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Another Casualty of Typhoon Haiyan: Geothermal Power
necro81 writes "Little known even in environmental circles is a renewable energy success story: five geothermal power plants on Leyte Island in the Philippines — each of which produces enough power for the entire island — that collectively produce more than 10% of the Philippines' total electrical demand. From boreholes deep underground comes pressurized water heated to 280 Celsius. At the surface it flashes into steam, turning one set of turbines, then cools and contracts to spin a second set of turbines. The low-grade steam is then condensed back into water and reinjected into the bedrock. But Typhoon Haiyan destroyed the cooling towers, snapped transmission towers, and scattered the employees."
Such a shame, hopefully they plants can be repaired quickly. And hay, apparently they are much safer than the alternatives.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Come on NYT! That not paradoxical; it's ironic.
Regardless, this is an odd way to frame the story. Such a storm would (and did) destroy other kinds of power plants. Geothermal power is not a casualty of the typhoon.
The Phillipines is poor enough that a storm like kills a lot of people, but it's getting richer fast. I'm not a geothermal engineer, but I'd assume a very expensive bit of building a geothermal plant is creating the boreholes in the first place, and then keeping them from collapsing. If the hole survived it should be much cheaper to repair then it was to build in the first place. IOf there was enough business to justify it then there's probably enough to justify rebuilding it at a lower price.
Hell, if they had a good insurance policy it won't cost them a dime. Their rates will skyrocket in the future, but at least they'll have their electricity back.
To swiftboat almost any anything that Big Industry (in this case, Big Oil) considers a threat/nuisance. WTF do they think would have happened if an aging TEPCO reactor was in the same storm? I wouldn't like to be there and find out. How would a deepwater oil platform have fared?
I'm pretty much sick of what passes for "news" these days. It's all pretty much shameless puff pieces and hit jobs because that's what corporations pay for.
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That's it, we've reached the tipping point. The environment is now attacking the environmentally friendly sites first feeding it ever increasing amounts of carbon and making it's stronger.
The scientists did warn us about a runaway chain reaction.
And if we had a single coal plant, no one would be worried.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I don't like coal. Global warming? Meh who gives a fuck.
But living where alot of coal plants are in use... There's this fine fine black soot on everything.
They seem to crank the plants to 200% at night. And in the morning there's soot everywhere.
Whatever it is it even makes it thru high quality air filters and sticks to everything. Water won't wash it off either.
I don't give a fuck about the planet and global warming. Because really. I won't be alive long enough for us to even admit its a problem.
But i kinda do wonder how much of that black gunk is ending up in my lungs... And lungs.. I'm kinda using those.
"Massive country is deriving 10% of their electricity from geothermal"
Because if you ask random people, they may have heard of Iceland doing geothermal, and think it only works well there.
I dunno, it occurs to me that this leads us to a dark place, where any creation of energy is condemned because it has some effect on the environment, without any appreciation of scale. (In this case, the (paltry, in comparison) geothermal energy actually in use by the plant vs the several orders of magnitude higher thermal energy contained within the earth's core.)
It reminds me of a conversation I had several years ago with a Green, regarding fusion power, where I described taking sea water, separating out the deuterium for fuel, heating the water to drive turbines for power, and using a portion of that power to continue the process. (This is probably impractical for several reasons, but it was what I knew at the time and served "for sake of argument".) Her reaction was indignation that I would mine sea water for an isotope and dare to heat water to drive turbines, both of which clearly had an impact on the environment. At that point I realized there would be no solution that would be considered acceptable, and avoided the topic in the future. This was also when I came to realize that regular people often have no sense of scale.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
On the contrary, renewables like wind and solar are very fragile. Both on a local scale, and on the extensive grid that they require to deliver some semblance of reliable power. Any typhoon or hurricane will totally destroy wind or solar farms along with the grid, and leave a completely non-functional energy system.
Nuclear plants on the other hand are very robust against natural disaster, and allow for a highly distributed and reliable energy system. Along with small modular reactors there will be an ever decreasing dependance on a nation-wide grid.
"renewable energy success story" : ha! Power reliability has always been a significant problem in Leyte. All businesses in Tacloban CBD have backup generators which they fire up at least a couple of times a week, sometimes daily. The city is often accompanied by the hum of diesel generators.
I recall articles in National newspapers talking about constant power shortages across Visaya's region, with rolling blackouts where Northern Luzon region (where Manila is) has plenty of supply.
Maybe it is mostly a transmission problem, not a generation problem, but constant rolling blackouts suggests an enduring generation to me. Hardly a success story
I hope you pointed out to her the impact she's having on the environment by drawing breath and suggested a few painless ways that she could immediately and permanently reduce her carbon footprint. If suicide is too much to contemplate, people like her are always free to give the hunter-gatherer lifestyle a try. Something tells me that civilization would look pretty good after a few days of persistence hunting.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The next typhoon might wipe out sensationalist headlines. Yeah I know, that'd be one heck of a storm. It takes a mighty wind to compete with what passes for journalism online. That storm might not be mighty enough to take out Congress though. Wheeeew, Nelly!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
My experience has been that Greens who suggest mass suicide as a solution for environmental impact, never seem to be referring to themselves.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Where "massive" means half the size of Pakistan or Nigeria. How about "Medium sized country built on volcanoes has 10% geothermal power"? I'm guessing you wouldn't care ffor "Geothermal useless for 90% of volcanic island's energy needs".
American Indians were well-fed and left resources in the same abundant state as when they arrived.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
For one thing, the core is much thicker than the atmosphere. And we haven't even dug through the crust. The core is a little farther away.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Any needless consumption of energy whose results are unknown should be abhorred. The endless cycle of having to buy new crap because the old crap failed (as opposed to the endless cycle of buying new crap because the old crap is outdated, which we could at least debate) is really an insufferable lot of shit. And there's just a lot of energy going to waste when it would cost very little to retain more of it. And then of course there's war, which these days is a horrible consumer of energy and producer of pollution. War's always had significant environmental impact, but it's well off the charts now by ancient standards. To deforestation you can add all kinds of fun goodies like depleted uranium.
You're right about the lack of sense of scale, though.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Uh, no. You only think that because by the time English and French colonists arrived the population had collapsed as 70 to 90 percent of everyone between Point Barrow and Tierra de Fuego died from introduced European diseases. Many Native American cultures collapsed when they exceeded their environment's carrying capacity, such as the Maya, the Mound Builders and the Anasazi.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
No one really knows what happened to the South American Indians. You tell a story that fits with your ideology. But the North American Indians, when the first white men arrived, were well-fed and lived in a land that had abundant resources, which were as abundant as when they arrived. They didn't need gold, for example.
No one really knows what happened to the South American Indians.
What on earth are you talking about? The Spanish barbarians recorded **exactly** what happened, and seemed to glory in the chaos and destruction they left in their wake. They thought that their vengeful god protected them from the diseases that were killing the heathen native peoples by the millions. When the first Spaniards traveled down the Amazon river they found large, prosperous cities lining the banks. A few years later when the Portuguese traveled up the same river they found ruins of abandoned cities already returning to jungle.
Perhaps you're under the misapprehension that the English and Spanish were the first Europeans (or 'white men' if you prefer) in North America. When Cabeza de Vaca and other Spaniards explored the northern Gulf Coast there were thriving cities and large trade associations. Others exploring (or shipwrecked) on the Atlantic coast found the same. By the time the English and French arrived the countryside was largely empty.
They didn't need gold, for example.
No one needs gold, except for chip manufacturers. Are you trying to point out that other civilizations had different economic systems? If so, then I can only say "Duh!" If that's not what you're saying then please clarify.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin