By Bruno Perera. GEOTHERMAL ENERGY IN LANZAROTELanzarote is an island that has about three hundred mountains with open peaks, which are called volcanoes. It also has others with their peaks closed or somewhat ...
By Bruno Perera.
GEOTHERMAL ENERGY IN LANZAROTE
Lanzarote is an island that has about three hundred mountains with open peaks, which are called volcanoes.
It also has others with closed or somewhat open peaks that are also volcanoes, and that one day not too far away may give all the energy, fresh water and salt that the population will need.
One of these volcanic magma elevations is the Montañas del Fuego, which we know have a great geothermal energy resource that is easy to exploit. But to structure a large-scale project capable of extracting this topo-treasure, less politics and a little less biosphere are needed.
Anyone who has been to Las Montañas del Fuego will have noticed the heat given off by the roasting pit in the center of its summit, the pressurized steam that comes out of the holes after the guide pours the bucket of water inside, and the wall that makes the gorse burn in seconds.
All these natural phenomena indicate that under a layer of about 2 ms of ash and dry lava, there is a huge source of heat that comes from magma not far away.
We could semi-capture this source of clean and eternal energy to produce electricity and fresh water without damaging the tourist business that takes place around the mountains.
If my mental calculations don't deceive me, I think that the Montañas del Fuego have about 500 X 500 ms2 = 250,000 ms2 of active geothermal heat surface area.
In this space, an entire energy complex could be set up to produce fresh water, electricity and salt.
How?
1. In the less warm areas, half-buried salt water tanks are installed to keep the water at a high but not boiling temperature; and in the warmer areas, the boilers that would make the steam are buried.
How would the system work?
2. First, salt water would be brought from the sea in vats to the storage tanks that feed the steam boilers; then, in a closed circuit, the system would work like this: From the salt water tanks, the water would go to the boilers, the boilers would produce steam, the steam would rotate turbines, the turbines would rotate generators that would produce electricity that would be conducted to a power plant; at the same time, the steam would pass through cooling coils with salt water, which would condense the steam converting it into fresh water that would go to tanks where it would be stored for distribution and human consumption.
3. Once the project is in production, making electricity, it would not be necessary to carry the salt water in vats, because with part of the electrical energy that is obtained; through pumps and pipes, the salt water would be transported from the sea to the deposits.
In this type of system a problem arises with the salt residues, but they are surmountable, it is that each boiler can fully open its upper part and has in its inner bottom a "plate type" disc equal to the diameter of the boiler so that when lifting it with a crane by four handles can be taken out with the salt that has been deposited in its bottom in equis time of evaporation.
To take advantage of the entire area that radiates heat in the Montañas del Fuego it would be necessary to relocate the Diablo restaurant to another nearby place.
I know that some will say: That will be impossible because that property is a work of art made by Cesar Manrique, -I understand-, but we must understand that sometimes to get something necessary we must sacrifice part of what we love.
P.S.
There are many systems that pump geothermal heat for heating, but do not heat water or produce electricity. Others produce electricity and heat water, but the deposits cool down after a few years due to the water that is injected into them. Everything depends on the structure of the subsoil. Etc.
