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Alaska Looks To Volcanos For Geothermal Energy
Iddo Genuth writes "Alaskan state officials have recently announced their intention to begin funding the exploration and surveying of Alaska's largest volcanoes in hopes of utilizing these as a
source of geothermal energy. They say this volcano could provide enough energy to power thousands of households, and according to some estimates, Alaska's volcanoes and hot springs could supply up to 25% of the state's energy needs."
While very neat, if we did tap geothermal resources nationwide to get up to supplying 25% of our electrical needs within a few decades, we'd still be behind Iceland. According to Wikipedia, Iceland generates 26.5 of its electricity from geothermal power. Strange to think that a place called Iceland has so much available heat for power generation.
Going a bit astray, has anyone seen the episode of Science Channel's "Eco-Tech" featuring the rooftop windmills designed by Aerotecture? Pretty cool.
Start a happiness pandemic
I have been suggesting that for Colorado for several years saying that we could own the market. And when I mentioned that here, I was told not a chance since the volcano's are so far south. If they were smart, they would create an x-prize for alaskan companies that build the equipment. This way they end up creating not just cheap electricity, but also multiple manufacturing companies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It the motivation behind the Nu Energy Race in Space.
... she's so hot she could power all of Canada indefinitely!
There is no knowledge that is not power.
Speaking of the lower 48's volcanoes. What about Yellowstone? A super-volcano close enough to the surface that the pressure is bending the crust up. Now there is a prime target for investment. Perhaps we can even vent off enough pressure to reduce the risk of another one of those major blasts that it's known for geologically.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
Xenu will not be pleased.
It's all fun and games until someone loses a city!
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
You want all of /. to drill your GF? Hmmm. Does she know this?
Perhaps America could just boil all of our enemies. There is quite a bit of oil as well as carbon in humans. Our mistake is that we invade nations intending to take their oil. We could be more efficient if we reduced the population to oil as well.
Few people are aware that the British railway ran their steam trains by burning mummies when they occupied Egypt. They had thousands of years of mummies laying about doing nothing useful at all. I mean, good Lord, there's a real pattern at work here. First we kill all the wales for oil and then we quickly turned to fish oil to power America while the Brits burned all the mummies. Now we are down to coal and we were more than willing to kill off all the workers in the coal mines as well as pay them wages that starved them while they worked twelve hour shifts seven days a week. Meanwhile the Brits, never to be out done actually had a military like draft that sent young men down into the mines. And now we are sucking petroleum dry. Go figure!
Some major right-wing relgious group did in fact install a geo-thermal. But it was shut down. They chose to use direct steam, which potentially would drain the water that feeds old faithful. But I think that a binary system would make sense. That way, the heat is used, not the water.
Yeah, I have wondered the same thing. It seems that if you lower the temps, it might make it better. Of course, it could make it worse. But hey, do research during the time that we are taking the heat.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
All they need to do is get that hot little governor they've got up there to do a Playboy photo shoot.
Of course it's going away! On the bright side, it'll make the planet plenty warm in the process.
Between the light from the sun, the air/water currents and the heat in this planet, there's a ton of energy just going to waste. We have all of these 'clean' energy sources, and you want to pick one?
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
So, how many virgins per minute does it require to keep going?
Table-ized A.I.
i was surprised to read that The Geysers, just north of San Francisco, claims to be "the largest complex of geothermal power plants in the world". i guess "largest" is open to interpretation. But here's another startling claim: "The Geysers satisfies nearly 60 percent of the average electricity demand in the North Coast region from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border".
who knew ?
It could be Wyoming. Than she would have to compete against sheep.
What do you call a truckload full of sheep? A Wyoming Whore House.
Anyone else noticed that Iceland is quite a green and verdant place, while Greenland is a large lump of ice?
The opinions expressed here are those of this individual, and may not reflect the policy or practice of the collective
The CSIRO in Australia has been investigating the practicality of producing electricity from granite deposits since the early nineties. Also since the nineties the same organisation has been saying that Australia could produce all it's power and then some from either solar or wind.
The problem for the last 11yrs in this country has been purely political as we stood stubbornly by the US. Because of this misdirected loyalty our power generation remains 90+% derived from coal and we have seen many innovations payed for by taxpayers sold off to private companies in the EU and elsewhere.
