Ask Slashdot: Why Isn't Geothermal Energy Getting As Much Attention As Solar and Wind? 152
mrwireless writes: YouTube channel Real Engineering has posted a great video on the potential (and downsides) of geothermal power. I think it would be great to discuss this video on Slashdot, since in discussions about climate change, geothermal rarely comes up as a viable alternative.
The video mentions things like:
- Could power our needs twice over
- New technology makes it possible in more locations
- Works night and day
- Could be cost competitive (according to an MIT study)
- Workers from the oil drilling industry could find new jobs in this sector
So: why isn't geo-thermal energy getting as much attention as solar and wind?
The video mentions things like:
- Could power our needs twice over
- New technology makes it possible in more locations
- Works night and day
- Could be cost competitive (according to an MIT study)
- Workers from the oil drilling industry could find new jobs in this sector
So: why isn't geo-thermal energy getting as much attention as solar and wind?
Bringing out all that heat into the atmosphere (Score:3, Funny)
would warn the planet so much all the arctic ice woukd melt and we all drown
Re:Bringing out all that heat into the atmosphere (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh... can people here please take the time to actually learn about a topic before commenting?
Geothermal isn't used as much as solar and wind for the simple reason that people fear angering Surtr, guardian of the firey realm of Múspell and bearer of the glowing sword whose flames shall engulf the Earth.
Re:Bringing out all that heat into the atmosphere (Score:4, Insightful)
I for one welcome our new fiery overlords.
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Because the prime target is an non-CO2 form of energy there is no problem leaving the oil in place.
Besides, the usual oil and gas fields are already at a depth with high temperatures so a little shallower will do fine.
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At least the slashvertisement tradition is still going strong around here.
This exact same submission of the same video from the same user (who is likely the author, or at least paid by the author) was rejected as spam [slashdot.org] 10 days ago. I guess this time he managed to fool the editors.
Was it accepted because it was a question? (Score:2)
The editors are suckers for any story submitted as a question. Make any conclusion into a question, and it will make the front page.
I know you're joking, but... (Score:2)
I've been concerned about the unintended consequences of geothermal power, if it were to ever grow to mass production.
Because magma is circulated in our Earth through convection currents. Magma behaves literally like a lava lamp, heating and cooling as it circulates between the hot core and the cool surface. In addition, the outer core, made of liquid iron, does the same between the mantle and the inner core.
So, what happens when we extract more heat from the surface, cooling it further? Well, since we'r
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You have a (common) misconception. The mantle is not molten. It's a (very slowly flowing) solid. Magma is a near-surface phenomenon. It doesn't go anywhere near the core.
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and we all drown
Maybe not the Nepalese?
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Cost Effective (Score:5, Informative)
"Why Isn't Geothermal Energy Getting As Much Attention As Solar and Wind?"
The video answers this question. It's only really cost effective where the heat is relatively close to the surface of the earth, which is only in certain parts of the world.
Besides which, also as the video points out, think people are upset about fracking? Wait until you tell them you are going to drill *really* deep to tap into the magma down there.
Now geothermal heat pumps are another matter altogether. Really too expensive for a single home, but communities are setting up shared closed-loop systems which look interesting.
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So costs vary dramatically, and it has to be relatively near to it's consumers to keep it economical, at least where it is economical to start with.
Then of course there is need. Places that are already sufficiently served by other means are often hard to convince that they need another source of power.
Back to the fracking thing. There was a geothermal plant in the US a few decades ago that used fracking. That plant did
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IIRC it was in California and caused localized earthquakes like crazy.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
Yep.
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Re:Cost Effective (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed, people used to deliberately avoid going anywhere near magma. A geothermal well in Hawaii struck magma and they immediately capped it. Iceland took a different tack; when one of the boreholes near Krafla accidentally struck magma, the operators thought.... "Hmm, let's give this a shot!" ;) They managed to turn it into a production well with water injection, and it's by far their highest-producing / highest-temperature well (indeed, the highest-temperature geothermal well in the world). While the fluids are difficult to handle, they've been so pleased with the results that they launched new projects to do it again on purpose.
