Observatories and facilities
GlasgowMine water thermal energyObservatory infrastructureResources and dataCheshireThermal/tomography arrayObservatory infrastructureResources and dataCore scanningInstrumentsCSF staffNGR servicesResources and dataNewsAffiliated sitesCardiff Urban Geo-ObservatoryResearch
Ongoing and planned researchOpportunitiesFundingNERC Frontiers call & access costs Case studiesOpen dataPublicationsDigital science laboratoryResearch capabilities at the Glasgow ObservatoryOpportunities at the Glasgow ObservatoryAccess
FacilitiesGlasgow ObservatoryCheshire ObservatoryCore Scanning FacilityArchive resourcesCoreRock chippingsGeomicrobiology and fluid samplesOpportunities at the Glasgow Observatory
Opportunities informing regulation and policy
Key challenges for regulating geothermal in the UK include a lack of heat-specific regulation, licensing and permitting ( Abesser et al., 2018 ) and multiple regulatory and permitting bodies. Currently, regulation and permitting is undertaken within these frameworks:
- groundwater abstraction, disposal or re-injection:
- Environment Agency
- Scottish Environment Protection Agency
- Natural Resources Wales
- Northern Ireland Environment Agency
- access to mines: Coal Authority
- planning regimes: local authorities (for construction and surface infrastructure)
- construction operations: Health and Safety Executive (for example, drilling)
As geothermal activities become more widespread, numerous questions arise about the cumulative effect of multiple heat or storage schemes; for example, interactions between schemes, subsurface-surface impacts and environmental effects. The observatory offers an extensive ability to increase the evidence base for application to regulation.
Heat ownership and licensing
- 3D system footprints, boundaries and licensing: heat behaviour in heterogeneous systems
- Optimising heat licensing with other groundwater resources permits/licences
- Risks to overlying/adjacent aquifers
- Impacts for groundwater flooding management and coalfield pumping
- Informing multi-agency regulatory regime for shallow geothermal – ?towards evidence-based streamlining of process
- Standardised methods for resource size (heat in place, recoverable resource, thermal storage resource)
Sustainability and multiple users
- Extent and timescale of thermal impacts from geothermal activities informing ‘heat protection zones or blocks’
- Cumulative impacts of multiple users: observations and predictive models
- Impacts of groundwater flow on multiple heat users (does the heat/cool resource flow away?)
- Controls on temperature and recharge of temperature
- Impact of waste heat sources and recharge in urban environments (urban heat island)
- Improved quantification of sources of heat
- Timescales and magnitude of heat depletion and replenishment
Environmental impacts and monitoring
- Groundwater, surface water, mine and soil gas, ground motion/subsidence, soil chemistry, microbiology changes (seismicity concerns)
- Subsurface-surface impacts, source-pathway-receptor. Do geothermal operations set up undesirable subsurface –subsurface pathways and contaminant movements?
- Coupled impacts
- Over cautious vs essential monitoring for environmental protection
- Accuracy, precision of monitoring and sensor placement
- Evidence base for environmental impact methods, limits and regulation, e.g. allowable temperature changes (ΔT) and heat dispersion
- Test releases/perturbations to study impacts on research site
- Warning or traffic light systems
Knowledge transfer and outcomes
- Data sharing, compilation and open access
- Training
- Lifecycle assessments of carbon dioxide reductions from shallow geothermal
- Contribute to heat and innovation hubs
- Environmental impacts and risks: perceptions & reality
- Public perceptions and approval
- Feeding into heat zoning, national and local Government policy
Selected examples include:
- examining the 3D geothermal system footprint in a heterogenous system to inform groundwater (therefore heat) permitting/licensing
- measuring extensive time-series temperature and pumping data to improve knowledge on the controls of temperature and its recharge in an urban environment, informing system sustainability and extending knowledge of impacts to multiple users
- measuring a wide range of environmental monitoring data in water, soil, rock, air, gas and microbiological environments, to assess pathways and impacts and inform environmental monitoring of essential requirements and impacts
- transferring knowledge and open data to non-specialists, underpinning evidence-based policy