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West Virginia Is Geothermically Active
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region."
Makes me think researchers are idiots; folks who live there have known about the hot springs for hundreds of years.
Places with names like 'White Sulphur Springs' suggest anything? And there's a cave I've been in nearby (admittedly over the line in Virginia) with water temperatures over 100F.
Will they be scraping even more mountains off the planet to get to it? Will they fill the remaining creek beds up with the effluvia from getting to it? Will they keep even more public roads under a permanent state of "repair" and detour to disguise the fact that they're simply ruining more tax funded roadway with heavy machinery? Will they drive residents out of even more entire towns due to blasting damages and constant noise from heavy machinery? Are they going to do anything with the energy rather than find cheaper ways to dig coal? WV has two industries, coal and railroad. If they replaced coal money with energy money the railroads would die. They won't let that happen. They've been fighting off a 3/4 MV high tension line for years, you think they're going to allow an energy exporting industry to pop up, string wire for multi MV lines and sell electricity to its neighbors now that they're got them hooked on WV coal? I lived there are loved it. But I realized the state is owned by stockholders for whom green is considered a place to dig. Even of they took advantage of a chance to do something good, they wouldn't do it right -- they'd do it cheaply to maximize profits and the population would suffer the effects. WV *was* green. It's owners don't give a shit about green.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
It's green energy and you have to drill to get it.
Oil Well drillers want to put a hole in the ground and get money out of it. Simple as that. Most oil wells last about 20 years (if lucky). A binary geo-thermal well will last 50+ years assuming that you do not pump it too fast.
Dems run around throwing money at Wind (meh) and Solar PV (a waste of money). Yet, the simple answer here is to not just support geothermal, but do it in a smart way. Most dry wells are ran down to about 10'K feet. Yet most heat is in the 10-20'K feet arena. So who not offer up a tax break for dry wellers to drill down to that region to locate heat. This would not occur everywhere, but it would occur where ever heat is generally known to exist. With this approach, drilling companies bear the first half of the risk while gov. then helps in the second half.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, it would never dawn on a mining state to be interested in obtaining lithium, Rare Earths, etc. Nor would they or the EPA know how to handle this correctly.
Skipping the sarcasm, the drilling will likely be a binary system, and would be a good way to obtain minerals, elements since it is a by-product. Then what is left can be re-injected back in. Basically, it turns a well from a energy producer into a energy and mineral producer.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Although very generous, I think it's a bit of a stretch to call Google's grant to SMU a "collaboration", or to only mention Google and omit any mention of USDOE and other entities that have been funding this research at SMU and elsewhere for many years. For example, this this report from 2006, which points out the potential of the thermal hotspot in West Virginia...
It doesn't have the cool Google Earth graphics, however.
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
5km is a bit too deep for coal fires.
In any case, 200C at 5 km is also quite deep for economically viable hydrothermals. That is "deep drilling" territory which is quite expensive. As the article notes Nevada has it at sub-2km, so does most of Europe along the Alps fault line.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Actually, drilling is far more environmentally cleaner than is mining. Mining normally involves tailings, except for Coal. With coal, they simply strip mine it as you have pointed out. Geo-thermal, is a fairly clean operation. Yeah, it has its issues, but they are SOOO much less than Coal. In fact, it is around the same as Solar PV, and even less than Wind. Solar PV involves some pretty wicked chemicals. Likewise, Wind requires loads of Rare Earth Elements, iron, etc. In the end, you have to pick your poison on where you are going to get your energy. Myself? I will take geo-thermal. Ideally, we would allow all energy to compete on a level field, rather than allowing politicians to pick it by who lines their pockets.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Uhhh...have you actually SEEN the slushpits around the mines here in the USA? It ain't like the EPA has had any teeth in years buddy, sad to report. Instead of doing what would be sensible, forcing mines to pay into a fund so when the ore runs out the money for cleanup will be there, no our corporate booty kissing government just gives them carte blanche to do as they please, and then when the mine runs dry they just dissolve the company and leave We, The People, to clean up the mess. As an example you might want to read up on a little slice of heaven known as a superfund site.
