Since 2015, the Spanish Official Professional Association of Geologists (Ilustre Colegio Oficial de Geólogos (ICOG)) has consistently presented comprehensive geological policy documents to various political parties and administrations, during national or autonomous communities’ elections. On numerous occasions, the political parties have been invited to the ICOG’s Headquarters in Madrid or to autonomous delegations to engage in seminars and discussions with ICOG members regarding these proposals. Over the previous decade, the list of proposals has been regularly updated to align with the evolving needs of society. This paper focuses on the 2023 version of the proposal, which, even though centred on Spain, can potentially serve as a valuable framework for proposals in any other country.
This article presents the importance of geological studies for identifying the most suitable areas for regional and urban planning in Greece. Termed as geological suitability studies, these studies aim to determine the geological suitability of land to protect the built environment from natural hazards and hazards associated with human interventions and activities. Key areas of focus include the exploitation of geological resources and the protection of the geological environment. In addition, the application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Multi-Criteria Evaluation (MCE) for assessing geological parameters, which are crucial for the delimitation of geologically suitable zones, are discussed. Furthermore, the article explores how GIS and MCE can be applied in the development of geological suitability models.
Hungary’s rich geothermal resources provide a real option to tackle the present energy crisis, decrease the country’s high gas dependency and decarbonise its heating sector. Nevertheless, geothermal project development faces some barriers, one of the most important ones is the geological risk of the unknown reservoir properties. One powerful tool to mitigate this risk is to increase the knowledge of the subsurface and provide geoscientific data availability to project designers. The presented Hungarian case study shows a systematic development of such data service, comprising a public web-map based geothermal information system (OGRE) and tailor-data packages developed on the basis of an indicator system that considers the 3 most important factors: reservoir types (R), heat market conditions (H) and the rate of exploration (S).
Geosciences applied to the exploitation of geothermal resources have achieved significant scientific progress. The adoption of geothermal research results in public policies can contribute to meet the challenges set by EU Strategies. Geoscientists are facing challenges to communicate scientific results to stakeholders. There are many studies on geothermal that are ignored by policies and public actions, hindering promising chances of including geothermal energy as an important player in the ongoing energy transition. This is partly due to difficulties in communicating geoscientific content efficiently to non-technical audiences. The article aims to analyse past experiences, current practices, and future opportunities to better communicate scientific results as a means to better support policy making and highlight the role of geoscience in achieving sustainability goals.
The need for a more efficient use of the subsurface in tackling a variety of issues is becoming more apparent, certainly in densely populated regions. For a better incorporation of geological knowledge into policy making, e.g., related to underground space use, raw materials management and (deep) subsurface planning for technologies such as geothermal energy, it is essential to develop user-friendly tools. These can translate geological information to field applications, which can be understood by policy officers, engineers, architects, etc. In Flanders (Belgium), such tools are developed and published on an open platform. Even though many tools are already available based on extensive 3D geological models, advances can still be made towards voxel models and 2D maps combining information for specific purposes.
The concession of water resources often leads to a public misunderstanding, with concerns raised about privatisation and threats to public water supply. These concerns are frequently expressed without a clear understanding that obtaining a concession for the exploitation of any water resource does not confer ownership rights, but rather grants the right to exploit defined quantities, along with accompanying obligations outlined in the concession contract. The distinction between ownership and concession is often overlooked by the public. This paper presents the application of the Croatian legislation in the process of obtaining a concession for the water use, with special emphasis on the principle of prioritising the use of water resources. Additionally, it highlights the significance of a geoscientific approach to characterise these water resources.
In the last century geoscientists played a limited role in shaping mainstream legislation. Their assistance was limited to drafting the technical aspects within regulations governing the extractive sector or waste disposal. Their primary responsibility was the implementation. A significant shift occurred at the turn of the century. Driven by rapid developments in the EU acquis on environment and energy, emerging political priorities, and professional associations became successful in horizon scanning and proactively proposing scientific and technical aid to EU bodies. Foresight studies now warn for potential conflicts, both physical and legal, arising from diverse sectoral legislation governing underground space and extractable geological resources. The current first-come-first-serve practice is not in compliance with the principles of good governance and prudent management of natural resources. A pragmatic solution involves the harmonised application of the Strategic Impact Assessment Directive and the transition of 2D land use planning into a 3D (4D) spatial development. This requires the guidance of national authorities by the EC to ensure good governance and a collaborative awareness-raising campaign by industry and professional associations, including EFG.
The Geological Surveys of Europe move steadily toward their ambition to bridge diverse areas where geoscience can support energy transition policy: water, energy, minerals, urban and marine infrastructure, and more. This ambition is built on the European Geological Data Infrastructure (EGDI), which brings together harmonised pan-European subsurface data supported by expert networks. Such efforts tackle the problem that current digital twins of the Earth largely ignore important subsurface resources and processes. We demonstrate how subsurface data supports implementation of Green Deal policy through case studies at national, municipal, and EU level. These cases also allow looking from the past toward the future and underline the importance of dedicated community efforts to build EGDI and a Geological Service for Europe.
