Carbon dioxide emissions from geothermal power plants

Michael O'Sullivan, Michael Gravatt, Joris Popineau, John O'Sullivan, Warren Mannington and Julian McDowell

Renewable Energy, 2021, vol. 175, issue C, 990-1000

Abstract: Geothermal is commonly considered to be a clean, green energy source but it does produce some greenhouse gas emissions, particularly CO2. The amount of CO2 is usually measured as an emission intensity of kg of CO2 emitted per MWh of electricity produced. However, the quantity that is measured for the calculation of emission intensity is the waste CO2 in the separated steam that feeds the power plant. In terms of total CO2 emissions this is only part of the picture as there is a natural outflow of CO2 into the atmosphere at most geothermal systems and this natural outflow is affected by the operation of a power plant. The correct measure of CO2 emissions is the extra CO2 output resulting from the operation of the power plant.

Keywords: CO2 emissions; Geothermal electricity production; Computer modelling; Ohaaki (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148121006972
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:175:y:2021:i:c:p:990-1000

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2021.05.021

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().