I'm not a NIMBY, which especially don't apply here since I'm not in WV (thank Jebus), and I'm all for nuclear and mining, but I'm just as much for corporate responsibility which sadly has been DOA here for a couple of decades here at least.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Too bad Senator Byrd passed away, he could have diverted tens of billions of dollars to WV to fund this effort, then we could have had the Robert Byrd Hot Air Energy Generation Facility, and his legacy would live on!
Ken
Yeah, it would never dawn on a mining state to be interested in obtaining lithium, Rare Earths, etc. Nor would they or the EPA know how to handle this correctly.
They know, but they don't care.
Skipping the sarcasm, the drilling will likely be a binary system, and would be a good way to obtain minerals, elements since it is a by-product. Then what is left can be re-injected back in. Basically, it turns a well from a energy producer into a energy and mineral producer.
It doesn't work that way. What comes out of the earth is usually heavily contaminated and it's not cost-effective to try to separate it. Separating the metals takes a lot of big stuff that you don't want to build next to a geothermal hotspot because they're seismically active. When you start pumping stuff into the ground you increase the seismic activity. In order to pump the stuff into the ground at all you'll need to add water, which is going to have to be pumped in.
I live near to (formerly right next to) The Geysers, the most geothermally active spot on the planet. There is a geothermal plant there which is perpetually over budget and under-producing power compared to expectations. The turbine blades build up with heavy metals including arsenic. When there's enough to interfere with efficiency the turbines are suspended over an open pit and pressure-washed. The water is permitted to evaporate off the pit, and when it's full enough they pour a concrete cap on the pit, build the walls higher, and start again. This is an EPA-approved plan.
Before the EPA got involved they were filling up drums with the stuff and burying it in a field on Butts Canyon road. Then we started having cows born with two heads and stuff like that. They dug it up, put in a plastic liner, and reburied it. In another few decades we can have the same problem all over again.
When the steam started to run low due to overuse we started pumping sewage into the ground to add steam pressure. This worked, but seismic activity was multiplied by a factor of two or three. A massive lawsuit resulted in a payback program for local homeowners who can show seismic damage.
In short, the only kind of geothermal even suitable for use is heat pipe heating/cooling. It's not useful for large-scale power generation. We simply do not have the scruples necessary as a species to do geothermal power correctly. Also, the EPA is a bad fucking joke with no teeth, and suggesting that the EPA will protect us is preschool-level naivety.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They tried it in Basel (Switzerland), didn't work out too well for them.
Which makes me think of a question maybe someone here at /. can answer: Can miners/drillers set off enough "little ones" to cause a big one? The reason I ask is I was recently shown a map I found most disturbing. A friend is working processing geological data for a wildcat drilling company, which since 2003 or so these groups have been given the keys to the kingdom around here since the economy has been down here since the factories closed ( which BTW we have lost 42 THOUSAND in the USA since 2001, thanks greedy corporations!) and the earthquake data was scary. Before they showed up we are talking an average of 1.4 on the Richter scale, and only one every decade. Since 2004 we are talking dozens in the 2.4-3 scale, all concentrated in tiny areas near the wells.
So my question is this: If these guys set off enough earthquakes in that range, can they set off New Madrid, which we are on? Not that it really matters much in the end I suppose, as we are so "corporation yay!" here they could dump their garbage on the court house steps and everyone in the chamber of commerce would pretend its roses, but those places that aren't complete corporate whores might want to watch out if it is possible. Of course if they did cause a disaster I have no doubt they'd just fold the corporation and walk away with the cash, which is why I think we need serious corporate reform in this country, not that it will ever happen.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
They should check other states. Maybe they too have former state senators/KKK members spinning in their graves at the idea of a black US president?
Either that, or Satan finally came to collect his due.
-Styopa
Near Inferno, West Virginia
Fiery Mountains, pyroclastic rivers
Life is doomed there, 'midst the blackened trees
See the mighty mountains tremb'lin like leaves
Lava flows, take me home
To the place that erupts
West Virginia, baleful mama
Take me home, Lava flows.
May the Maths Be with you!
