Sustainable Development of Geothermal Resources in China and Future Projects

Abstract

Since the early 1990's of 20th Century, the commercial geothermal development in China predominated gradually and the funds through different channels for the geothermal exploration and exploitation increased continuously. An unprecedented great progress in geothermal development in China has been made. Especially, there exist the favorable geothermo-geological conditions and there are broad users, the large- and middle scale cities, new villages and towns of the oil-gas fields, developing the geothermal resources, are numerous and distributed widely. In recent years, the utilization of high-temperature geothermal resources in Xizang Autonomous Region and Taiwan Province for power generation was progressing slowly because of several technology problems and funds shortage. At present, the low-medium temperature geothermal resources in many places of the country are successfully utilized for space heating, greenhouses, aquaculture, irrigation and thermal water supplying, medical treatment and tourism, public bathing, drinking, extraction of chemicals and others. At present, the long-term project of the future geothermal development in China is compiling. In this paper the development and utilization status of geothermal resources in China are presented. Several tables are given in the paper.