Status and Outlook of Geothermal Energy Exploitation Technologies

지열에너지자원 개발, 활용 기술의 동향 및 전망

Geothermal energy is the natural heat of the Earth. Enormous amounts of thermal energy are continuously generated by the decay of radioactive isotopes of underground rocks and stored in the Earth's interior. Therefore, geothermal energy is one of the most important sustainable energy resources. Recent trends of geothermal energy exploitation technologies focus on the Earth scientific approach to geothermal heat pump system, enhanced geothermal system, aquifer thermal energy storage, underground thermal energy storage, and fluid/heat flow model ing for geothermal wells. Geothermal heat pump distribution in Korea is still in its starting phase in terms of areal utilization sense, we, however, expect to come up with national supply of over 1,000,000 toe by 2020