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Hi, thanks for posting that, I always thought that giving enough pinholes into magma, those holes would become some sort of heat conductors. Given it might be only a foot in diameter but that heat output just by running some sort of liquid correctly would become so sort of super steam that could power a generator.. I am total aware that it's a fantasy living idea but I keep thinking that this concept would work real well.
sooner or later, I can see someone taping the yellowstone magma chamber and sucking it
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Which again goes to show that the great discoveries are not heralded by yelling "EUREKA!", but by quietly mumbling "Huh."
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Hardly. "huh" is simply the precursor to either "EUREKA" or "OH SHI.."
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You don't have to get near the magma, but you still may need fracking.
https://www.scientificamerican... [scientificamerican.com]
I've ranted about geothermal in the USA before. I used to live close enough to the geothermal facility at The Geysers that when they did a long construction project (which they would work on 24/7) I could see their massive light pollution. It seemed like they aimed some floods upward.
They were actually going to frack at the geysers for some new project in a way that had caused a major seismic event in Fran
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Why would you tell such an outrageous lie? You don't have to get anywhere near the magma to get enough heat to power a steam plant.
That's what the anti-geothermal activist group is going to say. Also that it's poisoning people's tap water.
Re:Cost Effective (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with Fracking isn't the drilling, it's forcing an uncompressible fluid into the hole you've drilled, sealed at high pressure, to fracture (hence "Frack") the layers of strata apart to give the methane trapped within a place to escape to.
Geothermal injects water at low pressure, and allows the resulting steam to release to generate power. The drilled hole is (typically) lined so it doesn't fracture and cause problems
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The real problem with fracking is when states like Oklahoma fail to enforce even the most basic regulations to ensure their environment, geology, and communities remain safe. Fracking can–and is–done safely.
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The problems in the US were largely caused by cowboys riding Dick Cheney's liberalisation of various environmental laws under the disguise of 'alternative energy'.
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In Oklahoma, my mother's house, and the house on either side blew up from methane leaking into their basement from fracking. She lost her husband in the explosion, and his daughter was severely injured in the car outside.
There's no smell like natural gas because it hasn't been added yet, so you can't tell if it's in the area.
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Maybe in the simplest case close to the surface, but some of the proposals I have seen for enhanced geothermal energy use supercritical CO2 and many look similar to fracking in concept (fracturing bedrock and linking two drill sites, using different fluids, using polymers and glass beads to hold cracks open etc.). I'm all for it, but it can get pretty complex quickly.
Re:Cost Effective (Score:5, Interesting)
Now geothermal heat pumps are another matter altogether. Really too expensive for a single home, but communities are setting up shared closed-loop systems which look interesting.
This isn't entirely true. I know people who have them, but their homes are relatively new and they were built with geothermal in mind. There are a few drawbacks—maintenance, although rarely needed, is expensive (it's still probably cheaper than natural gas bills, and all HVAC is expensive). Also, just like with regular (air) heat pumps, geothermal requires a supplementary source of heat for those extremely cold days (usually propane or electric coils in the air handler). I don't think it would be practical in places like Minnesota, but for places where it rarely dips into the single digits geothermal heat pumps are a great option.
Heat pumps—both air and geothermal—have become drastically more efficient in recent years. They have become a viable option further north than they previously were. I use an air heat pump because I live in the boonies with no natural gas and I only have to use supplemental heat options for short periods of the winter. Not only are these options more environmentally friendly, but the newer systems are much cheaper than paying for natural gas because they're so efficient. Most modern homes in the U.S. are equipped with air conditioning, which is a small step away from being a heat pump. It would make sense for most consumers who need to replace their furnace to go with a heat pump instead.
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I don't think it would be practical in places like Minnesota, but for places where it rarely dips into the single digits geothermal heat pumps are a great option.
Geothermal is *great* for Minnesota. You want it in places that get really cold in the winter, and really hot in the summer, as 80% of the time it's running more efficiently than traditional heat or AC is running (heat pumps work as air conditioners, too - you just run them in reverse.) Sure, in the dead of winter you still need supplemental electricity or natural gas, but that's only a few months out of the year.
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Re: Cost Effective (Score:2)
I second the motion. My Mitsubishi heat pump works down to 0 F, and gives me AC as well on the nine days I needed it this year. It was a cold summer. Last year I used AC 22 days. Heat mode will start at nights in a week or two, then continuously from mid Oct until May.
If you need AC anyway, just get a heat pump.
