This isn't your gradfather's geothermal (assuming, of course, that your gradfather came from Iceland or New Zealand or any of these other countries built on top of active volcanos...)
This is smack dab in the middle of a tectonic plate, geologically stable enough to be considered for burying nuclear waste (preferable encased in Synroc), and a _bloody_ long way from the nearest sulfurous vent.
This is using heat from radioactive materials in solid rock, not steam from magma bubbling just below the surface.
They'd have to pump the water in, because there's bugger all of it out there! (OK, there's the Great Artesian Basin, but this area is isolated from that by a few kilometres of impermeable rock. Which is why the whole scheme is possible in the first place.)
This is quite different to most geothermal installations, though. Most of them utilise vulcanism, with all the attendant sulfur and such to cause the corrosion and scaling. This scheme is in granite that contains low-level radioactivity and should be relatively clean to pump water through.
The basic idea is to force water/steam into one hole to open up some fissures, then pump water through those fissures to generate steam that goes up an outlet pipe to drive a turbine. The water's reclaimed and re-pumped down the feed bore.
Environmental impact should be minimal, and there's hardly any ecosystem there to affect anyway. This region was chosen for the Woomera rocket range for exactly this reason. Australia's about 90% of the area of the continental USA, and much of it looks exactly like this area; arid or semi-arid rocky plains.
For transactions over a pre-defined amount (and the customer can change it), the bank sends a code via SMS to your mobile phone, with an expiry time to enter it. OK, you have to have a mobile phone, but how many internet banking users don't?*
*Rhetorical question. No need to enumerate yourselves.
http://libwise.com/ have been doing the equivalent things with ebooks for years, using Mobipocket's DRM. Works OK; I've used it for trying out books that I might not care enough for to be happy buying.
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The most famous haarp practitioner I know of was definitely a Marx-ist...
Comments like this could get you in hot water...
(Remember the vile Sir Les Paterson (Minister of The Yartz) comments about Australia being the "Arts End of the World"?)
This isn't your gradfather's geothermal (assuming, of course, that your gradfather came from Iceland or New Zealand or any of these other countries built on top of active volcanos...) This is smack dab in the middle of a tectonic plate, geologically stable enough to be considered for burying nuclear waste (preferable encased in Synroc), and a _bloody_ long way from the nearest sulfurous vent. This is using heat from radioactive materials in solid rock, not steam from magma bubbling just below the surface. They'd have to pump the water in, because there's bugger all of it out there! (OK, there's the Great Artesian Basin, but this area is isolated from that by a few kilometres of impermeable rock. Which is why the whole scheme is possible in the first place.)
Environmental impact should be minimal, and there's hardly any ecosystem there to affect anyway. This region was chosen for the Woomera rocket range for exactly this reason. Australia's about 90% of the area of the continental USA, and much of it looks exactly like this area; arid or semi-arid rocky plains.
There's a transcript of an article with quite some depth (ahem.) here. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1 440622.htm
For transactions over a pre-defined amount (and the customer can change it), the bank sends a code via SMS to your mobile phone, with an expiry time to enter it.
OK, you have to have a mobile phone, but how many internet banking users don't?*
*Rhetorical question. No need to enumerate yourselves.
http://libwise.com/ have been doing the equivalent things with ebooks for years, using Mobipocket's DRM. Works OK; I've used it for trying out books that I might not care enough for to be happy buying.
About time someone analysed it. Now all we need is the antidote and someone at Apple will be able to stop him before he (e.g.) sues his fanbase!