Alaska Looks To Volcanos For Geothermal Energy 230
Iddo Genuth writes "Alaskan state officials have recently announced their intention to begin funding the exploration and surveying of Alaska's largest volcanoes in hopes of utilizing these as a
source of geothermal energy. They say this volcano could provide enough energy to power thousands of households, and according to some estimates, Alaska's volcanoes and hot springs could supply up to 25% of the state's energy needs."
Re:Yellowstone is funny (Score:4, Interesting)
After your initial water investment, you wouldn't really need a significant amount of additional water at all if it was a closed system. I believe that's the general principal in most Geothermal usage wells.
Geyserville, CA (Score:5, Interesting)
i was surprised to read that The Geysers, just north of San Francisco, claims to be "the largest complex of geothermal power plants in the world" [geysers.com]. i guess "largest" is open to interpretation. But here's another startling claim: "The Geysers satisfies nearly 60 percent of the average electricity demand in the North Coast region from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Oregon border".
who knew ?
Don't need no stinking volcano... (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem for the last 11yrs in this country has been purely political as we stood stubbornly by the US. Because of this misdirected loyalty our power generation remains 90+% derived from coal and we have seen many innovations payed for by taxpayers sold off to private companies in the EU and elsewhere.
Now that our breadbasket (the Murry-Darling basin) is regularly producing half of what it did just a couple of decades ago people are starting to pay attention.
Not a problem, really (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air? (Score:5, Interesting)
Even if you succeeded in running Anchorage off geothermal, what the hell are you going to do for the rest of the state? At best, this is a ploy to get more resources into the Mat-Su valley [wikipedia.org] which isn't all that bad, but I don't see this as a big starter for most of the state or, more generally, for down South (ie, everywhere else). Powerlines to Seattle would cost an awful lot of money.
Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air? (Score:4, Interesting)
Geothermal power is nice, but does have its limits. There are reports suggesting that heavy use of geothermal power can increase the frequency of mini earth tremors, which is probably not good. Also, you are not generally tapping the earth's core (which has plenty of heat) but some local magma reservoir (which has rather less) or a channel through which magma flows (which is not much of a reservoir at all, and could in principle be blocked, which may explain said earlier reports).
In the long term, fusion power is the best solution, but the technology necessary to achieve fusion is taking a painfully long time. I still favour rounding up the fusion scientists, locking them in a building in Alaska with as much money as they can possibly need, and slowly turning down the heat until they quit with the politicking and bitching about whose method is "better" and get something that works.
In the short term, fusion isn't going to happen nearly fast enough to handle the present or any future oil crisis. Geothermal power can. As others have mentioned, other countries use it extensively, such as Iceland and New Zealand. Alaska could probably benefit from it, and the Pacific Northwest is riddled with volcanoes and magma reservoirs. The Pacific Northwest is also a major energy user, making it an ideal place to have major generators.
LOL (Score:3, Interesting)
And you think that a simple 10BBL is worth a great deal more to Alaska than using their volcanos to generate electricity for the next 100 years? If developed, The YEARLY power available from these will exceed the TOTAL power that WAS stored in purdhoe bay. As to the env, you HAVE to be kidding.Geo-thermal is one of the cleanest forms of energy that we have. Obviously, you need to circulate the water back in. But that is not hard. Heck, if done right, this power can be used to power a train acorss Alaska to Russia (via tunnel). It would allow development of the area. And they would still be able to export energy back to Russia, Canada, and the northwest.
And you still push oil? Hmmmm.
Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's cute. Ummm, what on Earth (no pun intended) are you talking about and how did you get modded informative?
We will probably never get *any* energy from the Earth's core at all. The crust of the Earth alone is 3-5 miles thick under the oceans and 15-35 miles thick on the continents.
Now, the Earth's core is thought to have at least half to ninety percent of it's energy generated from nuclear decay. That means we CANT draw all that energy off at once, even if we could draw it all in the first place. We would be rationed. There is also tidal forces to consider as well. The orbit around the Sun and the Moon for example can generate large amounts of energy in the Earth's core too.
Drilling even 20,000 feet is an ACCOMPLISHMENT. To my knowledge, and I have been on drilling rigs and know people in drilling companies, we have never broken 50,000 feet commercially. So ANYTHING we do is going to be in the CRUST, and not the mantle and certainly not the core. To get to the mantle of the earth on a continent we would have to drill in excess of 75,000 feet. I am pretty sure that at that depth concrete won't do it to create a stable pipeline and you will need some pretty neat material to withstand those stresses and keep a hole open.
Furthermore, the Sun provides an incredible amount of energy. Off the top of my head I think it is near 400 watts per square meter or approximately 1.8*10^17 WATTS total at any given time. That's a lot. 90%+ of the energy present in the crust of the Earth comes from the Sun. The core is providing a negligible amount of that power and most is probably received through direct volcanic activity and not emissions. Don't quote me on that, it's just a guess.
Considering that, in 2005 we required nearly 500 quadrillion BTUs of energy for the whole planet. Nearly 700 quadrillion is projected to be required in 2030. So let's just top that off at a nice quintillion BTUs. After multiplying that by .293 to convert to WATTS we get 293 quadrillion WATTS of energy. That is also PER YEAR. How much of that can be provided by the energy received from the Sun in the crust? 100%.