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Now geothermal heat pumps are another matter altogether. Really too expensive for a single home, but communities are setting up shared closed-loop systems which look interesting.
This isn't entirely true. I know people who have them, but their homes are relatively new and they were built with geothermal in mind.
This reminds me of a house I lived at before that had geothermal heating. It wasn't built for it... but my roommate (who I rented a room from at this house and another one) bought it from a guy who fixed the house up like crazy. Unrelated to the geothermal topic, this guy built a garage, redid all the floors, redid all the cabinets and counters in the kitchen, redid the entire ventilation system, removed walls, removed wallpaper and painted, redid all the lights, redid EVERYTHING in the bathroom..... And
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That is only true for the surface level geothermal heat pumps and they slowly cools down the crust.
Deep earth geothermal is what you'd want if you are looking at large scale geothermal, and there it matters quite a bit how thick/thin the crust is. On Iceland the crust is very thin and they have fully working geothermal plants where they make steam from the heat inside the Earth.
In other locations the heat may be several kilometers down and it would be a lot more expensive to drill a pair of such holes to ge
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That is only true for the surface level geothermal heat pumps and they slowly cools down the crust.
On a properly sized / designed system ground temperature change is marginal. Really not an issue. You get a constant 5-15 Celsius ground temperature (depending on location and season) which allows the heat pump to work very efficiently in the winter when the air is at -10 to -40 Celsius. And is still a bit more efficient than air heat pump in the summer for cooling when the air is at 25 to 35 Celsius.
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The problem with geothermal heat pumps in a place like Florida is that the ground never really gets much colder than 65F, and doesn't conduct heat away very efficiently. So... you bury a tube in the ground, and pump refrigerant through it. For a little while, it works reasonably well, because ~65F is a lot colder than the 85-95F the air temperature is likely to be. The problem is, after a few hours of pumping hot refrigerant through a tube buried in the ground, the ground itself keeps getting warmer and wa
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For a little while, it works reasonably well, because ~65F is a lot colder than the 85-95F the air temperature is likely to be. The problem is, after a few hours of pumping hot refrigerant through a tube buried in the ground, the ground itself keeps getting warmer and warmer (since the A/C is running with a 60-90% average duty cycle over the span of any given hour), until eventually, the surrounding ground just gets too hot, starts to act more like an insulating blanket than a heat sink, and the system's efficiency goes down the toilet.
This just means your loop wasn't long enough. Of course, it may be that sufficiently-long loops are too expensive in a given climate and for a given set of requirements, but if your ground loop is appreciably warming (or cooling), then it's too short.
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I built a new house in the summer of 2016 and have a horizontal geoexchange/heatpump system. I'm north of Ottawa Canada, winter days can be well down in the -30C. I use an EcoBee to control/monitor it the HVAC. The geo heat system has 2 stages to it, on the coldest days the 2nd stage kicks in. I've not had to use a backup heat source (although I do have an electric resistive heat coil in the system). It was designed to provide 97% of what I needed, with a few days to use the backup (as stated elsewher
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Now geothermal heat pumps are another matter altogether. Really too expensive for a single home, but communities are setting up shared closed-loop systems which look interesting.
Three big problems with this for residential use in the US:
- Cost - as you mentioned. Federal tax breaks are still available but may lapse again. State tax breaks vary.
- Land - you need at least an acre for a decent sized private system.
- ROI - varies by household, average American moves 11.7 times in their lifetime - so by the time you get an ROI out of the system, you'll move
Disclaimer: I own a geothermal heat pump + love it. Received both federal+tax breaks, have the land for it, calculated my R
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Really too expensive for a single home, but communities are setting up shared closed-loop systems which look interesting.
It isn't too expensive for a single home but it does have a slightly longer payout. Same with tankless water heaters, high efficiency furnaces, etc.. If a contractor adds these things then their house is 15-20% more expensive than the house next door and people will buy the house next door first even though the more efficient house is cheaper in the long run.
Also, geothermal doesn't scale well. It's fine for a single family home on a half acre lot but good luck trying to use it for a 100 unit apartment.
Re: Cost Effective (Score:3, Informative)
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I live in upstate NY and would only need to dig 30ft down to heat and cool my house for free.
If you lived in NT City, you'd only need to dig 30in down. Of course, your downstairs neighbors would object.
