Geothermal heating is an important clean heating option for Chinas cities
Smog over Beijing, China (source: flickr/ gmetrail, creative commons)
Alexander Richter
28 Jan 2013
China looks increasingly to geothermal heating to fight emissions from coal fired heating in the country with Ziongzian county in Hebei province being a great case study.
Following news from the worst smog in years in Beijing, geothermal heating is looked at increasingly as an option to target emissions from coal fired district heating systems in the country.
ThinkGeoEnergy has reported before about efforts in Xian Yang and other cities in China, but a recent article now describes efforts in Baoding, Hebei province.
The city is about 100 km from Beijing and Tianjin. Four large geothermal fields have been discovered under the city covering an area of total 3,700 square kilometeres and most of the city now uses geothermal heating. The resources were discovered in 1973 and now more than 90 percent of Xiongzian county using geothermal heat.
“The utilization of geothermal resources has never been more important,” said Ma Yufeng, the city’s mayor, adding that the city has to protect the environment and provide resources such as agricultural products for the capital because of its location.
“We also are pursuing the development of the economy, which means that further exploration of this clean resource will be one of our priorities,” the mayor said.
In Xiongxian alone, more than 63,000 metric tons of standard coal have been saved in heating, cutting emissions of carbon dioxide by 130,000 tons a year.
The Xiongxian government will invest 450 million yuan to expand the heating network and dig more geothermal wells by the end of 2020, making it a smoke-free county by then.
“The use of geothermal resources will not cause the groundwater level to decline, though thousands of tons of water have been pumped up for heating,” said Huang Jiachao, a manager in charge of the project in Xiongxian under Sinopec Green Energy Geothermal Development.
He said the company adopted new technology that helps the groundwater flow back to its original level.
In China, geothermal resources are mainly used for heating and bathing. Some have been used to generate electricity in places such as the Tibet autonomous region.
More than 30 per cent of the utilization is for spas and 20 per cent for heating. Less than 0.4 per cent has been used for electricity generation, Sinopec said.
“The utilization of this clean resource in China is still low,” said Ingimar Haraldsson, a geothermal expert from the United Nations University.
Source: AsiaOne
