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Geothermal Power Advances
An anonymous reader writes "A group of geothermal power engineers have created three reservoirs from a single well in a place where none existed previously. This is a breakthrough for Enhanced Geothermal System technology — people who need power often can't choose a spot where there happens to be a geothermal reservoir, and EGS could allow us to create them where needed. 'Last fall, engineers pumped cold water into the ground, cracking open fissures in the deep rock, a process known as hydroshearing. They then sealed one reservoir from the other using a new technology. They injected ground-up recycled plastic bottles, which plugged up the cracks in one reservoir while millions of gallons of cold water were being pumped in to create another. Then the plastic diffused, leaving behind three reservoirs. ... The U.S. Department of Energy, which is covering half the $43.8 million cost of the Newberry project, says if the initial indications hold up, the Newberry project would mark the first time in the world that multiple geothermal reservoirs have been created on purpose from a single well in a new area.'"
No Sir, anything but. Not fracking at all. Fracking is only done by the evil gas companies...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
dumb summary is dumb. and no I'm not going to rtfa.
n/t
The libs will want to institute more government regulations over theoretical earthquake risks and so forth, interfering with the efforts of businessmen to create wealth and jobs.
Problems with things like this and fracking have an easy fix - just require the management of all involved companies to live right on the site of project. If they are willing to eat their own dogfood then you know it's safe.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
So does this mean that we no longer have to concern ourselves with recycling second time around Bio-Degradable plastic bottles?
I've seen videos of Everclear-- uh, I mean "tap water" -- that lit on fire because of fracking!
The gas in the groundwater is caused by improperly sealed boreholes. This can occur in wells regardless of whether they use fracking or not. Fracking, per se, does not cause flammable groundwater.
Except for when the problems start occuring decades after the work has finished.
J.C. Denton is going to be real mad.
Even if they are immediate (or pseudo-immediate such as causing caner in the workers) people would still take these jobs. There are tons of jobs which have contaminated the local area and caused all sorts of health problems. The jobs may or may not pay really well. The point is if they pay well people are willing to take that risk. People still START smoking even now despite knowing the risks. Evaluation of risk is tough. It isn't even really possible in many cases. Even if you were an expert in a field which made it possible for you to evaluate you would likely lack the data to do so.
So what exactly happens to this? Makes its way up to the surface eventually and generally fucks shit up I assume.
I was actually referring to the infamous youtube videos of supposedly ordinary tap-water that was incredibly flammable due to fracking and just so happened to burn in exactly the same way that Everclear/Bacardi 151/etc. would burn when lit on fire....
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Wikipedia excerpt
"The main target depth was set at 15,000 m (49,000 ft). On 6 June 1979, the world depth record held by the Bertha Rogers hole in Washita County, Oklahoma, at 9,583 m (31,440 ft)[3] was broken. In 1983, the drill passed 12,000 m (39,000 ft), and drilling was stopped for about a year to celebrate the event.[4] This idle period may have contributed to a break-down on 27 September 1984: after drilling to 12,066 m (39,587 ft), a 5,000 m (16,000 ft) section of the drill string twisted off and was left in the hole. Drilling was later restarted from 7,000 m (23,000 ft).[4] The hole reached 12,262 m (40,230 ft) in 1989. In that year the hole depth was expected to reach 13,500 m (44,300 ft) by the end of 1990 and 15,000 m (49,000 ft) by 1993.[5][6] However, due to higher than expected temperatures at this depth and location, 180 C (356 F) instead of expected 100 C (212 F), drilling deeper was deemed unfeasible and the drilling was stopped in 1992.[4] With the expected further increase in temperature with increasing depth, drilling to 15,000 m (49,000 ft) would have meant working at a projected 300 C (570 F), at which the drill bit would no longer work.[citation needed]"
At least you pump heat from below the ground to the surface faster than normally?
Maybe it doesn't matter much.
Also there's no risk the plastic reach water you want to drink or go up to the surface and spread plastic around?
I know the US doesn't care much about spreading plastic around but it still isn't good.