Now that our breadbasket (the Murry-Darling basin) is regularly producing half of what it did just a couple of decades ago people are starting to pay attention.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Scary, isn't it? Unless we carefully condense the steam even geothermal energy doesn't solve global warming. And at present, we don't.
me <- geothermal fan
But we have to be aware of the consequences of everything. We can breed our way out of the benefits of geothermal energy in under a century even if we condense the steam.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
* raises hand *
[thanx to some other slashdot poster who used this today]
Help stamp out iliturcy.
They've been ignoring geothermal for years, and it's good that they're finally getting into it. There's so little feasible habitable space that it could make a great effect on Alaska. However, they also have the benefit of wide-open plains that, for the most part, won't be adversely affected by more modern solar methods. Alaska is essentially a geo/solar power source that remains fundamentally untapped, and really has a ton of potential.
That's my plan. We currently have too much goverment 'wealth distribution' Each state should use its own resources. If a state has a surplus, let it sell it. If there's not enough resources to support the population the population needs to spread to more appropriate places. I hear Montana is nice this time of year. States like California have a disproportunate (sp) amount of the countries resources. All border states are moving in this direction due to illegal immigration. (BTW, I believe we have the resources to support controlled/legal immigration, not the free for all and border chaos we have now)
I'm not saying it's a good plan, but obama would like it, because it's Change! ;)
Discuss amongst yourselves.
I'm going to go ahead and mod myself -1 Troll. I am interested in yalls opinions though.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Alaska would be better off drilling ANWR and just burning 1/2 the crude for energy than it would be to invest in geothermal, then selling the rest. They would have 500 billion in cash and enough oil to last them ages. In fact, ANWR is so much money that Alaskans would almost be silly not to think of seceding from the USA to escape environmental laws since the economic impact to that state would be so huge.
Geothermal means drilling and a lot of it. Then, on top of that, you have to have a lot of water to run through your geothermal holes and basically what you've done is create a system that pumps heavy metals back from deep underground up to the surface of the earth.
This is my sig.
So, I read the article, and I thought about commenting on little nuances and details, or about crafting some kind of painfully witty reply that would goad mods into giving me karma points, but I read the article and the most eloquent response I can come up with is "it's about fucking time".
gameDB
Hmmm. So, do a limited resource which is totally unknown, but best estimates of oil are around 10 BBL. IOW, it is just a couple of years worth of oil for America. The humorous part of this is that the oil will simply be sold to Japan or some other place. How long will it last? Maybe 10-20 years. Max. For comparisons, purdhoe bay had 25 bbls. And it is finally running out after 30 years. So, we pump about 1 BBL/year from there.
And you think that a simple 10BBL is worth a great deal more to Alaska than using their volcanos to generate electricity for the next 100 years? If developed, The YEARLY power available from these will exceed the TOTAL power that WAS stored in purdhoe bay. As to the env, you HAVE to be kidding.Geo-thermal is one of the cleanest forms of energy that we have. Obviously, you need to circulate the water back in. But that is not hard. Heck, if done right, this power can be used to power a train acorss Alaska to Russia (via tunnel). It would allow development of the area. And they would still be able to export energy back to Russia, Canada, and the northwest.
And you still push oil? Hmmmm.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The "Big Island" of Hawaii has a geothermal plant rated at something like 25-35 megawatts, which is a meaningful fraction (though not 25%, maybe more like 10%) of demand. More geothermal could be exploited, but there are issues of land ownership (lots of the volcanic stuff is federal land) as well as cultural, religious and environmental sensitivity.
The problem with geothermal energy is that you need to drill hundreds of holes and then you end up with enormous quantities of toxic, heavy metal polluted water run-off. Drilling for oil requires orders of magnitude fewer holes and results in less water pollution.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The oil industry will need a cheap form of electricity to extract all that expensive oil. Awesome.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
The problem is the reliance on PEMs, which are expensive and not long-lived. Of course, thermocouples are also relatively expensive when compared to conventional engines, but at least they last.
I'll admit, this is a great idea if they can get the materials issues for the PEMs worked out (and that's a big if). It would be nice to have a heat pump/engine with no moving parts, but the same efficiency as conventional technology.
That argument is the same one as saying that wind generators wipe out the birds or that CFL have mercury in them.
Yes, SOME wind generators have killed birds (esp one in CA). But over all have not. More important, these are MUCH better on birds than the pollution being put out by coal plants.
The same issue with the mercury in CFL. The CFL has a small amount of Mercury, but FAR FAR less than what is put out by a CLEAN coal plant using a regular bulb.
