Croatia starting geothermal power generating project!

[thewayne]

This is REALLY cool, or I should say, hot!

They've discovered an underground lake, 2.4 kilometers (about 1.5 miles) that has an average temperature of 142 degrees Celsius! Keep in mind that water boils at 100 degrees C at sea level. I'm guessing the plan is to drill down to it and capture the pressurized heat to drive turbines generating electricity at ground level.

Not free energy, but darn close! This will be a fantastically inexpensive power source for Croatia - they're expecting 16 megawatts of power production, enough to supply "tens of thousands of homes"! And obviously it's going to cost a lot of money to build the power plant and to interconnect the generating station to the grid.

https://thenextweb.com/news/croatia-geothermal-energy-plant

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/23/10/12/018250/croatia-wants-to-turn-superhot-underground-lake-into-a-16mw-geothermal-power-plant

Comments

[acelightning73]

Icceland does a lot with geothermal power. The hotel I stayed in in Reykjavik was entirely heated by geothermal. And all the hot water for the laundry was heated by the volcanos under Iceland. The towels and sheets were always nice and clean, and the shower never ran out of hot water. (I had a miserable time in Iceland. People are often hostile to tourists. And I had gone in order to see the Aurora Borealis, but the three days we were there were overcast and rainy. When we went home, ours was the last plane to land at JFK airport because that weather over Iceland had created a blizzard over the NY area. I had to find my car in long-term parking and drive back to New Jersey, through the city itself, in heavy snow. But I loved the way the used geothermal energy for a lot of things, And there's an undertonr of Norse lore to their culture. Theres a Church 0f Thor in eykjavik but IReykjavik, but I coulnd't find it - I couldn't ask for directions, because I don't speak Icelandic. It sounds as if they're all readibg "Beowulf' out loud.

[silveradept]

The investment is apparently about 50 million Euro, which is not a bad investment for 16 megawatts of geothermal power. Good for Croatia to tap into something other than fossil fuels for energy generation needs.

[disneydream06]

WOW, that is so "cool". :)
Hugs, Jon