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Iceland Seeking 'Supercritical Steam' For Power Source (bbc.com)
New submitter FatdogHaiku writes: Already getting over 25% of its electrical power from geothermal sources, Iceland hopes to break new ground using "supercritical steam" from a 5 km deep borehole. Is it just me, or does this sound like the start of a movie where everything that can go wrong does in fact go wrong? It's not like they are new to the tech, but working with geologic sources at 450C to ~600C is a new ball game for anyone. It should be noted that Iceland also uses direct geothermal for most of its space heating. "In this area at Reykjanes, we typically drill to 2km or 3km depth to harness the steam, to run power plants and produce clean, renewable electricity," explained Asgeir Margeirsson, CEO of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project (IDDP). "We want to see if the resources go deeper than that." The "supercritical steam" holds more energy than a liquid or a gas. The team wants to bring it up to the surface to convert into electricity, as they believe it could produce up to 10 times as much energy as the steam from conventional geothermal wells.
what kind of pipe they use for this kinda thing, im thinking some kind of ceramic metal hybrid?? Temps and sulfer corrosion must be a major PITA to deal with.
Why do people insist on calling those thing renewable? How exactly do you renew sun or earh?
The sun should probably be called reusable as nothing we do on earth can affect the output of the sun. We can block it from reaching the surface with pollution but we can't change it's output. Many of the other "green" technologies I wonder about. Wind power is a good example. How much energy can we take out of the air with windmills before we start seeing an effect on the weather? Is it really completely free? Massive geothermal is another example. How much energy is down there and are we going to screw things up by depleting it? Even if there is plenty of energy down there we are still releasing extra heat into the system so we are still adding to the global warming problem. I wonder if 100 years from now if we find out that some of our free and green energy sources are not as free and green as we originally thought.
Of course we haven't figured it out. Too many goddamn hippies tell us that we need to preserve the pristine nature of the area... so we made it a park and forbid any serious effort to try to poke around at it and make any useful headway.
Then you have morons like the guy on scienceforums.net that says "The idea is like trying to put a pin into a balloon to let just a bit of the air out." Idiot doesn't realize that there is a way to do just that. Put a piece of tape on the balloon; poke a hollow needle coupled with a valve into balloon through the tape; have as much control as the valve allows to let the air out slowly without bursting the balloon. Using science it'd be easy enough to figure out a method to tap the volcano and bring it under control for man's usage in much the same way.
There's all this talk of making America great again as a leader in business and scientific innovation, but it just isn't going to happen until we get over this fear of death and killing thing going on right now. You can't make a damn omelette without breaking a few eggs. Likewise you can't make meaningful progress without killing a few people in experimental ways. Case in point, how many test pilots died as we tried to figure out how to get into space? How many people died from the effects of radiation exposure and gave us a better understanding of nuclear technology from it? How many people died in the construction of the various skyscrapers that dot the oldest American cities? True progress can't happen without the deaths to learn from.
Wind power is a good example. How much energy can we take out of the air with windmills before we start seeing an effect on the weather? Is it really completely free?
The short answer is yes. Trees also slow down wind and we are short on those, literally — old growth is taller. We can see a minor localized heating effect downwind of a turbine (due to turbulence and a reduction in wind speeds) which is rapidly lost in the chaotic noise.
Massive geothermal is another example. How much energy is down there and are we going to screw things up by depleting it?
So far the only problems we're actually seeing (or even imagining) with geothermal are increased seismicity and pollution. Radioactives come out of those vents with the water. These are both real problems, though. It would be interesting to do the math and figure out how much of humanity's energy needs would have to come from geothermal before the delta would be significant. Well, it would be interesting for someone else to do it, since they might do it correctly, and then report back.
I wonder if 100 years from now if we find out that some of our free and green energy sources are not as free and green as we originally thought.
We already know geothermal to fall into that category, but we have no reason to suspect it of wind. Solar, of course, can involve toxic manufacturing processes, but barring those it's not going to cause any substantial problems until it dramatically changes albedo. Mostly they don't change it much because of where they are located, and anyway a solar panel with a white back (as most of them have) is going to reradiate most of the unused energy back into space (or at least the atmosphere) through the usual mechanism.
There's no good reason to believe that wind or solar have a negative environmental impact. There is exceptionally good reason to be concerned about the implementation details when it comes to geothermal.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"