The geoscience knowledge has improved our ability to access clean water, cultivate food, mitigate natural hazards and enhance the economy. It also plays a significant role in policymaking, often supported by an interdisciplinary approach. The sustainable energy transition requires a larger supply of raw materials within the framework of a circular economy. In Italy, despite a rich history of mining, a decision was made to import the majority of mineral resources from abroad, as it was more economically sustainable. However, over the past decade, there has been increased awareness, particularly after the introduction of the EU Green Deal. The Italian Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale (ISPRA) is actively supporting the mining sector, by coordinating technical panels and discussions on eco-friendly raw material perspectives at the national level. Additionally, ISPRA is developing a Geodatabase as a tool to promote the sustainable production of both primary and secondary mineral resources, while also contributing national and regional policies.
Over the previous decades, the region of Western Macedonia in Greece has become home to heavy industrial clusters. Carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) is an essential technology for climate change mitigation that could deliver significant economic growth. As part of the EU-funded STRATEGY CCUS project (2019-2022), two scenarios were developed and economically evaluated for the deployment of CCUS technologies in Western Macedonia. These scenarios were created using a novel software tool to analyse the CCUS business model in the Greek region. For this, two suitable local onshore geological sites were utilised for storing captured CO2. Five industries from different industrial sectors have been chosen for CO2 utilisation. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were calculated to measure this project’s long-term value and return on investment (ROI) while also measuring its short-term efficiency and profitability over the deployment process lifetime.
Over the last decade, Europe has experienced a sharp increase in infrastructure expenditure due to the severe and frequent natural phenomena related to climate change. Local consequences, such as habitat destruction, finite freshwater availability and food scarcity exert significant pressure on the available ecological space. Therefore, there is a growing interest in assessing risks and vulnerabilities to climate change, which has already led to a wide range of impacts on environmental systems and society, including destabilising security. Increased environmental, social, and financial damage costs are expected in the future. Many of these imminent or ongoing challenges are related to the overexploitation of resources and the energy transition, requiring a more holistic approach to encouraging new technologies, that involves a whole-of-society approach and stakeholder participation. State-of-the-art CCUS and hydrogen energy technologies, offer sustainable solutions to mitigate the current situation, allowing a reduction in carbon emissions, a transition towards a low-carbon economy, and an increased overall resilience of the international community to climate change.
Achieving a successful energy transition requires society to deploy as many technologies as possible, rather than relying on one single technology to be the ‘magic bullet’. However, there are characteristics that make this transition more challenging than previous transitions in terms of its scope. These challenges include the wide range of sustainable technologies involved and the time constraints. For this research the importance of carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen technologies for the decarbonization process was analysed, including the main challenges that their large-scale implementation is facing from a subsurface perspective. The ongoing role that fossil fuels play, as well as how the hydrocarbon industry can facilitate the current transition, must also be considered. The common denominator in the analysis is the critical position of Earth sciences in discovering, characterizing, and sustainably utilizing subsurface resources. Geoscientists are essential for providing communication and cooperation between scientists and stakeholders who use, manage and preserve the subsurface. The success of CO2 and hydrogen storage, as part of the climate change mitigation strategies, and the eventual phase-out of fossil fuels ultimately depends on the sustainable development of the subsurface.
The formation of free gas bubbles (degassing) is a major issue during production of geothermal fluids. These often contain substantial amounts of dissolved gasses, such as CO2, CH4 and N2. Lower pressures in the region surrounding the production well can cause dissolved gas to come out of the solution. This can have detrimental effects on the production and generally on the operation, such as corrosion of the facilities or reduced water production as the gas limits the space where the water can flow. This study aims to improve the understanding of the conditions under which free gas nucleates, including determination of the bubble point pressure and temperature and the rate at which bubbles form during depressurization. The focus of this study is on CO2 degassing from high salinity brines. We report a series of well-controlled depressurization experiments in a pressure cell that allows for visual monitoring of the degassing process. The cell is filled with brine saturated with dissolved CO2 at high pressure and temperature. The pressure within the cell can be reduced in a reproducible manner thus allowing for repeatable experiments. A high-speed camera paired with a uniform LED light source is used to record the degassing process. The pressure in the cell is monitored using a transducer synchronized with the camera. The resulting images were analysed using an in-house MATLAB code, which allows for determination of the bubble point pressure and rate of bubble formation. Experiments were performed at high pressure (up to 200 bar) and temperature (up to 200 °C) using a fixed CO2 concentration of 200 mmol/L (i.e. 8.8 g/L). Two saline brine solutions are used to assess the influence of the salt concentration on the bubble nucleation process: a low salinity (1 M NaCl) and a high salinity (1.5 M CaCl2 + 2 M NaCl) solution. A model based on the geochemical software PHREEQC was also developed to predict the solubility of CO2 in high salinity geothermal brines. This model allows for simulating the degassing behaviour at the same conditions as those used in the experiments. From these simulations, the theoretical bubble point pressure and temperature can be estimated along with the rate of gas exsolution during a depressurization process. As there are several alternative equation-of-states for CO2 in solution with brines, a comparative matching of the depressurization experiments with individual formulations is presented.
