Direct uses of geothermal energy in Italy 2005-2009: update report and perspectives

Italy is widely known for the strong expertise in field of geothermal electricity production. Despite the presence of such industrial know how, previous analysis reveal a huge untapped potential in geothermal direct uses. This paper, based on qualitative and quantitative information and expert evaluations, aims at giving an overview of market achievements in the last five years. The situation of direct uses of geothermal heat in Italy, compared with the situation of 2005, appears widely evolved and is rapidly moving to reach significant targets set for 2010. The global growth of direct use of geothermal heat at the end of 2009 in Italy is expected to reach an amount of 1.2 times more than the values of the previous update: 850 MWth and 10,000 TJ compared to UGI-2006 values of 650 MWth and 8000 TJ. This larger contribution, in terms of installed power, is mainly due to the wide development, principally in northern areas of Italy, of geothermal district heating (5-15 MWth unit power) and, in terms of numbers of installations, to single household applications, which are widely applying heating & cooling equipment with geothermal source of small unit power. Analyzing the heating and cooling systems in civil buildings, and in particular the ones that use middle depth or shallow geothermal resources, a relevant impulse to the growth of geothermal industry has certainly been obtained by the large increase of geothermal heat pumps systems, fed by ground heat with horizontal or vertical exchanger, or by hot water extracted with shallow depth wells both in open or closed loops. At the moment, the number of companies which provide HPGS in Italy is growing very fast and thus, in the near future, a continuous growth of the geothermal direct uses is foreseen. The market development is driven by challenging applications as the ones, characterized by a high level of technology integration, in progress in Grado (Udine) and Milan. In the past five years, the geothermal direct uses reached a greater interest than in the past also from the designers' community. Hence, as a consequence of the market dynamics, the unitary cost of the geothermal installations is decreasing and, at the same time, the need of new and specific regulations, both regarding performance and environmental preservation, is increasing. The lack of shared databases of authorized plants and of shared rules for their classification represents the main barrier for further research. For this reason, new investigation and acquisition of detailed multidisciplinary information are required so as to support the development of public policies and private strategies

Plio-Pleistocene geological evolution of the geothermal area of Tuscany and Latium

The Southern Tuscanv-Norrhern Latium area has been affected by a complex geological evolution during Neogene times. Starting from Miocene, several subsidence episodes, alternated with periods of differential uplifting, brought to the development and closure of some marine and continental basins. Since Pliocene, an intense and widespread magmatic activity .has also interested this region, characterized by a space-time eastward migration of the magmatic centers and by a strong variation in time of the magma composition. Very high heat flow values are observed over the whole area, which represents one of the most interesting geothermal Italian regions. In this paper we present an attempt to combine the stratigraphical, geochronological, volcanological and geophyslcal data in an unifying picture of the regional structural evolution, and of the relationships between Neogene sedimentary basins, subsidence and uplift phases, and rnagmatic activity. New biostratigraphic datings of the Pliocene successions have been performed, together with several radiometric, K/Ar and 39Ar/40Ar, datings of Plio-Pleistocene volcanic, from samples of outcropping and subsurface sequences. The geothermal wells drilled by ENEL, and by J.V. AGIP-ENEL, integrated by results from surface survey’s, have permitted to define the present thickness of Pliocene sediments, the geometry of the bottom surface of the Plistocene volcanic cover, and the map of the present altitude of Plio-Pleistocene marine sediments reflecting the sum of the total vertical movements. The chemical composition of Pleistocene volcanic complexes of the Northern Roman Magmatic Province has been investigated, tryng to delineate its temporal evolution. The subsurface geoogy of the area has been finaly analyzed in the light of drilling results and of gravimetric and thermal data. Since Pliocene, a very intense extensional tectonics affects The investigated area. Two Pliocene sedimentary cycles can be distinguished, leading to the deposition of sedimentary successions up to two thousands meters thick. Subsidence movements appear more intense in a relatively narrow, NW-SE trending belt close to the Apennine range, while the Tyrrhenian side suffers a less developed subsidence witnessed by the deposition of several discontinuous, not very thick sedimentary piles. Pliocene magmatic activity sets up just on the Tyrrhenian border, with the emplacement of several intrusive bodies and the extrusion of prevalently acid crustal anatectic magmas and of minor subcrustal mafic melts. We suggest taht the different structure presented by the western side of the investigated area could reflect a primary role of a diffuse intrusive process in this area. Pliocene sedimentation stops in the whole area around 2 Ma b.p.; marine sedimentation resumes during lower Pleistocene, inside more eastern basins. The associated volcanic axis (defined by the Radicofani, Torre Alfina, Monti Cimini alignment) assumes a more eastern position than the preceding one, and is characterized by orenditic transitional to potassic magmas. During Pleistocene, the regional stress field undergoes a strong variation, connected to the opening of the Marsili basin in the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea. Positive vertical movements seem to prevail since Middle-Upper Pleistocene, probably linked to the strong isostatic uplift of the Apennine chain. The present geometry shown by the Neogene sediments mainly reflects this uplift phase. The potassic vo1canism of Roman Magmatic Province starts in the wholele region (and probably also further South) around 0.6 Ma b.p., showing a strict relationship with the new prevailing tectonic regime, this magmatism being distributed along the disengaging zone between the uplifting chain and the subsiding Tyrrhenian basins. A further pulse of magmatic activity occurs around 0.4-0.3 Ma b.p., wlth a very intense volcanicity affecting all the main volcanic complexes, accompanied by a maximum in the compositional spreading o f the erupted products. The time variations of magma composition and the tectonic evolution of the area, shoving a progressive deepening of magmatic sources associated to a general decreasing of extensional tectonics, seem to be strongly related. In this picture, the present heat flow anomaly would represent the residual of the thermal anomaly associated with the Neogene extensional setting

Un diplomatico vaticano fra dopoguerra e dialogo: mons. Mario Cagna (1911-1986)

Raccolta di saggi su uno degli "operai" della Ostpolitik vaticana: mons. Cagna, primo nunzio della santa Sede nella Jugoslavia di Tito e nell'Est Europa, arriva a quella sede attraverso una carriera diplomatica che lo porta, dopo i primi anni in America Latina, alla nunziatura d'Italia, poi a Tokio, di cui Cagna (che concluderà la sua carriera a Vienna) sarà una figura significativa

GIUSEPPE DOSSETTI STUDIES ON AN ITALIAN CATHOLIC REFORMER

Giuseppe Dossetti is a name barely known outside Italy. Some may remember his role within the Christian Democratic Party in the early years of the Italian Republic. Readers familiar with the history of the Second Vatican Council may have heard his name as one of its most important ghost writers and theologians. However, to most, his biography remains more or less unknown. One the purposes by the John XXIII Foundation - created by Dossetti in 1953 - was to fill this gap with papers presented to the 2006 Bologna conference, for the decennial of Dossetti's death. Among them the most important for an international readership are gathered in this volume