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."

Comments

Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[gbulmash]

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.

Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[tracore]

This has already been done and the research is going on now at ITER. This should be one of the last research reactors ever built. It is built to generate 500 MW for 400 seconds. After this reactor its on to large scale deployment. http://www.iter.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ITER http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_confinement_fusion

Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[ThePeices]

yes, it is definitely possible to 'deplete' a geothermal resource, but it will recover given enough time ( lots of time ). For example the Wairakei geothermal field here in New Zealand has depleted somewhat because they oversized the geothermal plant when it was built and it has been running for 60 years! ( but we forgive them, it was built in 1958, and it is the second oldest geothermal power plant in the world ). The wikipedia article on geothermal power describes depletion in more detail

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[BlackPignouf]

"solar probably can't deliver the wattage".

Yeah, right, it's not like the sun would deliver 168 PW to the Earth at any given time, while mankind "only" uses 500EJ a year.
500EJ/168 PW ~= 50 minutes worth of solar radiation would be enough to power whole mankind for a year.

Geothermal sources can really be interesting, but you need to find good ones, and still dig a few kilometers if you want to get high-quality heat and produce electricity. You don't need to dig an inch to collect solar radiation.

Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[meringuoid]

Strange to think that a place called Iceland has so much available heat for power generation.

Legend has it that the name of Iceland is an ancient Viking fraud. Erik the Red sailed out into the ocean beyond Scotland, and discovered two new countries there: one rich and green and worth settling, and one frozen and barren and utterly worthless. He named one Iceland, and the other Greenland; when he got home, all the other Vikings rushed off to claim lands in Greenland, and Erik got to keep Iceland for himself.

Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air?

[meringuoid]

After posting this, I fired up Wikipedia and read up on the actual history.

Iceland had already been settled by Erik's time - he didn't discover it. He was exiled from Iceland because of some killings with which he was closely associated, and he sailed away to the northwest, where the existence of land was rumoured but unconfirmed. It's true that he gave it the name of 'Greenland' for marketing purposes, hoping to encourage settlement there, but during the Mediaeval Warm Period Greenland wasn't quite as inhospitable as it is today, so we cannot fairly accuse Erik the Red of fraud. Only murder. But he was a Viking, so that's to be expected.

heheheh

[WindBourne]

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.