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Town in Eastern Canada exploring geothermal heating from abandoned mine

Town in Eastern Canada exploring geothermal heating from abandoned mine Potash mine in Cory, Saskatchewan, Canada (source: flickr/ Bruce Guenter, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 26 Jul 2017

A city in New Brunswick, Canada is exploring its potential of utilising an abandoned mine for geothermal heating.

The use of abandoned mines for heating purposes is nothing new and we have reported on it before. Now a small town in the province of New Brunswick in Eastern Canada has hired an engineering firm that will explore how hot water from a closed mine can be used as energy pumped back into town.

The municipality issued a request for proposals for the study last month and granted it to Amec Foster Wheeler a local engineering and project management company.

A former Potash mine stopped operation at the end of last year, as reported by CBC in Canada. Since then the mine has been filled with water.

With the high temperatures in the mine, it is hoped that the water is hot enough and can be used for heating in the city, when pumped to the surface.

It is hoped that this can help the city to lower energy cost by as much as 65%.

So while it could be used for the city for heating residential areas, an agricultural company could also use it to heat its greenhouse operations.

The study conducted now is expected to take about five months and will explore how much heat the water can absorb and if the salt of the mine could cause challenges for equipment or heat exchanges.

The municipality hopes that if successful this could provide ample incentives for economic development.

When the mine closed, the city lost about 400 jobs and had applied for a grant to explore this heating opportunity.

Source: CBC Canada