WV has a bad reputation, and story URLs like that are not going to help
If they are setting off earthquakes they would be releasing tension which would have only amounted to a larger earthquake at a later date.
Actually brown coal can act as a nice insulating blanket over geothermal heat sources so you can find the hot stuff closer to the surface than expected. There is research looking at that in the Latrobe Valley in Australia. Also in Australia is an ongoing project to map likely geothermal sites along the path of existing power transmission lines.
Transmission losses ARE a big deal NOW since most lines are made of aluminium and consumers may be 1000km from a power source. There's also weird stuff with harmonics I don't understand that means it's best not to try to push those electrons too far if you want to get some use out of them.
Here we were, blaming undergrads for those couches pulled off of porches and set ablaze after WVU football games... and all along, it was just spontaneous combustion as hot spots poked through the surface...!
mmm... yeah... You see, we're putting the cover sheets on all TPS reports now before they go out...
Current drilling tech gets us to 10 kilometers or so, so the short answer is "yes."
Considering we're willing to (and do) drill for oil that deep I can't see depth being the real problem here.
=Smidge=
Not that this comment will get read, you know, being so far down the page...
Presumably, the hotter the temperature, the better, in terms of generating geothermal energy. That means that the eastern part of the state (with the exception of the panhandle) would be the best for generating geothermal. However, a lot of that land along the WV/VA border is protected: state parks, national forests, national rec areas, and a large number of caverns that are declared off-limits. The Greenbanks radio astronomy telescope is also in that area, and a couple miles around it are restricted from having wireless communications or other serious electrical equipment that could interfere with radio astronomy.
On the other hand, if coal ever goes out of fashion, I guess the state will have to make a decision - with coal and tourism being our two biggest sources of money, I guess they'll have to decide whether the state parks are more valuable for tourism or generating power.
Indeed, all energy sources are of finite supply, but its a question of scale. There's a finite amount of fossil fuels, the sun only puts on a finite amount of light and the lifetime of the Sun is limited, and there is a finite amount of trapped heat inside of the Earth. In fact, there is a finite amount of hydrogen available in the universe with which to form stars. But we as a species are trying to maintain our style/standard of living out as far as possible - currently, our efforts are at extending our society beyond the availability of fossil fuels. One day, hopefully, we will be trying to extend our society beyond the life of the Sun. The issue now, is how do we get beyond fossil fuels?
The ultimate energy source, for which we all hope, is to master controlled fusion. We're not there yet. So we look to other sources to fill the need as fossil fuel supply dwindles. Together, solar, wind and geothermal may be able to bridge the gap. If, as some suggest, fusion will forever be illusive, then I'm afraid we're already screwed.
As to your question, IIRC, at current consumption rates, we would barely make a dent into the stored heat inside the Earth; however, you are correct, if we continue to grow consumption and suck heat out indefinitely, it will eventually make a difference, but that is hopefully far enough out into the future that it permits us to perfect fusion.
Which makes me think of a question maybe someone here at /. can answer: Can miners/drillers set off enough "little ones" to cause a big one?
Yes. Doesn't even have to be mining. Deep well injection set off a series of earthquakes in Denver in the 1960's -- when what they were injecting was millions of liters of nerve gas from Rocky Mountain Arsenal. Yes, indeed, your government funds at work: make hundreds of thousands of pounds of wildly toxic weapons of mass destruction in contradiction to signed treaties, and then when you have them all and don't know what to do with them, pump them into a 25,000-foot-deep hole. They lubricated an old slip fault and caused a half a dozen earthquakes.
The thing is: it's not easy to tell, prima facie, whether you're going to cause a bunch of little earthquakes, or one big one, by doing this. It has been proposed that we should try to set off small earthquakes on purpose, to reduce the strain on tectonic plate boundaries and reduce the chances of a much larger quake, but there's no way to ensure that it would do that rather than just setting off the larger quake right now. If we do that, even if it just sets off small quakes, the situation is no longer an earthquake that's an act of God, but an earthquake that's an act of man, meaning even if it's much smaller than it would have been, specific people are now liable for causing an earthquake, and that's a legal minefield.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.