The geo-thermal requires anywhere from 1 to a 100 holes. But there are plenty of dried wells in places like Colorado that make a great low-temp place (esp, since many wells were already drilled close). Secondly, oil pulls up the exact same sediments. In fact worse, because most are drilling FAR deeper these days. But by using a closed system, esp. with binaries, the pollution on the land and in the air is gone. So that leaves just that below. And since the way of the hole is piping, you really do not interfere with the local water table (barring a shallow heat reservoir). As to the multiple holes, that is also a none issue. Slant drilling works wonders. A single pad with 5 holes will do the trick. Even the EPA says it is one of the cleanest form of energy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I know a single woman who works in Alaska. As she puts it "the odds are good, but the goods are odd".
You've overlooked another form of energy stored in the earth and other planets/planetoids, the sun and other stars: Rotational/kinetic energy.
I once calculated some of that (namely, the rotation of the sun and the movement of the moon, because we really wouldn't want to deccelerate the earth very much), and it's quite huge.
The problems are:
a) Gravity is a bitch. If, e.g., the sun's rotation were slowed, all the sun's planets would accelerate the sun and thus move to smaller orbits.
b) Implementation. E.g. the moon's energy can be used on a small scale by tidal power, but we would want to tap this (and other) sources of energy more directly and with higher power. By the time (if, altogether) we can build a generator to slow the rotation of planets and transfer the energy back to the earth in a way that would suffice humanity's (and maybe our robot overlord's) energy needs, the latter would have increased significantly (if the developments of energy/person and popultion until now are any indication), which would question the feasibility of this energy source. Maybe, by the time we manage to harness (maybe literally?) planets, planetoids and suns, their energy would be useless to us OR we could not implement it because these are the only energy sources that would make it possible to realise it befor the inevitable demise of humanity.
Just me clogging the tubes...
What about all the lost souls that Xenu dumped into them at the beginning of time? The vengeance of the Dark Lord will be swift when he finds out we are scrounging around in his garbage cans. Am I the only one who finds this an insufferable affront to the spiritual beliefs of a great religion?
Iceland's total power consumption per year is more than 7000 GWh. You COULD provide this much with a single coal powerplant, but it'd have to be a pretty big one, in the ~1000 MW range.
Also... yes, Iceland is rather small, especially in terms of population, but if a nation of 300,000 can harness geothermal power, why shouldn't a nation of 300,000,000 be able to? If anything, I'd expect a smaller nation to fail due to - well - being too small. Having more people, more workers, more resources, more money, more researchers and all that is not an excuse for failing - quite the opposite.
these kind of initiatives should be as much explored as possible, it's a very good way of providing power, combined with a lot of other natural sources it could really reduce the polution..
That steam engines ran on burning mummies was a joke by Mark Twain in The Innocent abroad
The full joke is
"The fuel use for the locomotive is composed of mummies three thousand years old, purchased by the ton or by the graveyard for that purpose, and . . . sometimes one hears the profane engineer call out pettishly, 'D--n these plebeians, they don't burn worth a cent--pass out a King!'"
Same applies to Iceland, of course.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Mod that bad boy! Do it!
this was an example of the one of the world's first deceptive real estate naming
real estate developers do it all the time: build a subdivision on top of a brownfield... call it "whispering pines". put a subdivision next to a nuclear plant, call it "bubbling brook"... put a subdivision next to a correctional facility, call it "friend's forge"... you get my drift
anyway, apparently leif ericson, or eric the red, or baldur raganarok, whatever the scandinavian dude's name was, i forget, he needed to persuade colonists to go to the much colder place, so he called it "greenland", as a deception, a joke, a combination of the two, but most likely, as a form of real estate propaganda
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"They say this volcano could provide enough energy to power thousands of households"...good! At last check there's only like 20 people living up there anyway. :P
tongonan geothermal field, in leyte, in the philippines (not my page). i have a friend of a relative who works there as a nurse so i was able to tag along as a civilian, which isn't easy because of the heavy security there
its basically just these huge turbines sitting over a bunch of steam gushing from the earth. its a pretty surreal place because its raining all the time (all that steam). its deep in the jungle and it is a major powerplant for the philippines, so it has all these checkpoints and guys with submachine guns (npa rebels are around). and the geothermal activity means all of the streams you pass are a brilliant cobal blue from mineral run off. it feels like the headquarters for a james bond villain, very doctor no
anyway, about those mineral laden streams stirred up from geothermal exploitation: cadmium, manganese, chromium... not too environmentally friendly, no? you have some of the same environmental issues as you would with any mining via chemical leaching in terms of poisoning the environment
in other words, pick an energy source, any energy source, and it has an environmental downside: wind kills birds, tidal energy increases silting, biofuels inflate food prices for the poor, solar panel fabrication pollutes, etc. such that, when you see all of the upsides and downsides, you realize the choice of energy source is not between evil and polluting and clean and carefree, but choosing between different levels of environmental unfriendliness
given that realization, the best energy source in the world is obviously nuclear (with breeder reactors, to make the byproducts far less worrisome)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I wonder why its taken so long to seriously consider this.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
" Wind and solar probably can't deliver the wattage"
More important than that, what power they can and always will supply will be inconsistent. Wind isn't constant, and everyone has cloudy days. A day with no wind means no power if you're relying on windmills. And during storms, you can overload the grid. Recently in Oregon, a wind farm nearly blew the local power grid when storms pushed wind speeds so high that the windmills suddenly pushed more power into the system than it could handle. Wind and solar will always supplement other sources, not replace them.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
If solar power, which sustains all life on the planet (exotic strains of bacteria aside) isn't powerful enough for our energy needs, then that's saying something... I just don't know what. Cool? Humans are number one!?
