Prospects for geothermal energy applications and utilization in Canada

Like the sun, the earth is a vast energy source. The utilization of this geothermal furnace is still in its infancy, the heat flow from the mantle to the surface (9 × 10−1 cal/cm2/min; 0.063 W/m2) is the energy equivalent to 2 × 1011 barrels of oil per yr (3 × 1010 tons or about fourfold greater than the present yearly total world energy consumption). Although today only local hot spots yielding dry and wet steam, and shallow hot-water sites are used economically, future technology may well lead to a much greater utilization. This will be done through additional imaginative and sophisticated exploitation of available regions of dry hot rock, geopressure-geothermal fields, and even deep areas of significant heat flow. Such potential utilization of geothermal resources should provide for relatively pollution-free, steam-generated electrical power, steam and hot-water for home and industry, mineral and chemical by-products, as well as numerous uses where hot water is required in agriculture, horticulture, fisheries, mining, pulp and paper and other industries. Canadian developments in these areas are still relatively dormant. The problem areas are not of a technological nature but rather of an institutional type in passing a geothermal act that would provide the incentives for exploration and economical development.