Estimates of Geothermal Resources in Belarus and the Country Update

Abstract

The energy supply industry in Belarus is based mostly on the use of different kinds of fossil fuels (gas, oil, coal). Smaller percentage of energy production is based on the use of local fuels (peat, firewood, wood chips, etc.). Installations to use wind and solar energy as well as biomass to generate electricity are still at the experimental stage. There are no nuclear electric stations in the country. Therefore, Belarus is dependent on the energy import from neighbors, first of all, of the natural gas and crude oil supply from Russia.. The country produces itself only around 20% of the annual consumption of raw oil and a few percents of requested natural gas. Therefore the problem to increase the utilization of local sources of energy, including its renewable kinds is evident. The geothermal energy belongs to them and is available in the subsurface within practically the whole territory of Belarus. But the most promising areas for the underground heat extraction are the Pripyat Trough and the Brest Depression, located in the southeastern and southwestern part of the country, respectively, Zui, Levashkevich (2000); Zui et al. (2002).
Resources of the geothermal energy are dependent on a number of parameters. Depths to geothermal horizons, the ambient temperature of rocks, the composition and content of dissolved chemicals within these reservoirs are the primary factors, influencing both the estimated geothermal resources, and technical possibilities of their exoploitation. The deeper the geothermal horizon within the platform cover, the higher is its temperature and the higher is the dissolved chemicals content of warm groundwater and brines, saturated rocks. For instance, the latter parameter is the most critical one complicating the geothermal resources exploitation from deep geothermal horizons of the Pripyat Trough both from technological and economical points of view.