Geothermal-Enhanced Power Transmission System for Deep and Hot Underground Facilities

A new power transmission system is being developed for supplying equipment and machinery with the required mechanical energy while coupling it with the same amount of thermal energy removal from the thermodynamic balance of the hot working area. The zero net energy transmission system is made possible by using compressible fluid as the working media such as compressed air, CO2, or Nitrogen. The paper describes the basic elements of the transmission system as a Carnot Cycle heat pump, capable of delivering higher power at greater depth and temperature of the expander machine than those of the compressor machine at higher elevation and lower temperature. The net energy gain is made possible by utilizing geothermal energy. Numerical simulation results show that the presented system may be competitive to electrical power transmission provided that the equipment supplier industry can produce high-efficiency expander machines in the above 70 per cent range that is certainly not against any laws of physics or thermodynamics.