Economic Performance and Environmental Assessment

Abstract

Besides the technical feasibility of the energy provision from enhanced geothermal system (EGS), its deployment depends on the establishment on the energy market. This means that the characteristics of national and international energy markets need to be understood to improve EGS's classification therein.Energy markets are not driven only by demand and supply. The provision of energy addresses also social and political issues for the present and future generations. On one side, today's living standard is directly linked to the use of energy. And to maintain and improve this living standard energy must be securely available and affordable. On the other side, today's energy provision depletes finite fossil resources and emits substances, which are damaging the local environment as well as the global climate.Sustainable energy markets, avoiding unwanted effects resulting from the provision and the use of energy, therefore need to manage the three dimensions: security of supply, economic affordability, and environmental compatibility (Figure 7.1) and the conflicts resulting thereof. Since different players with varying priorities are involved in the energy markets, the governments have to set an energy-political framework in order to ensure the development of energy markets, which can meet the mentioned sustainability criteria.Against this background, a goal defined in many energy-political frameworks is to increase the share of renewable energies contributing to the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions and the reduction in the consumption of finite energy resources within the energy system. But the costs for energy provision from renewable energy sources are not yet fully competitive to the prices in the market (even though these prices do not reflect the full lifecycle costs related to the use of fossil energy resources). Furthermore, the integration of renewable energies into the existing structures of the energy system is not always easy to realize. Therefore, promotion measures have been implemented in many countries over the last Geothermal Energy Systems. Edited by Ernst Huenges

Are Engineered Geothermal Energy Systems a Viable Solution for Arctic Off-Grid Communities? A Techno-Economic Study

“…The current energetic framework of the 239 Canadian off-grid communities relying solely on diesel entails: (1) high costs to buy, transport and store diesel, (2) carbon emissions that contribute to climate change, (3) potential spills and leakages that damage the local environment and (4) low energy security that constrains community development (e.g., [80]); thus, opposite to the three main axes that constitute the concept of sustainable energy markets: economic affordability, environmental compatibility and energy security [69,81]. A sustainable energy market intends to maintain and improve living standards at an affordable cost by replacing the consumption of environmentally harmful sources of energy by environmentally friendly alternatives.…”

“…A first-order evaluation of the levelized cost of energy to build and operate an engineered geothermal energy system in Kuujjuaq at a depth of 4 km was carried out as (e.g., [69]):…”

Old Science Fiction, New Inspiration

“…Prominent geothermal experts and proponents of geothermal such as Glassley (2010) refer to accessing geothermal heat as a “skill-intensive enterprise” where “detailed knowledge of what will be encountered tens, hundreds, or thousands of meters underground is very rarely available” (p. 135). To this end, Frick, Van Wees, Kaltschmitt, and Schröder (2010) discuss the many parameters in enhanced geothermal engineering that are largely uncontrollable, while a popular science book even concludes that “locating suitable sites [for geothermal energy sources] is more of an art than a science” (DeGunther, 2009, p. 214). In other words, moving forward can only be done under conditions of great uncertainty; knowledge is always “perforated.” These quotes, however, are merely intended to indicate that—much like Jules Verne’s characters—even experts in favor of geothermal energy production are prepared to acknowledge the limits of knowledge when dealing with subterranean heat.…”