Larderello
Larderello is a district of the municipality of Pomarance ( province of Pisa ) in Toscana in Italy , which is 390 meters above sea level . Larderello has 850 inhabitants and is wholly owned by the Italian electricity supplier ENEL .
location
The place is in the center of the so-called valley of the devil (ital. Valle del diavolo ). This area, covering an area of around 200 square kilometers in the Cecina Valley , takes its name from its boron-containing soffioni , i.e. white steam fountains that shoot out, as well as pools and ponds formed by hot springs ( lagoni = large lakes).
history
The Etruscans used the boron salts that could be obtained from the lagoni as medicine and needed them as a glaze for ceramics. Roman sources report this and record the correct geographic location. The area was also known in the Middle Ages.
In 1282, a steam explosion triggered by volcanic processes occurred in the crater that today forms the 250 meter diameter Lago Vecchienna, as a result of which the area was covered with a layer of volcanic ash several centimeters thick.
A settlement was founded in the 19th century by François Jacques de Larderel , an industrialist of French origin, who perfected the production of boric acid from the boron-containing sources here in 1827, which has been operated here since 1818. In doing so, he relied on preliminary studies by Uberto Francesco Hoefer , the patron of the Tuscan pharmacies and in this respect an advisor at the court of the Grand Duke. Church and school from the original settlement still exist.
In the 20th century, geothermal energy from the Soffions was used in a completely new way to generate electricity: in 1904, the world's first geothermal power plant was built in Larderello . Electricity production has been going on since 1913, and for a long time Italy had a unique position in this technology.
From 1931 steam wells were drilled to generate additional energy, which made the first cooling towers necessary from 1937. Enel SpA, which has been operating the power plant since 1962, had a system built step by step that feeds the steam directly into turbines and is still one of the world's largest geothermal power plants. Due to the multiple further development of the systems, the power plants now generate a total output of 545 MW. The geothermal power plants built by Enel in Larderello, Travale and on Monte Amiata generate around 1.5% of the total electricity produced in Italy. In Tuscany the share of use is 45%. (As of 2006)
Geothermal Museum
The museum, set up in 1956 under a dome tent, documents the development of boron extraction in the past and electricity generation today. Groups can also visit a soffione and a reconstructed lagone by appointment . There are information sheets in German about volcanism and geothermal energy in the region.
Type locality
As an active boron deposit, Larderello is a good location for minerals containing boron . In addition to the best-known boron mineral borax and its weathering product tincalconite , datolith and sassolin as well as various sulfates and silicates were found here. Larderello is also a type locality for the minerals ammonioborite , biringuccite , larderellite , nasinite , santite and sborgite .
Web links
- Picture gallery of the technical systems and the landscape
- Geothermal energy, in general. In German
- In Italian , esp.
- Geothermal Museum, in German, with satellite image
- image
Individual evidence
- ↑ Herbert Brandt: The world's first volcanic power plant is working . In: The New Universe . A yearbook of knowledge and progress , vol. 70, Union Verlag, Stuttgart 1953, pp. 101-105.
- ↑ PDF file information for teachers and students, paragraph facts: 3. Deep geothermal energy ... (page 4)
- ↑ For more details, also on the minerals of the region corresponding to volcanism, see Valley of the Devil
- ↑ Mindat - type locality Larderello, Pomarance, Pisa Province, Tuscany, Italy
Coordinates: 43 ° 14 ' N , 10 ° 53' E