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It's only really cost effective where the heat is relatively close to the surface of the earth, which is only in certain parts of the world.
And one of those parts of the world is right smack in the middle of western United States. But nobody wants to "mess up" the pristine tourist attraction that is Yellowstone National Park, or any of the numerous hot springs elsewhere around the country.
^mod this up
Because (Score:2)
Re:Because (Score:5, Funny)
Meanwhile, we here in Small Oil might not be as vast and sweeping in our conspiracies, but we like to think that we're involved in conspiracies of better quality, and we're able to be more responsive to the rapid-changing demands of today's geoconspiratorial landscape.
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Like everything, big oil.
Wow, those slippery characters have their big greasy hands in EVERYTHING...
I am struck by the apparent need for conspiracy theories to explain away the hard facts. Environmentalists blame "Big Oil", Anti-Vaxers blaine some collusion between the FDA and "Big Pharma", we've got the "Swamp in DC" and all sorts of folks blame Russia for all sorts of things... Truly it is amazing..
why is this even a question? (Score:4, Insightful)
I can order a wind turbine OR a solar panel and put it on my garage and be in business immediately. Wind isn't as reliable, and solar only works for at most half the time, but it's cheap, it's easy, and it works pretty much anywhere.
Geothermal is so expensive to set up that it has to be done on a very large scale. And as others have pointed out, it's much more practical where heat is near the surface, which greatly limits who can take advantage of it, and where. Plus, the setup time is measured in years, not days.
It's like asking why nuclear hasn't taken off, or why we don't all own flying cars. The question is silly, because the answers are so obvious. (could this be considered a "strawman" question?
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I can order a wind turbine OR a solar panel and put it on my garage and be in business immediately. Wind isn't as reliable, and solar only works for at most half the time, but it's cheap, it's easy, and it works pretty much anywhere.
That's a very naive view of the issue. Those windmills and solar panels came from somewhere. You left out many steps in the process to harvest energy from the sun and wind. Building those devices took a lot of investment in infrastructure. It also took a large amount of labor and materials before those devices could be shipped to your house.
Geothermal is so expensive to set up that it has to be done on a very large scale. And as others have pointed out, it's much more practical where heat is near the surface, which greatly limits who can take advantage of it, and where. Plus, the setup time is measured in years, not days.
Humans have been planning and constructing projects far larger than any geothermal power plant for centuries. Some of these projects have actually took centuries to
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I like your take on Nuclear power, but we do need to be honest about why it is dying.
Right now, the lowest cost power generating method is natural gas. Fracking has made natural gas cheap and abundant with prices for the fuel looking steady for decades to come. It is the inability of our old nuclear power fleet to compete with natural gas on price that is killing nuclear.
I think that modern nuclear designs may be able to compete with natural gas, but the uncertainty over costs, spent fuel storage, chan
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I like your take on Nuclear power, but we do need to be honest about why it is dying.
Um, okay, I'm listening.
Right now, the lowest cost power generating method is natural gas. Fracking has made natural gas cheap and abundant with prices for the fuel looking steady for decades to come. It is the inability of our old nuclear power fleet to compete with natural gas on price that is killing nuclear.
The price of any commodity depends on supply and demand. The price of natural gas right now is based on there being 20% of the electricity production in the USA being from nuclear power. As a total of all energy sources in the USA (this being heat, transportation, and electricity) nuclear power produces about 10%. Natural gas is a very convenient energy source for heating and cooking, and switching to something else would be expensive for many people. If we don't have new nuclear
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Natural gas will not appreciate in price all that much in the foreseeable future. With the advent of Fracking, very small movements in the price of gas will flood the market with additional economically feasible to produce supplies. In the USA, we are literally awash in proven resources already, natural gas that we are not pulling out of the ground now because the market simply cannot use it.
Fracking has caused this glut in supply. It has made production economically possible in places we never dreamed
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You always claim that opponents of nuclear power are irrational, while ignoring the rational economic arguments against it.
If you want irrational how about your EROI crap that no one rational gives a shit about?
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You left out many steps in the process to harvest energy from the sun and wind.
In case of PV, there's actually only one step: the photon hits the PV junction, and bang, there's electromotive force right there.
Re: why is this even a question? (Score:2)
because of irrational fears and politics
Do you think Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukashima as irrational fear?
