Use of Geothermal Energy in the Food Industry: A Review

Abstract

This paper aims to make a bibliographic literature review about the current and potential uses of geothermal energy within the food industry, which uses a third of the world’s energy during production in all the processes involved. Fossil fuels are the most common sources for generating electrical energy for the food industry. However, it is known that they cause adverse environmental effects such as atmospheric pollution, ecosystem disturbances and natural resource depletion. Due to the lack of published studies about this subject, this review was carried out using different databases. Of the 77 documents published between 2010 and 2020, more than 70 % of them were written in English by researchers from 67 institutions from around the world. These documents allow us to analyze a sample of countries where the implementation of geotermal energy has a greater advance in processes implementing geothermal energy in the food industry; such as heating and cooling systems for the drying of fruits and vegetables, and producing various foods, achieving energy coverage close to 10 % in this industry.