir, Brynhildur & Bogason, Sigurður G., 2021. "A life-cycle analysis of deep enhanced geothermal systems – The case studies of Reykjanes, Iceland and Vendenheim, France," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 1076-1086.
    12. Amponsah, Nana Yaw & Troldborg, Mads & Kington, Bethany & Aalders, Inge & Hough, Rupert Lloyd, 2014. "Greenhouse gas emissions from renewable energy sources: A review of lifecycle considerations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 461-475.
    13. Maria Laura Parisi & Melanie Douziech & Lorenzo Tosti & Paula Pérez-López & Barbara Mendecka & Sergio Ulgiati & Daniele Fiaschi & Giampaolo Manfrida & Isabelle Blanc, 2020. "Definition of LCA Guidelines in the Geothermal Sector to Enhance Result Comparability," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(14), pages 1-18, July.
    14. Vitantonio Colucci & Giampaolo Manfrida & Barbara Mendecka & Lorenzo Talluri & Claudio Zuffi, 2021. "LCA and Exergo-Environmental Evaluation of a Combined Heat and Power Double-Flash Geothermal Power Plant," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-23, February.
    15. Bayer, Peter & Rybach, Ladislaus & Blum, Philipp & Brauchler, Ralf, 2013. "Review on life cycle environmental effects of geothermal power generation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 446-463.
    16. Briones Hidrovo, Andrei & Uche, Javier & Martínez-Gracia, Amaya, 2017. "Accounting for GHG net reservoir emissions of hydropower in Ecuador," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 209-221.
    17. Vaccari, Marco & Pannocchia, Gabriele & Tognotti, Leonardo & Paci, Marco, 2023. "Rigorous simulation of geothermal power plants to evaluate environmental performance of alternative configurations," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 471-483.
    18. Troldborg, Mads & Heslop, Simon & Hough, Rupert L., 2014. "Assessing the sustainability of renewable energy technologies using multi-criteria analysis: Suitability of approach for national-scale assessments and associated uncertainties," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1173-1184.
    19. Tian, Xueyu & You, Fengqi, 2019. "Carbon-neutral hybrid energy systems with deep water source cooling, biomass heating, and geothermal heat and power," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 413-432.
    20. Zhang, Xiaoyue & Huang, Guohe & Liu, Lirong & Li, Kailong, 2022. "Development of a stochastic multistage lifecycle programming model for electric power system planning – A case study for the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:rensus:v:162:y:2022:i:c:s1364032122003367. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.