Just because they are no longer in the news cycle (politics) doesn't mean these accidents are not impacting the world today.
TMI barely got out of control (it's not the first). Chernobyl got way out of control but it's barely contained (for now). Fukashima has yet to be controlled (it is a planet killer).
Do you think there is anything to fear? Do you believe in "Outta Sight, Outta Mind; therefore it doesn't exist? Is this concern
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I can order a wind turbine OR a solar panel and put it on my garage and be in business immediately. Wind isn't as reliable, and solar only works for at most half the time, but it's cheap, it's easy, and it works pretty much anywhere.
No, it's not cheap and no, it doesn't just work anywhere.
But since when has the decision how to generate electric power been a financial one? Oh, wait, since commercial power generation became a thing back when Edison and Westinghouse where duking it out over DC versus AC.
Currently the cheapest power comes from Natural Gas when you consider the full life cycle costs of the plant. Wind is a distant second, Solar isn't even close to being viable for industrial level generation. Putting Solar panels on
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Probably can't be widely done w/o side effects. (Score:3)
IIRC, some experimentation was done with geothermal energy in the western US (California?). The plan was to drill down and pump in waste water, and when the drilling was deep enough, there would be enough heat to generate steam. They actually drilled down far enough to get some heat, and it at least partially worked - but soon after the region began to suffer many smaller earthquakes (similar to the earthquakes associated with fracking in the midwest). That pissed everyone off, which shut the plan down and stopped the quakes. (If anyone recalls what I'm talking about, please post any online references to it below.)
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Anderson Springs, CA, mentioned in a link to a Scientific American article above.
This kind of stuff has happened a bunch. (Score:2)
The plan was to drill down and pump in waste water, ... - but soon after the region began to suffer many smaller earthquakes (similar to the earthquakes associated with fracking in the midwest).
And with disposing of toxic waste by pumping it into deep wells. And some experiments with pumping water into earthquake faults. And on and on.
Apparently, when you dig a deep well and inject an incompressible liquid at high pressure, your liquid goes into a crack (so far so good).
But the crack is also known as a "f
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No big changes can be made because we have grown and engineered ourselves into a corner, and everyone is too upset that they'll be chastisted by the neighbors.
Or maybe the "Big One"s are 6.3 or greater, average 138 years apart, and it's been 141 years since the last one. So the spring is at pretty much full compression. Suppose the next "Big One" would have hit in, say, another 10 years, the first "little one" you get is a full release and just under the strength of the "Big One" you're trying to avoid, b
Collateral damage in the crusade against fracking (Score:2, Interesting)
In fact, if you think about it rationally, we may ha
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Oh, good grief. Do they pay you to post this drivel? There are several million people in Oklahoma who would like to argue with your ridiculous claims.
Re: Collateral damage in the crusade against frack (Score:2)
Yes, clearly the best way to figure out what's actually true is to ask a million random people.
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Releasing energy in small consistent waves is much better that big explosive energy releases. Problem really is, can you assure that the earth quakes will be under a certain number. if that part of the problem could be controlled then I can see fracking working, people will accept a specific risk parameter if the known outcome is shown ( we drive car's don't we, same risk concept idea )
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The problem is, we have no idea how much potential energy in the form of plates held (mostly) immobile by friction exists, and how much we're likely to release by basically injecting lubricant into them. What MIGHT have been a single destructive quake in 400 years could turn into hundreds of quakes, some moderately damaging, over and over again with no known end in sight as the increasingly-slippery and lubricated plates end up sliding far beyond where they would have gone naturally without human interventi
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So basically 100 quakes now is better than megadeath quake: ender of current civilization in 400 years?
That's neat, at the least if you do some effort in not to half ass it.
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Not trying to stir the pot.
but can you point out a civilization besides the Macodeans that were ended due to a quake? ( it was a combo for them volcano and earthquake )
I like reading about the discoveries and would like to explore more.
Re: Collateral damage in the crusade against frack (Score:2)
You wouldn't be trading "100 quakes now" to avoid a "civilization-ending quake in 400 years". You'd be trading frequent, still occasionally destructive earthquakes for some as-yet-unknown number of decades or centuries for the usual city-destroying quake every 400 years. The difference is, a horrific quake once in 400 years (with a moderately-damaging one every 50-150 or so) has enough time in between for people to live normally. If a city like Los Angeles were having 7.0-9.0 earthquakes every few months, o
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You have presented a very well thought out time argument. And the plate energy view is very very valid.
