Comprehensive Development of Brines of the Berikei Geothermal Field

Abstract

It has been shown that complex processing of hydrothermal brines from the Berikei geothermal field can be highly effective. The development of the deposit’s resources can be carried out in two stages. At the first stage, it is proposed to organize the production of chemical compounds based on self-flowing brines. After developing the technology for extracting chemical components from brine, it is recommended to move on to the second stage: implementing an integrated technology for utilizing thermal energy with the subsequent extraction of chemical components from the cooled brine. This technique allows one to use all the resources of the field. The thermal energy of the geothermal brine is recovered in a greenhouse and a geothermal steam-gas power plant (GSGP), which includes units of a binary geothermal power plant (GeoPP) and a gas turbine power plant (GTPP). In a binary GeoPP, the low-boiling working fluid is heated to a higher temperature by removing heat from the geothermal brine. Further heating of the working fluid to the evaporation temperature and its evaporation and overheating are carried out by the heat of the GTPP exhaust gases. The construction of a GSGP will allow for uninterrupted and autonomous supply of electricity to the entire complex. The development of all hydrothermal resources of the Berikei deposit will make it possible to annually obtain 2000 t of lithium carbonate and, thereby, provide a significant part of the needs of Russian industry as well as produce more than 580 000 t of table salt, which will solve the problem of import substitution of this product.