Posted on 02/23/2013 7:31:03 AM PST by Kaslin
Geothermal electricity generation is very popular in Iceland.
We should be using more hydroelectric here. Its kind of like geothermal in the sense that you can only produce it in certain places but some places have it in great abundance.
Geothermal power plants have been in the US for around a hundred years.....but its location location location.
Until the Greenies start screaming about robbing Gia of her internal heat.
There is already a movement by the luddites, I mean greenies to stop it claiming it causes earthquakes. In Switzerland, they have already sued one operator.
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-03/does-geothermal-power-cause-earthquakes
Right here in little ol’ Boise, Idaho, the state Capitol building is heated by geothermal energy. Apparently it’s the only Capitol in the U.S. that can make that claim.
If we drain all of the heat from the earth’s interior the continents will stop drifting and we will become a dead planet like Mars. /sarc
Northern California:
Environmentalists Sue Over Medicine Lake Geothermal Plans
By Don Thompson, Associated Press
May 20, 2004
http://www.klamathforestalliance.org/Newsarticles/newsarticle20040520.html
From what I've read, that underground water is extremely corrosive. There is no such thing as a free lunch and if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Yeah but these geothermal plants are causing the earths core to cool down quicker thereby causing earthquakes from the crust shrinking. The democrat party will soon put a stop to this madness or perhaps tax it out of business.
The only free lunch is for democrat voters and their masters.
Geothermal is the way to go! After all, according to Al Gore, winner of the Nobel Prize in Climatology, just a couple of thousand feet below the surface, the temperature is two million degrees. And all that energy is just free for the taking! (/s)
1. MOST geothermal resources are not resources that are plentiful in terms of location.
2. The geothermal steam may be “free”, but tapping it, harnessing it and cleaning it (very briney) for running steam turbines is not.
3. Like all “mass production” energy, geothermal energy use depends on the same paradigm that electric energy began with - mass distribution systems; but the paradigm for the future should be in advancing technologies that provide more energy in-situ and reduce the reliance on massive power grids for electricity.
Capitol buildings are naturally heated by an abundance of hot air...:-)
Living in Western Pennsylvania it's well known that coal mines, mushroom and storage caves stay at around 50-60 degrees F year round.
So there is a difference in temperature (as well as pressure I would guess) most of the year. Couldn't that difference in energy levels be used to generate power at some, admittedly low level?
I suppose that is the concept behind heat pumps that are used here with some degree of success. However I'm thinking much deeper, say 1000 - 10,000 feet or more.
IIRC the temperature goes up 1 degree for every hundred feet or so in depth.
Now with the fracking going on there are lots of deep holes being drilled. Could those holes serve double duty especially if the gas flow dwindles?
Utah State prison is geothermally heated. Saves taxpayers over a million per year.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/595077054/Prison-taps-geothermal-aquifer.html?pg=all
... and the 'pants-on-fire' phenomena... :P
I believe it was considered in Hawaii, but people there feared the weight of the plants would tip the islands over. /s
Nowhere to go but up.
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=ora&insttype=&freq=2&show=&time=13
It isn’t cheap if you do it wrong. Drilling for hot water is much like drilling for oil, you have to hit rocks with the right conditions to economically generate energy. Drilling is expensive, and it takes a lot of planning, luck, and money to hit the “free” energy.
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