Would 200 smaller earthquakes be more to the benefit of mankind than a mega quake? I want to say yes
because the knowledge gained to prevent major damage will increase as we learn.
Sadly, the odd's of triggering something really bad from stored plate energy is going to fall into Murphy's Law ( or one of the other funny ones ) BUT to be more serious, the NIMBY and the people's self interest will override your
Re:Collateral damage in the crusade against fracki (Score:5, Informative)
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Incorrectly? Then why did you yourself say:
No offense, but is English not your first language, or are you just stupid? Triggering something is the very definition of causing something.
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Well, you do need both. If you trigger a gun and it doesn't have bullets not much will happen.
The difference is people are engaging in fracking with no idea whatsoever what it might or might not trigger.
I thought it had more to do with ground water (Score:3)
Corrosion (Score:3)
Geothermal is great. Except it corrodes all the pipes. Maintenance is a bitch.
Oil and Gas companies block everything (Score:2)
The big oil and gas companies lobby and spend huge amounts of money trying to derail every kind of renewable energy.
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I don't think so, this is just a another tappable reserve that can have a value using drilling equipment and knowing how to drill. Those groups got that talent and in the case of drilling for "steam" the cost of building the power plant is way cheaper than building an oil refinery https://www.bloomberg.com/news... [bloomberg.com]
taking a shot in the dark but I bet both use the same amount of water, but the steam refinery will use it many more times before it evaporates into the air.
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Not true at all; oil and gas companies encourage and even advertise their partnership with wind and solar
That's because oil and coal get tax credits on their royalty payments for doing so.
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This sounds about right.
Not true at all; oil and gas companies encourage and even advertise their partnership with wind and solar. They save fossil fuel, and allow smaller amounts to be sold at higher costs when the sun and wind can't deliver. Fossil gets greenwashed, and they can extract the maximum value from their dwindling resources.
This does explain efforts to derail any form of reliable clean energy, but geothermal and hydro are geographically limited, posing little threat. Generous fossil profits are focused into influencing public opinion to support a partnership of fossil and intermittent renewables, but the other renewables do not have such resources to draw upon. For nuclear, fossil interests fund "environmental" groups to do their dirty work.
I quoted this to bump it up to higher visibility.
My guess is that nuclear power has much to offer the oil and gas companies. It takes a lot of energy to refine petroleum products. Energy that is right not being supplied from these companies burning a portion of their products that they intend to sell. If they can get heat, motive power, and electricity from something other than burning their own oil then they'd likely be more profitable. There are nuclear power companies that are
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Solar panels are delightfully mobile, and they have portable wind power generators. Very common on sailing vessels. Geothermal, on the other hand, tends to be a fixed resource, and only works where there’s access to that heat.
I had a sinking feeling a geothermal boat would not work!
This topic came up not too long ago (Score:3)
and I addressed it here. [slashdot.org]
tl;dr, we've done it and there are some serious problems that make it less competitive overall to wind and solar. I'd like to temper those remarks with the idea that we can't totally dismiss it--there might still be some opportunities, just not as much as with solar and wind.
Also, another poster said that it only works at large scale and that's not entirely true. There's also a motel near here that uses it, but not for high energy steam. Instead, they use the Earth as a kind of heat/cold sink. The ground temperature tends to be about 50F, so they use that for pre-heating heat-pump inputs in the Winter, and cooling in the Summer. It's an expensive proposition for a single family home though because it involves dozens of holes drilled way down. IIRC, GWB's house in Texas also did it. That's probably a pretty nice house on a big spread, so it probably didn't add too much cost on a percentage basis.
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That's a different kind of geothermal system.
Mining Heat from Hot Dry Rocks (Score:3)
One of the geothermal power concepts I found fascinating was Using Hot Dry Rock Utilizing Supercritical CO2 instead of Water. [semanticscholar.org] The map in this paper gives a better idea of the geothermal gradients in the US for anyone who is interested.
Australia has vast geothermal reserves and some places where HDR is 205C+ and enough energy to power city's and run low carbon aluminum smelting for the next century.