Geothermal power is one thing, but I'd rather see more heat-pumps using ground loops. Schools, malls, hospitals, sports stadiums could all use them.
If geothermal heat was tapped for power to meet all our energy needs on the same scale as coal, gas, and oil are used now, would there be any consequences for the planet? Would that be more than just an extra drop of what already leaks into space past the insulating crust through volcanoes? Would it increase entropy? Would it ultimately cool the Earth faster? Would it slow its rotation or mess with plate tectonics?
shh, dont spoil the woosh
A lot of heat is lost deep inside.
Well yes, that's an astute observation about an invitation to gay sex, but shouldn't you be bringing this thread back on topic?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
TFS' title. "Geothermal power advances" is such an informative title, but it does the job, I guess.
What could possibly go wrong?
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Creating three reservoir out of one well will mean one thing - each reservoir will have less than one third the potential power of that one well.
Damn, if only you'd been around to tell the scientists this before they wasted their time.
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest it's actually a lot more complicated and non-linear than that, that these guys know what they're doing, and the article just doesn't go into quite enough detail.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Uh, what? This sounds too bad to be false.
I was hoping for a conversation improving my knowledge about the pros and cons of geothermal powers being created. Potential power output, number of places this would be useful, etc... Jumping on a political football doesn't seem as useful.
There are 3.2 gigawatts of geothermal power connected to the U.S. grid, less than 1 percent of the grid's capacity. Government estimates put the potential for new discoveries of conventional geothermal power at about 30 gigawatts, and EGS at more than 100 gigawatts over the next 50 years.
We can safely assume that the oil companies can sleep soundly at night.
Troll 2.0 Fear my asocial networking!
Fracking doesn't cause flammable groundwater, frackers do. It is the same problem we have with all potentially dangerous sources of energy - money grabbing douchbags are in charge of it and will gladly skimp on safety to make a few extra bucks.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
If I had a well that was suddenly flammable, you can bet your sweet ass I'd figure out how to separate the gas from the water, and use BOTH.
Hell, I'd use the gas from the water to power the pump, and the separator. And a generator, and maybe pipe it to my stove and water heater.
When life hands you lemons...
.... so if we pump hydraulic fluid into the ground to break apart the rocks, destabilize the underlying Earth, and possibly release tons of sequestered hydrocarbons into the atmosphere, all for the purpose of chasing some pie in the sky green energy initiative that will never pay for itself (in an energy sense), it's a-ok.
But if we do it to recover the hydrocarbons, preventing them being simply released into the atmosphere, it's evil evil evil.
I see.
Digging holes in the ground and just adding water to produce steam is not a bad idea. Doing so where you have no control where the water goes is a disaster waiting to happen. When you add extra pressures and stresses on rock within the ground, you weaken the techtonic plates, and run the risk of an earthquake. If you directional drill into the ground, much like a potato masher, then you control with precision where the water goes, how much water goes in, how much comes out, and if you are running the steam directly past a turbine, you don't run the risk of sending dissolved minerals past the blades of that turbine. Further, you don't weaken the techtonic plates, you strengthen them (because of the steel pipe structure), and since the ground there will be cooler, the plate will also be more dense, and therefore stronger still.
I'll tell you where they should start building geothermal plants and lots of them, Yellowstone! This is one of if not the largest supervolcano on earth. If we could start cooling down some of the huge magma lake below this pristine wilderness, maybe, just maybe, we could delay the inevetible eruption. In the process we may just be able to pospone a worldwide extinction event. That's extinction folks! I'm sure the conservation nazis would go nuts, but, we would be saving them too. Also, there is an awful lot of energy building up under Yellowstone. Enough, maybe, to power the entire U.S., Canada, and Mexico. OK, OK, so Old Faithful may not remain so faithful, but at least we will remain alive. To add some backround to my ravings, Yellowstone erupts on average every 600,000 years. It's been 640,000 years since its' last eruption! Just sayin'!!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
... what? So they've found something to do with recycled plastic, bury it. Yeah, progress.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.