Abstract
Hydrothermal vent is a kind of manifestation of geothermal energy on seabed. It produces high temperature fluid through a hole which has a diameter in various range between several inches to tens of meters. Hydrothermal vent is mostly found over ocean ridges. There are some 67000 km of ocean ridges, 13000 of them have been already studied discovering more than 280 sites with geothermal vents. Some of them have a thermal power of up to 60 MWt. These big potential resources of energy, which are located over subsea, have a constraint related to environmental impact to the biotas live around when it becomes an object of exploitation. Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a method of exploiting heat energy to become electricity using organic fluid. This paper presents a model of exploitation technology of hydrothermal vent using ORC method. With conservative calculation, it can give result of 15 MWe by exploiting a middle range diameter of hydrothermal vent in deep of 2000 meters below sea level. The technology provided here really has small impact to the environment. With an output energy as huge as mentioned before, the price of constructing this technology is low considering the empty of cost for drilling as what it should be in conventional exploitation. This paper also presents the comparison in several equipment which is more suitable to be installed over subsea.
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