Hellfire Exploration: the origins of ground source heat in early mining technology

Abstract

The ground source heat pump (GSHP) was first used in 1862, for freezing ground in connection with sinking a shaft in Swansea, UK. It was subsequently developed in Germany in 1882-83 into the “Poetsch process” for freezing ground during construction of mine shafts. The Poetsch process was an indirect closed loop GSHP system, circulating a chilled brine from a heat pump around a network of coaxial borehole heat exchangers. These early systems typically employed ammonia as a refrigerant and a calcium or magnesium chloride solution as the brine. Such a system was used in 1904-1906 to sink the shafts of Dawdon Colliery, Co. Durham, UK through water-bearing Permian strata. Also, around 1904, the Newcastle-based turbine pioneer, Charles Parsons, suggested that such a GSHP system could transport heat to the surface during the construction of a 12 mile deep “Hellfire Exploration” shaft, that could potentially access geothermal power.