Krafla Geothermal Station
Ohaaki geothermal power station
 Krafla Geothermal Station
 

Geothermal energy

Geothermal energy is not derived from solar energy. Instead this energy comes from the molten lava held within the Earth.
Geothermal power is not really a renewable energy source! But it can be considered as renewable because the underground rocks continue to heat up again once the heat has been extracted. But the rocks may cool and the heat source can fail.

Palinpinon Geothermal power plant Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant
Palinpinon Geothermal power plant Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant
 

References
Ohaaki geothermal power station - Wikipedia - User: SmokeySteve - Public domain
Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant in Iceland - Wikipedia - User: Fir0002 - Public domain
Krafla Geothermal Station - Wikipedia - User: Mike - GNU Free Documentation License
Palinpinon Geothermal power plant - Wikipedia - User: TheCoffee - GNU Free Documentation License

Extracting geothermal heat

Water is pumped down to the hot rock strata and comes back to the surface as hot water or even as steam. This heat source is then used to generate electricity or for used with local district heating systems.

Geothermal power supplied around 0.3% of the global demand for electricity.

World wide geothermal energy

The United States has the largest geothermal power plants in the world in a site in California. The Philippines and Iceland are countries that generate a significant amount of their electricity from geothermal sources.

Installed geothermal electric capacity by country for top 11 countries

Country Capacity 2010 (MW)
USA3086
Philippines1904
Indonesia1197
Mexico958
Italy843
New Zealand628
Iceland575
Japan536
El Salvador204
Kenya167
Costa Rica166

Source: Wikipedia Geothermal Energy - 08 March 2011

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