Community funding is a tool to involve communities in geothermal projects in such a way that they can be involved in the decision making around the project and/or receive some of the benefits. There are different alternative finance instruments that give different options to involve investors from the community surrounding the project, thus realising community involvement, commitment, and funding for the project. These can be combined with risk mitigation instruments to limit the risk that community investors are exposed to. The characteristics of an individual project and the risk appetite and risk-absorbing capacity of community investors determine which combination of instruments is best suited. Because the outreach to, and involvement of, the community is very important for the acceptance, use and community support of geothermal projects, involving the community on the finance side of a project can be useful to make the successes and results of the project more accessible to the community.
The efficiency and feasibility of geothermal utilisation depends strongly on the characteristics and behaviour of the fluids that transfer heat between the geosphere and the engineered components of a power plant. Chemical and physical processes such as precipitation, corrosion, or degassing are induced by pressure and temperature changes, with potentially serious consequences for power plant operation and project economics. The EU Horizon 2020-funded project REFLECT aims to avoid such problems by collecting high-quality chemical, physical, and microbiological data at extreme salinities, pressures or temperatures and improving the understanding of kinetic processes through laboratory experiments. These data are presented in a European geothermal fluid atlas and implemented in predictive models in order to provide recommendations on how to best operate geothermal systems for a sustainable future.
The Pannonian part of Croatia is rich in geothermal water sources, while there are few mineral and thermo-mineral springs. Considering the available data, the possibilities of using geothermal energy in the municipality of Cestica, NW Croatia are investigated. Its location and distance from existing geothermal sites gives a positive and realistic assumption for the existence of low-temperature (below 100 °C) reservoirs of geothermal water in the municipality. This paper presents a techno-economic analysis that includes savings in fossil fuels and a consequent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere for a low-temperature geothermal site and parameters that can justify investment in further exploration and development, and also in its contribution to the energy transition.
Geothermal resources are increasingly being considered as a strategic alternative in energy production, especially with the latest geopolitical developments. The densely populated Braga region, in NW Portugal, is endowed with a geostructural setting that enables the existence of several thermal water occurrences, spatially associated with a deep-rooted structure – the Vigo-Régua shear zone, set in a granite context. Given the latest advances in geothermal energy production, it is possible to predict a mid- to long-term implementation of geothermal energy production in the vicinity of that deep rooted structure. Although strongly encouraging, the exploratory geophysical, geochemical and geological data are still insufficient to deliver a definitive frame of the potential energy associated with the estimated reservoirs. Ongoing work combining gravimetric, radiometric and geochemical data will provide a better understanding of the deeply concealed structures.
For a successful energy transition, deployment of renewable energy sources like geothermal and others is a fundamental step towards a sustainable power and heat production. In this context, public acceptance towards the respective energy projects is a crucial factor for both the number of realized projects and the speed of their realization. Based on the empirical work, the paper discusses the factors relevant for the acceptance of geothermal projects and provides an insight into new approaches for measuring acceptance and social impacts connected with geothermal projects within the conceptual frame of social license to operate. The presented approach serves as a guiding tool for public engagement as well as an instrument for monitoring acceptance and social impacts. Therefore, the paper feeds both the scientific discourse and the practical application.
Geothermal energy is a vital option to provide clean heating and cooling. Interlinking geothermal energy with the concept of heating and/or cooling networks offers excellent opportunities to benefit from economies of scale and multiplication when it comes to decarbonising the heating and cooling sector. Still, there are both technological and socio-economic challenges to foster the significant implementation of geothermal energy supplied heating and cooling networks in Europe. We identify key challenges towards better integration of geothermal energy and outline possible solutions for a boosted pan-European market uptake. Geothermal networks can only become a key technology if concepts are available to address both new and existing network infrastructures and the existing building stock.
As part of the Horizon 2020 project CROWDTHERMAL, the opportunities of different alternative finance strategies – like crowdfunding – for geothermal projects were assessed along with their potential risks and possible mitigation measures. Recommendations were formulated for a novel Risk Mitigation Framework that can complement alternative financing solutions for deep geothermal projects throughout Europe. A support mechanism is proposed that addresses several of the main barriers to geothermal market development. It can reduce the amount of risk capital required by project developers and can help more projects become economically feasible. At the same time, it can mitigate the financial risk for community investors and broaden the applicability of participatory finance for geothermal project funding. An economic analysis was carried out confirming and quantifying these effects.
