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The Potential of Geothermal Power
EskimoJoe wrote with a link to an AP article about progress in the development of geothermal energy. A Swiss company is competing with another in Australia to be the first to commercially develop a geothermal power plant. The concept is simple to understand: earth's core heat transforms water into steam, which in turn causes a turbine to revolve. The potential, though, is enormous. "Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment. A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over. It said an investment of $800 million to $1 billion could produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S."
Actually it would make it cooler, since that energy was already heat, and we are changing it to electricty....
If an investment of $1 billion could "produce more than 100 gigawatts of electricity by 2050, equaling the combined output of all 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S." then we would all be getting our electricity (and probably all of our fuels would be made using electricity) from geothermal sources.
Since I have some faith in studies from M.I.T. it seems like the writers are off by a few orders of magnitude. Probably they meant $800 billion to $1 trillion?
A study released this year by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said if 40 percent of the heat under the United States could be tapped, it would meet demand 56,000 times over.
Why do science journalists insist on giving human-unfriendly numbers like this? Is 40 percent feasible? No. Does 56,000 times hold any special significance? No. So why don't they say that 1% would meet demand 1,400 times over? It's a lot more realistic and more comprehensible for readers. Or why don't they say that the USA need only tap a thousandth of a percent of its heat to more than completely power the country? That's more relevant.
No, the summary said a "Swiss company is competing ... to be the first to commercially develop a geothermal power plant," which is nearly word-for-word what the actual article said. The article reveals almost nothing, unfortunately. The Wikipedia article to which you linked isn't clear, but the few geothermal plans mentioned in it seem to be spotty efforts, not a large-scale one. The corporation that owns most of the existing plants isn't doing too well in terms of stock price, so I'm assuming that's what "commercial" is referring to, that there's been a breakthrough in profit-making in the area of geothermal power generation.
Capitalism in action. Fuck the environment unless it makes you money. At least it might work out in the environment's favor this time.
Human nature in the western culture, you mean. IIRC American Indians, many African cultures, and even our old agricultural society were much respectful of the environment. Current myopic stance started with the industrial revolution, which i suspect was carried off by few powerful people.
As a side note, i also think we've been trained to think that the possibilities are communism, fascism, or the status quo (which is not capitalism and with no real free market, both being result of what the banking and insurance big fish decide).
Instead scientific and technological development didn't need to victimize the environment, or replace spirituality, or try to replace religion.
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OK, so who let the morons out of the bag? The benefit of geothermal energy is not to reduce the amount of heat energy rejected into the envronment. ALL of the energy we use ends up there anyway. Thermodynamics and such, I won't bore you with the details.
But every ton of CO2 released into the atmoshere has a devastating effect on our lives. Not that CO2 is poisonous, but if significantly effects the absorption of solar energy. Why do you think there are record floods in South Asia, the polar ice cap is melting and huricane season is no longer simply interesting. It is because the condition of our atmosphere is changing.
Power produced by geothermal energy does end up producing heat. But it has an almost unnoticeable effect on our environment, and when it is shut off, its effects are shut off. This is absolutely not the case with fossil fuels, especially coal.
So get to know the science, and be afraid. Be very afraid.
The only long-term workable solution is to require less joules per day per happy person, but that's unamerican. You are assuming that even a minuscule change in the planetary heat flux balance will have an effect. So why don't you calculate it. Current worldwide energy use is at about 15 TW. This accounts for about 0.03 W/m^2. Human caused radiative forcing is currently at about 1.5 W/m^2. You are asking everyone to live in a cave for 0.03 W/m^2?!? You sound more anti-technology than pro-environment. In reality, it is less than 0.03 W/m^2. A lot of electricity comes from hydroelectric, wind power, and solar power which have a minimal impact (though you could argue that they change the albedo by a very minor amount).
IIRC American Indians, many African cultures, and even our old agricultural society were much respectful of the environment.
Bullshit. The American indians simply lacked the technology to have a significant impact on their environment until they got horses, at which point their population expanded and they routinely exhausted hunting grounds, and became far more mobile as a result. As for African cultures, the majority of the Sahara desert became so because of goats, which were protected from predators by humans.
The fact is, it's the industrialized world that first became concerned about the environment, because we're rich enough to have the luxury of considering issues beyond subsistence.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"Human nature in the western culture, you mean. IIRC American Indians, many African cultures, and even our old agricultural society were much respectful of the environment."