Well, considering that the concept of steam power derived from lava flows into the sea is simple, and very doable, its about time!
Sad that so much is overlooked.
For instance, capturing heat from volcanic flows, in the form of steam, and using that to generate electricity, and using that electricity to hydrolize water, and capturing and condensing that hyrdogen for shipment to the islands or even the mainland for hydrogen powered cars, could easily be accomplished with much less engineering work and investment than goes into the run of the mill oil platform. Sea-based, even. Single-platform, self-contained even. Mobile, even. No, not rapid moving, but, yes, movable.
Such methods could easily provide massive revenues from exported hydrogen, and might even be done in such a way that no alteration to the lava flow, or natural volcanic activity, or any possible understanding of intentions interpreted as deliberate and specifically Pele's.
Peace.
Geothermal energy projects exist in the lower 48 as well. U.S. Geothermal is a company in the western U.S. with several plants working or under construction. It is costly to build, and takes time due to permitting issues, but is cheap to maintain, requires minimal labor once running, and of course is far greener than fossil fuels.
I used to smoke sigs, then I found out they were bad for me.
We always hear stories of the "great energy source" about to be found, but a lot of times it does not pan out to anything. There will probably be many technical and cost limitations.
Well, yeah, but that is because of how they chose to implement it. The funny thing is that they are pulling minerals and disposing of them by flushing them. They could either re-inject the water into the ground (but that adds costs and lowers efficiency) OR they could pull these chemicals from the water. I am willing to bet that they a number of them could be sold. Others could simply be flushed into the volcano.
In the end, they really need to make a different choice. They are going to pollute some nice area.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sure the 6 minerals and energy will be fantastic for industry, but think of the eco damange. We'll have mind worms popping up left and right and we have yet to make a single trance sentinel. We need to change the build order pronto!
It's tagged whatcouldpossiblygowrong, but honestly, I can't think of what could possibly go wrong. A volcano, left alone, is already a stupendously powerful but usually inert thing. Note the usually. Worst case senario of an un-tapped volcano is untold orders of magnitude worse than worst case senario of a nuke plant, so what, exactly, could possibly go wrong?
We trigger an eruption? Not likely, we couldn't if we tried, we as a species can't generate enough power to set a volcano off, so it's especially impossible that we do it accidentally.
Our power station gets too much heat and melts? That's fine, once the pumping stops the holes will self close, they may ooze a bit first, but if you live or work in the vacinity of an ACTIVE VOLCANO you should really be prepared to deal with some seepage as is, just as floridians really don't have an excuse for not being prepared for hurricanes.
Terrorists? Somehow I doubt it, I mean, what's the point? "We have sacked the alaskan geothermal power station, now where are those virgins?" I suppose it could happen if you really thought there'd be virgins waiting for you, but how is that different than if they sacked a few windmills? I smell a crappy low budget hollywood comedy brewing...
Bears? Perhaps the most rational of the fears so far, could you imagine a grizzly with volcano power?
Seriously, what could go wrong?
Probably another one of Ted Stevens' "earmarks". Should be enough to add another addition to the house.
"Others could simply be flushed into the volcano."
Now that's an intriguing option for the modern bathroom.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
the only power sources that are not derived from the energy from the sun are nuclear and geothermal.