Geothermal sea water desalination system (GSWDS) using abandoned oil/gas wells

Abstract

Nowadays, the water crisis has turned to be a major problem in all over the world. Fresh water shortage and energy intensive process are the reasons underlying water crisis. Seawater desalination can be a solution for the fresh water shortage, but this process needs plenty of energy. Abandoned oil and gas wells are useless geothermal heat sources which can be used as a heat source for water desalination. Abandoned oil wells are capable of providing valuable amount of heat without the necessity to drill expensive deep wells. In this paper, the results of numerical simulation of an abandoned oil well in the Southern part of Iran, in “Ahwaz oil field”, is used for simulation of multi-effect seawater desalination process which uses oil well as a heat source and can approximately produce 565m3/day of fresh water. There are thousands of abandoned oil/gas wells in Iran that can be used as a heat source for this desalination system. This innovative use of abandoned wells is capable of not only solving the fresh water issues in Southern part of Iran, but also leading the country to go through sustainable developments. The process is environmentally-friendly, and significantly reduces the production of emissions, that are considered to be one of the main challenges in conventional desalination systems.