Abstract
Hydrogeology has traditionally been regarded as the province of the water industry, but it is increasingly finding novel applications in the energy sector. Hydrogeology has a longstanding role in geothermal energy exploration and management. Although aquifer management methods can be directly applied to most high-enthalpy geothermal reservoirs, hydrogeochemical inference techniques differ somewhat owing to peculiarities of high-temperature processes. Hydrogeological involvement in the development of ground-coupled heating and cooling systems using heat pumps has led to the emergence of the sub-discipline now known as thermogeology. The patterns of groundwater flow and heat transport are closely analogous and can thus be analysed using very similar techniques. Without resort to heat pumps, groundwater is increasingly being pumped to provide cooling for large buildings; the renewability of such systems relies on accurate prediction and management of thermal breakthrough from reinjection to production boreholes. Hydrogeological analysis can contribute to quantification of accidental carbon emissions arising from disturbance of groundwater-fed peatland ecosystems during wind farm construction. Beyond renewables, key applications of hydrogeology are to be found in the nuclear sector, and in the sunrise industries of unconventional gas and carbon capture and storage, with high temperatures attained during underground coal gasification requiring geothermal technology transfer.
Highlights
Hydrogeology and energy use in the water industryThe water industry is relatively energy intensive, owing to the power needed for pumping, and for various water and wastewater treatment processes
The water industry was the birthplace of the discipline of hydrogeology, with many of the pioneering aquifer analysis techniques, such as those devised by Jack Ineson (e.g. Ineson 1959; see Downing & Gray 2004), being developed to quantify the reliable yields of boreholes used for public water supplies
Hydrogeology was traditionally regarded as virtually the sole province of the water industry
Summary
The water industry is relatively energy intensive, owing to the power needed for pumping, and for various water and wastewater treatment processes. To minimize net energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions, the water industry is increasingly seeking to improve the efficiency of pumping and of certain treatment processes (especially forced aeration and sludge dewatering) and to generate renewable power within its own operations; for instance, by production of methane from organic sludges by anaerobic digestion and by inclusion of hydroelectric turbines in high-head water mains (Leiby & Burke 2011; WaterUK 2011). The overall best environmental and economic solution, reconciling the low-treatment advantages of groundwater with the lower pumping needs of many surface waters, will often lie in the judicious conjunctive use of surface waters and groundwaters This concept had wide currency in the 1970s For more typical saline waters, a lower bound of about 430 °C is more likely (see Bischoff & Pitzer 1989)
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