Earth's thermal energy could supply US

Here is a crazy thought...could volcanic eruptions be prevented by drilling to release the heat/pressure/gas a little at a time in a controlled manner, rether than sitting around waiting for the thing to blow??? Could we pump enough water while creating steam for generation to produce any noticable reduction of the heat contained in a system like that?

Hi Guest, and good morning. This is being done on Iceland as we converse, and many other places around the world as well. Iceland sits in the middle of the fault that is created between the Eurasian and the American tectonic plates, it is part of the north atlantic ridge. The whole of their capitol city, Reykjavik is heated by steam that is created by geothermal heat. There are many volcanoes on Iceland as this is where the two plates divide, so the clever Icelandics pump water deep underground and it returns as steam and hot water. The steam is used to drive turbines to create electricity, and the hot water is pumped to every house and building to create central heating. This would be very difficult to do in the middle of a large landmass, as one would have to bore down anything up to 60 miles deep to reach the really hot layers.

I considered using geothermal energy to heat and cool my latest residence but the investment was way too high. if you don't have a large enough property to dig trenches and lay down loops of refrigerant filled (ethylene glycol is safe) piping then you can drill a vertical well. The cost to drill a well in my case was about $15 TO 20,000 cdn before paying for the heat pump and installation, not to mention a retrofit of the existing forced air cooling vents (have to be larger than conventional). Your best bet is if you build from scratch and have plenty of room to dig trenches or have a lake or river to suck energy.

Laserlover

A recent emission from that country's president stated that it was "addicted to oil". If so then this could be the "cold turkey" the country needs...