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Google Releases Geothermal Potential Map of the US
a_hanso writes "The Google funded Enhanced Geothermal Systems research at the Southern Methodist University has produced a coast-to-coast geothermal potential map of the United States. Having invested over $10 million on geothermal energy, Google seems to believe that it is our best bet at kicking the oil habit (especially now that nuclear power has suddenly become disproportionately unpopular)."
Probably about the same time all those wind farms start blowing Earth off it's orbit.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
You do realize that we already pipe energy from one side of the country to the other right? The "Long Wires" are for the most part already there. Upgrade, enhancements will be need but the framework is in place.
Actually, we don't. At least not significant amounts.
The USA is essentially 3 main power grids without much interconnection between them (but it's planned).
Check out this map:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398
(turn off the "proposed" lines to see what the grid looks like today)
A hurricane has about 6e14 W. You might be able to create somewhere around 8kJ/day if you found a way to harness all your gas. That's about 1e-1 W. That's a difference of 15 orders of magnitude.
The earth has geothermal energy of about 1e31 J. 15 orders of magnitude less than that is 1e16J. That's less than what Zimbabwe uses annually. The core is radioactively replenished at 30TW. As of 2007 there was already 10GW of geothermal electric capacity. That's only 4 orders of magnitude. So no, it's not a fart in a hurricane. I am flabbergasted by these findings. I thought for sure you were right.