Slash and burn will not feed 6,000,000,000 people! The "cultural revolution" you are suggesting has already been tried by China and was found wanting (for food mainly).
"Instead scientific and technological development didn't need to victimize the environment, or replace spirituality, or try to replace religion."
So exactly what would you like to throw out, since throwing out ALL "scientific and technological development" (ie:ideas and tools) put's humans somewhere below birds on the eveloutionary tree of brain-power?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Perhaps, but;
- The Geodynamics project is in the middle of a desert in South Australia. The nearest river is hundreds of kilometres away.
- That heat is energy. The HDR system uses that energy to turn turbines, and recycles the water back down the bore. There is no excess.
Excess heat is as relevant to a HDR generator as CO emissions are to an electric motor."I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
That said, I am sure that someday in the distant furure, such concerns would be warrented. I can forsee a day when the power needs of the earth and the technology is such that we would be tapping heat more directly from the mantle or core in amounts that we might be able to affect the magnetosphere by cooling the mantle/core significantly. This is not a problem for these projected plans. I would be doubtful of our ability to cool even a localized area enough that we could accomplish something like "eliminate the possibility of the Yellowstone supervolcano erupting." We have to keep in mind the scale of our activities compared to the size of the earth. Our ability to communicate only makes the earth seem to be small....
Finally, on the subject of heating the earth: all electricty generation and consumption creates heat. We take fossil fuels from deep inside the earth and burn them, generate electricity and consume it, converting it back to heat as we do. This is all heat that would not have otherwise ever been found on the surface of the earth. Or we can take heat that is rising to the surface of the earth anyways, fast track it to the surface, generate electricity and do the consumption/conversion thing. Yes, we bring heat to the surface, but since it was on its way to the surface anyways, it seems a no brainer to me.
"All the other places the heat flow is too low to be usable for anything else than house heating."
Stirling engine?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
An extension of the word 'drill' , some old oil wells are fairly deep,
and some of them are played out, ie. dry wells.
They might make good exploratory candidates as the first 16,000+ feet is
already drilled on a lot of dry holes.
Some are deeper: ( over 4 miles down )
Deepest well ( in california )(dry hole):
Total depth: 24,426 feet (Point of Rocks)
Year drilled: 1987
County: Kern (Sec. 29, T.30S., R.23E.)
Operator: Occidental of Elk Hills, Inc.
Well name: 934-29R
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
People are people, and trying to ascribe any characteristics to a group like "indians are more in tune with the environment" is nothing but racism.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I call BS. Go look up the Carnot engine. it defines the maximum theoretical effeciecy for converting thermal energy to non-thermal energy. there is ALWAYS excess. Now, a geothermal plant located near the ocean (or even on a platform 30 miles offshore) could use a much larger (and colder) heatsink. -Rob
I was talking about the philosophy of life
WTF do you know about their "philosophy of life"? Do you even realize that you're dealing in stereotypes?
Man, you liberal racists really take the cake.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Better still to use ocean water as a heat sink, and run a stirling cycle engine on the heat difference between surface and deep water temperatures. Bringing hot water up from the vents is a lot more trouble.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Iceland has, for a long time, been exporting energy in the form of aluminum.
Beyond that, oil companies may have no interest in developing a resource that would devalue their existing oil wells, and their leases on the oil fields beneath them. Geo-thermal power would be the monopoly of no country, no region. It would be entirely disruptive of the power structure that the US has just spent hundreds of billions on in the Iraq debacle. It would probably bankrupt all existing car manufacturers, since electric-car competitors can be nimbler if small, and would need very little from currently patented automotive tech.
This power source would also create a public perception of abundance, which would lead to demands from the working and middle classes that we return to offering things like the free public university educations many states offered until several decades ago, and maybe even, finally, universal health care in America. Only the public perception of scarcity allows the rich to hoard the wealth as we presently do. The perception of an energy crisis supports the "right" attitude among the lower classes. The easiest way to maintain that perception is to actually maintain an energy crisis.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Then again, at that point we'd be using about 139PW. (That is, petawatts.) The earth's surface would be just about the melting temperature of lead at that point.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
WTF? What's moving?
too dangerous to put a power plant
Right, cause all of Yellowstone is as dangerous as Mt. St. Helens.
any suggestion of digging great big holes is nonsense as well
Since the big holes are already working quite well, I think you're full of it.