Earth Science Frontiers ›› 2020, Vol. 27 ›› Issue (1): 1-9.DOI: 10.13745/j.esf.2020.1.1

Previous Articles     Next Articles

The status and development trend of geothermal resources in China

WANG Guiling(), LIU Yanguang, ZHU Xi*(), ZHANG Wei   

  1. Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Shijiazhuang 050061, China
  • Received:2019-06-04 Revised:2019-10-20 Online:2020-01-20 Published:2020-01-20
  • Contact: ZHU Xi

Abstract:

China is well endowed with geothermal resources that is widely distributed with distinctive distribution pattern and regional characteristic. In this work, we systematically summarized the recent nationwide achievements in geothermal energy developments. Shallow geothermal resources are extensively available throughout the country. For 336 above prefecture-level cities, the annual recoverable amounts of shallow geothermal and hydrothermal resources were equivalent to 700 million and 1.9 billions tons of standard coal, respectively; the prospective amount of hot dry rock resources was equivalent to 856 trillion tons of standard coal. We also discussed the typical genetic mechanism of hydrothermal and hot dry rock resources. Rapid progresses of geothermal energy development and utilization technology have seen increasing shallow geothermal and hydrothermal resources explorations year by year. However, technical bottlenecks and imperfections still need to be resolved urgently in the areas of geothermal resource genesis, exploration and utilization management. In order to promote an healthy and orderly development of geothermal industry, future improvements should be focus on enhancing studies of resource genesis and geothermal tectonics and exploration technology, advancing geothermal technology and development and utilization demonstrations, assessing shallow geothermal and hydrothermal resources in key areas, and perfecting developmental and exploration methodologies for dry hot rock geothermal resource.

Key words: geothermal, shallow geothermal resources, hydrothermal resources, hot dry rock

CLC Number: