Geothermal Energy Impact Estimator: A software application for estimating the life-cycle environmental impacts of geothermal energy [version 2; peer review: 3 approved]

Abstract

Geothermal energy is a renewable source of base-load power that is expected to play an important role in the transition to a low-carbon economy. In this article, we introduce a novel software application – named Geothermal Energy Impact Estimator – which computes the environmental impacts, including carbon emissions, of existing or future geothermal plants, using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology. The software application is user-friendly and was designed to be used by geothermal companies and policy makers. We provide two specific use cases of the software application that represent existing plants in Iceland and in the UK.

Keywords

• Renewable energy
• geothermal wells
• Enhanced Geothermal Systems
• carbon footprint
• simplified models
• allocation strategy
• eng