A look at different cities approach to utilizing geothermal
A recent article looks at geothermal utilization in the cities of Boise/ Idaho, Reno/ Nevada, Reykjavik/ Iceland, Masdar City/ UAE and Perth/ Australia.
An interesting piece I came across today, is looking at how five different cities are utilizing geothermal energy. While interesting it clearly misses out a few cities, including Paris, which likely has the largest geothermal district heating system.
The piece looks at the cities of Boise, Idaho and Reno, Nevada in the United States, Reykjavik in Iceland, Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates and Perth in Australia.
In Boise, Idaho, the article talks about the different geothermal district heating systems in place and the pride the city’s mayor takes into his city’s efforts.
Reno, Nevada has become the hub of geothermal companies and development in the United States, just in the city area there are about 100 MW of installed geothermal power generation capacity.
The city of Reykjavik, the capital of Iceland is also looked at and highlighted are the various uses of geothermal within the city limits for not only power generation and heating, but also greenhouses, fish farming and more.
The city of Masdar in the United Arab Emirates is also looked at based on the efforts to make this city a renewable energy model. So far though the city hasn´t been able to utilize geothermal, so the choice for this list is maybe not as correct despite the continuing efforts.
The choice of Perth also is quite interesting. The connection to Cooper Basin is simply geographically wrong as the Cooper Basin is in South Australia and Perth on the West Coast. There are though – and this is not mentioned – interesting projects being worked on in Perth and in the state of Western Australia. The University of Western Australia is doing great efforts on utilizing geothermal heat for cooling and developer Green Rock Energy is working on developing geothermal power projects around Perth.
So while the article is a bit weak on the examples of geothermal utilization in cities and misses the probably largest geothermal district heating system in the capital of France, Paris, but at least it covers the potential geothermal energy can play for cities.
Source: Mashable