Geothermal energy for sustainable water resources management

ABSTRACT

With ever-increasing population and steep declining freshwater supply, the future concern of MENA and Sub-Saharan countries is food security. Egypt is more vulnerable to food security due to the increased water rights being exercised by the countries sharing the Nile River. Assuming that Egypt by 2025 will achieve 1000 m³/y per capita consumption of water, with the population growing beyond 109 millions, the water available by 2025 would be around 106 billion m³/y. With increasing pressure from the Nile River basin riparian countries, Egypt may not be able to manage with the current 58 billion m³ of water from the Aswan dam to achieve per capita goal. To maintain the current per capita water consumption of 636 m³/y Egypt may need about 1200 desalination plants and 200 × 10⁶ kWh electricity is required to operate these plants and the CO₂ emissions due to this process will be around 80–160 million tones. Electricity generated from hydrothermal sources can supply 659 × 10⁹ m³/year of desalinated water while the EGS can generate 58,400 × 10⁹ m³/y of desalinated water from the Red Sea. This will help the country to meet the current fresh water deficit of 48 × 10⁹ m³/y. By the year 2025, the demand for fresh water will be of the order of 106 × 10⁹ m³/y to maintain 1000 m³/y per capita water consumption. Egypt can set an example to MENA and Sub-Saharan countries by using geothermal energy for sustainable development and future water and food security.

KEYWORDS:

• Geothermal energy
• desalination
• sustainable development
• food security
• water security
• Egypt

Acknowledgments

The authors extend their appreciation to the International Scientific Partnership Program ISPP at King Saud University for funding this research work through ISPP# 0099. DC thanks the Director, IIT Hyderabad for providing logistics in the preparation of this MS.

Conflict of Interest

The authors have no conflict of interest in this work.