(GP/GT) for Additional Water Supply in the Lower Rio Grande

III-27
III. B-4
BINARY POWER PRODUCTION USING GP/GT BRINES
The heat content of GP/GT brines constitutes a valuable resource for exploitation in the production of
supplemental quantities of electrical power via proper use of binary power generators, perhaps coupled
with solar ponds. The practice of using binary generators is already well established, as are uses of solar
ponds, particularly in Israel. The residual heat content of GP/GT brines, combined with heat absorption
from sunlight in solar ponds, enables the efficient production of electricity at costs considerably below
those of conventionally generated electrical power.
Solar pond technology is still evolving but, to date, it already constitutes a viable technique for the use
of submerged binary-power generators to drive a highly volatile working fluid around a closed loop in
which is included a turbine that generates electricity. Because the working fluid vaporizes at relativel y
low temperatures (in the range of 100" to ISO"F), it enables the effective use of "exhaust" temperatures
after the hot emerging GP/GT brines have been utilized at higher temperatures for, say, desalination of
mildly to moderately brackish groundwaters.
A comprehensive paper on Binary Power generation was presented at the GovernmentlIndustry
Consortium Conference for the Commercialization of the GP/GT Resource, held in February, 1991, at
Austin, Texas, under the auspices of the UT/Balcones Research Center and the UT Center for Alternate
Energy Studies. We have reproduced it herein in full, to illustrate the potentials of this technique as a
method of utilizing the energy residuals in GP/GT brines prior to their eventual disposal or other viable
techniques covered in this section, and it is enclosed as Appendix C.
It is clear from our investigations, that the mUltiple energy potentials in GP/GT brines constitute a
valuable resource for the enhancement of the economics of electrical power production as well as those
of desalination. To the extent that these energy potentials can be realized in an economic manner, the
costs of producing potable water as well as significant quantities of electricity could be reduced to levels
that would make such water and power more competitively available, either for on-site usage or for the
open market, depending upon the particulars of a given site-specific operation.