Closed loop Geothermal (Score:5, Interesting)
Geothermal is a perfect base load and peak following grid input because the heat is always in the ground and available. It's the perfect complement to wind and solar. One criticism of geothermal has been it brings up heavy metals however the US Department of Energy performed assessments of closed loop geothermal systems [osti.gov] that continuously reuse the working fluid to overcome that issue.
Studies have been done on the efficiency [sciencedirect.com] and optimization [sciencedirect.com] of closed loop geothermal systems which are suited to the heat flows found in the US that you may find interesting.
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Closed loop geothermal is not viable, though. The system is too big. The largest geothermal generating facility in the USA is in the most geothermally active place on the planet, and even before they had to start pumping sewage into the ground to keep the steam coming, it was perpetually over budget and under production targets. Now you want to make it more expensive, and that is supposed to somehow help? Not going to happen.
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Closed loop geothermal is not viable, though. The system is too big.
I'm not sure which site you're referring to however perhaps they are first version issues. Technological development of geothermal energy is still early days and much of that development would occur when a facility is designed, which is the same issue coal and nuclear plants face. I posted about a concept that uses Supercritical CO2 [slashdot.org] as a working fluid which avoids the silica dissolution issues geothermal faces when using supercritical water.
IIUC by using CO2 the silica in the fractured rock doesn't di
Geothermal = Expensive but amazing (Score:2)
consider the source (Score:2)
Maybe 15 minute Youtube videos are simply an introduction to a topic, and should not be considered a complete source of knowledge.
Today, we can meet our worldwide power needs with solar or wind. Let's focus and make one of those happen. No more allowing governments to distract us with development of new tech "only a few years away" from usefulness. No more "grab bag" solutions that ignore economics and reality.
Limitations (Score:2)
1) Geographically limited range, far more than solar or wind.
2) Fewer advancements. Solar efficiency has increased tremendously and wind efficiency has increased significantly. But geothermal is only increasing a bit.
3) And finally, no political lobby.
All the good locations are taken (Score:3)
Just like hydroelectric dams - almost all the good locations are already taken since the 70s or 80s. There arenâ(TM)t that many places where the local activity is high enough and the underground structures provide enough water to get good steam useable for geothermal. Those that were a available were developed and are dutifully doing their job of providing clean energy. Their total contribution is a couple of %.
Producing âoedryâ geothermal energy that can be deployed in many more places is still not a well-developed technology. But t s definitely getting some funding and attention.
Re: (Score:2)
And just like in the 1700's... when people used photovoltaic cells... to generate electricity...
I'm sorry, but I'm completely confused by your "argument". Can you explain any of it any better than you have, because I can't seem to make any sense out of any of it?
Re: Easy answer (Score:2)
cheap or even useful
You did a real good job digging too deep for Deepwater Horizon, now you want to dig deeper and what, look for Go Jirra?
Re:Easy answer (Score:5, Informative)
If you are going to post a view, you need to validate the argument/claim.
https://www.sierraclub.org/mic... [sierraclub.org]
that's the view, and note, they don't have a problem with natural gas in itself, they have a problem with the production methods of using "toxic" compounds in the extraction process.
I could care less about sierra club, but I do care about quoting correctly and letting facts be presented.
encourage proper discussion, not your for or against interest in a group.
Mod up please (Score:2)
Mod up please. Proper data should always trump ideological driven conjecture.
Re: Mod up please (Score:2)
ideological driven conjecture.
Every opinion has an a**hole attached to it. However, there seems to be more a**holes than opinions.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem like a gem.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem like a gem.
Probably this kind of gem attached to an a**hole: https://loveplugs.co/collectio... [loveplugs.co] [NSFW]
Re: (Score:2)
that was funny
Re: (Score:2)
I always thought Sierra club was some sort of tree huggers and had no other views
but saving tree's. So, I went to look up this natural gas view of thiers. What pissed me
off and made me correct the poster was the "tit for tat" view that once something is
good for everyone, the extreme need to oppose it.
While I still could care less about Sierra club, I have no qualms about what they are
trying to achieve.
And, I want to thank you for standing up, voicing that you want data driven, or
presentable arguments or fac
Re: (Score:2)
waterwheels and windmills, back when they were used for actual milling? Highly regulated technology in medieval times, but wide open during the colonial period.