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Pouring Water Into a Volcano To Generate Power
Hugh Pickens writes "Until recently, geothermal power systems have exploited only resources where naturally occurring heat, water, and rock permeability are sufficient to allow energy extraction. Now, geothermal energy developers plan use a new technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of the dormant Newberrry Volcano, located about 20 miles south of Bend, Oregon, in an effort to use the earth's heat to generate power. 'We know the heat is there,' says Susan Petty, president of AltaRock Energy, Inc. of Seattle. 'The big issue is can we circulate enough water through the system to make it economic.' Since natural cracks and pores do not allow economic flow rates, the permeability of the volcanic rock can be enhanced with EGS by pumping high-pressure cold water down an injection well into the rock, creating tiny fractures in the rock, a process known as hydroshearing. Then cold water is pumped down production wells into the reservoir, and the steam is drawn out. Natural geothermal resources only account for about 0.3 percent of U.S. electricity production, but a 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report projected EGS could bump that to 10 percent within 50 years, at prices competitive with fossil-fuels. 'The important question we need to answer now,' says USGS geophysicist Colin Williams, 'is how geothermal fits into the renewable energy picture, and how EGS fits. How much it is going to cost, and how much is available.'"
What could possibly go wrong . . .
All your database are belong to U.S.
They've been there, done that:
http://www.punageothermalventure.com/
A 30 MW plant producing heat and energy from the world's most active volcano. An 8 MW addition was just approved, and the utility (HELCO) is looking to expand even further:
http://www.hawaii247.com/2012/01/06/helco-announces-plans-to-expand-geothermal-energy-on-the-big-island/
If there is an area that has a shot at 100% of their electricity from non-petroleum sources, it's the Big Island, with abundant wind, solar and geothermal options.
Sounds like someone took The Day After Tomorrow a little too seriously...
Seriously, though, any method of producing energy will necessarily have a negative impact on something. Here in Norway, we have a lot of "clean" hydropower, but that has always faced opposition from environmentalists worrying about salmon and other fish, and from the native Sami people in the north. If you want to reduce global CO2 emissions, you are inevitably going to damage something else in some way. It is always a tradeoff, trying to find the least total negative impact.
for i in `facebook friends "=bday" 2>/dev/null | cut -d " " -f 3-`; do facebook wallpost $i "Happy birthday!"; done
...is also useful to generate cobblestone, especially on some pvp maps.
When asked why, the answer is almost always: "It's 2014".
Volcano God plenty angry now. Flatten peasants' puny city.
Have gnu, will travel.
The turbines are produced by Halliburton — I've seen the red Halliburton truck dragging one up Bottle Rock Rd. on a massive flatbed.
Sorry but no. Most of the Geysers turbines were manufactured by Toshiba Corp (sorry, PDF), with the exception of 2 turbines which were manufactured by GE (these may be retired now). New or replacement turbines are definitely competitively bid, since my company bids on them. Halliburton doesn't make steam turbines. If indeed you have seen Halliburton at the geysers, they must have been a transportation contractor or something like that.
As for the "superfund site", I can't find anything on this that is less than 15 years old. And this report from 1983 says there is nothing hazardous at the Geysers. I'll agree it is a very old report and standards have changed since then, but the only other EPA document available is in 1995- they seem to have capped some wells that had the potential of a hydrogen sulfide explosion. Hardly the "drums full of toxic chemicals" that you are implying.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
- 1) There's now incentive to stop really harmful activities
there is ?!?!!?! do you think gulf spill was the first dumbfounding disaster in corporate history ? what makes it any different now ?
- 2) Those private businesses that cause harm pay compensation for their harm
will that bring back 2000 or so dead people ?
- 3) Those businesses go away, if they cause enough harm.
did exxon mobil go away ? did pfizer go away after poisoning hundreds of thousands in india ? have bp gone away ?
Read radical news here
Forget AGW - though I don't agree with you on that (that's another discussion)
The real problem is that when you indiscriminately burn junk like plastics and other long-chain polymers, you end up with dioxins and furans. Those are some seriously toxic chemicals coming out of that mix. It's essentially burning an unholy mess of everything known to man that we ever throw out. Any of those toxins get into the water supply somewhere, you've got SERIOUS problems!
And why burn the compostable solids, anyway? We've got a better use for them; really composting, and then using the compost as manure for our gardens and farmlands...