So basically the Sun can give us all the energy we will need for one year in one day and probably be done before breakfast is over.
We would have to use ALL the energy from the crust of the Earth FASTER than the SUN can replenish it BEFORE we could even begin to siphon off energy from the core.
So yes, you are correct that the energy at the Earth's core is not unlimited, nor is energy unlimited in the Sun or from any orbit. However, for a VERY LONG TIME we would only be able to suck a small droplet of blood of what is sure to be a gargantuan beast of energy. To say we could ever consume enough energy to surpass the energy provided by the Sun at any one moment is just fantastic, awesome, and up there with the Tooth Fairy.
You may also want to consider that the 293 quadrillion BTU requirement represents an INCREDIBLE amount of waste and inefficiency with our processes. I bet that by the time we get to 2075 (if we are not dead already) it will be because we figured out how to survive on far less than that.
Works in Hawaii... (Score:4, Interesting)
The "Big Island" of Hawaii has a geothermal plant rated at something like 25-35 megawatts, which is a meaningful fraction (though not 25%, maybe more like 10%) of demand. More geothermal could be exploited, but there are issues of land ownership (lots of the volcanic stuff is federal land) as well as cultural, religious and environmental sensitivity.
Re:Proton Exchange Membranes (Score:4, Interesting)
In a heat engine, there is a maximum theoretical efficiency which may be achieved. This is dependent on the difference in absolute temperatures between the hot and cold reservoirs. For example, if your hot reservoir is 1000K, and your cold is 300K, the maximum theoretical efficiency is 1-300/1000 = 70%. In the coal plant you were referring to, the actual efficiency is likely very near the theoretical efficiency (mechanical engineers have done a good job at achieving high efficiencies with mechanical systems). It is impossible to improve upon that without violating the laws of thermodynamics.
Of course, no moving parts means that you may be able to operate at much higher temperatures (you'd need a ceramic PEM to sustain the higher temperatures).
Not true (Score:1, Interesting)
Iceland's total power consumption per year is more than 7000 GWh. You COULD provide this much with a single coal powerplant, but it'd have to be a pretty big one, in the ~1000 MW range.
Also... yes, Iceland is rather small, especially in terms of population, but if a nation of 300,000 can harness geothermal power, why shouldn't a nation of 300,000,000 be able to? If anything, I'd expect a smaller nation to fail due to - well - being too small. Having more people, more workers, more resources, more money, more researchers and all that is not an excuse for failing - quite the opposite.
Re:Water vapor is a greenhouse gas (Score:3, Interesting)
actually I would use two or even three turbines. Geothermal generally use a closed loop water system.
two turbines on for high pressure steam, one for low pressure steam. A third turbine like those built in damns for water. The water heading back down to the geothermal source by gravity could generate additional power.
It's actually heat plus COLD air. (Score:4, Interesting)
Same applies to Iceland, of course.
i've been to the one of the biggest in the world (Score:3, Interesting)
tongonan geothermal field, in leyte, in the philippines (not my page) [wordpress.com]. i have a friend of a relative who works there as a nurse so i was able to tag along as a civilian, which isn't easy because of the heavy security there
its basically just these huge turbines sitting over a bunch of steam gushing from the earth. its a pretty surreal place because its raining all the time (all that steam). its deep in the jungle and it is a major powerplant for the philippines, so it has all these checkpoints and guys with submachine guns (npa rebels are around). and the geothermal activity means all of the streams you pass are a brilliant cobal blue from mineral run off. it feels like the headquarters for a james bond villain, very doctor no
anyway, about those mineral laden streams stirred up from geothermal exploitation: cadmium, manganese, chromium... not too environmentally friendly, no? you have some of the same environmental issues as you would with any mining via chemical leaching in terms of poisoning the environment
in other words, pick an energy source, any energy source, and it has an environmental downside: wind kills birds, tidal energy increases silting, biofuels inflate food prices for the poor, solar panel fabrication pollutes, etc. such that, when you see all of the upsides and downsides, you realize the choice of energy source is not between evil and polluting and clean and carefree, but choosing between different levels of environmental unfriendliness
given that realization, the best energy source in the world is obviously nuclear (with breeder reactors, to make the byproducts far less worrisome)
Re:Heat + Air = Hot Air? (Score:2, Interesting)
Untill we can get some kind of electrical storage system other than batteries, electric and wind are non starters. Yes they could deliver the wattage but when??
Decentralized solar IMO would shine most in hot water generation.
Re:Don't need no stinking volcano... (Score:4, Interesting)
"The problem for the last 11yrs in this country has been purely political as we stood stubbornly by the US. Because of this misdirected loyalty our power generation remains 90+% derived from coal and we have seen many innovations payed for by taxpayers sold off to private companies in the EU and elsewhere. "
Wow and just how is the US to blame for this?
The US told you to not build solar, or wind? Or even nuclear reactors?
Or did you keep to coal because it was cheap and you have a crap load of it. Not to mention that Australia makes a bunch of money selling it to China?
Please take some responsibility for your own actions. Lots of other countries are allies of the US like Germany and Japan and they both have invested heavily in to none carbon based power systems.
Just silly this whole "Devil made me do it" mentality take some responsibility.