Geothermal Energy Could Replace U.S. Coal Power Ten Times Over

Interesting.

Too bad the article didn't give details such how many GW could be expected to be produced from one plant or a general idea of the cost of a plant.

Also, it seems odd that the article mentions West Virginia as opposed to Colorado or Wyoming. Certainly, 300 deg C ((Co and Wy) is better than 200 deg C (WV). I suppose it's because WV is the only state along the East coast with a reasonable Geothermal resource and it's also a major coal producer.

You wrote, "U.S. has the potential to easily, right now, replace all of our coal-fired power plants with clean and endless geothermal power."

Well, it is not going to be quite endless, but the environmental arguments will be.

And, as it has been pointed out by JB, there are no realistic cost estimates laid out.

This is usually the issue with these claims. They dance with joy over the potentials and how nice it would be (and it would be), but totally ignore the reality of cost.

How many times have we seen wonderful predictions that presume that consumers will joyfully embrace paying 3 times their current rate for clean power. Smoking hope.

Sure, it should be tried. I propose a pilot plant at Yellowstone National Park, where you do not have to drill deep. It is one of the 6 or 7 supervolcanoes site on planet Earth, guaranteeing millions of years nearby magma for heating. 100 Gigawatts maybe. Another site should be started up in the hearth of California in the Green Valley, another of those supervolcanoe sites. I am sure, nearby San Franciscans will be out of their mind from excitement for having such an environmentally friendly energy source from a nearby supervolcano. Extatic, I would say.

1,. Start with noncorroding Unobtanium1 for a drillbit, unless diamond is used on carborundum shaft to drill close to magma for maximum heat exchange.

2,. Continue with noncorroding Unobtanium2 for heat exchange piping, that does not goes south on you.

3,. Get binding affidavits from geologists, that the supersite will not go kaboom from your ministrations.

4,. Get environmental permit to dump 2/3 of the recovered energy (Carnot cycle, that is physics law) back onto the National Park in the form of heat or steam condensing into rain.

5,. Get permit to build a LARGE industrial complex on National Park grounds.

But, you strike me as an enterprising lad. Do not be deterred by such trifles. Full steam ahead, and damn the torpedoes.

The remainder is mundane permitting and engineering. Never mind.

And ignore those pesky naysayers!

This subject was kicked around a couple years ago, A Goad for Geothermal? It was nasty stuff back then and it's still nasty stuff now. There more than just steam coming out of those wells. The H₂S around Geothermal Plants brings with it, the true meaning of Acid Rain. It really does stink!! Not to mention the Mercury and Inorganic Arsenic laying around on the ground. I would still feel safer next door to a Nuke.

D. You are a heartless scoundrel. Messing up this fellows streamlined hopes. How can you be such a party pooper.

He simply want to drop in a few pipes. Let them.

He only want to experiment. Nothing ever happened without that!

A new material needs to be developed, So? the Apollo program did that too!

So, please, pretty please do not be a party pooper.

please

Oops, sorry It's to bad these kids don't do a little more research before spouting off about a subject they have no clue about. Maybe this kid should sink a few holes in his own backyard, then come back tell us how " Clean and Green " his "Geothermal power" generation really is.

Note : There are at least 2 forms of this energy. One at a high level of potency as in the cases where locations like Iceland sit on or close to a volcano. Here the energy source is indirect heat from the volcano to rock. And two, the less potent form which is not associated with heat coming from sources such as volcanic activity. The 2nd form can, for example, come from the slow decay of radioactive matter within the rock. This process gives off heat to the rock.

In the 1st case, the energy is more concentrated while in the 2nd case it is less so. As in all projects one will usually evaluate the economic feasibility or viability before going further. A simple way is to estimate the Capital Cost and then the operating Profit (Revenue -Operating Costs). Then one can do a very simple Calculation which is to divide the Capital Cost by the Operating Profit. This will give a rough indication of pay-back period. This method is good enough for a quick and ready answer. Companies do a more elaborate calculation in the form of Financial Models.

You will find that Capital Costs are usually enormous in most Geothermal Energy Projects. Just because an energy source is out there in big volumes, does not mean that it is always viable to exploit it commercially. The sun, for example, represents an astronomical source of energy. Yet we are not yet transferring a great deal of energy from it onto our grid. This is because it is not (yet) wildly profitable for us to do so. This, of course will change in the future as we develop the technologies further.

The basic reality is: Difficulty will always be overcome when there is profit to be made. Same applies to practically all commercial projects. Humankind will shift mountains with bare hands if there is a big buck to be made. You just need to look at my logo above. This is the "Big Hole" in Kimberley, South Africa. The worlds' biggest human-made hole. It was dug in the days before modern machinery. So it means by hand mostly. Ask yourself: Why would people do this? The answer is Money. If there is no profit-driven incentive, then things will remain at a slow pace! Pretty much the average rule in practice.

Kimberly used to be a pretty boring town to me as I was shoved off there for school holidays in the late 60's. But, I was always fascinated by the history displayed in the museums. There is a lesser known fact that this town had electric street lighting before many European cities. This became possible purely on the basis of wealth generated by the diamond mines.

Now, take Germany, for example. At a rough guess, it probably has about 1/3 the sunshine that Kimberley might have. Yet Solar Energy is taking off in Germany and not in Kimberley. Ask yourself why?

The opposite to the "rule of thumb" above is also true. This says: Even if a resource is available only in small quantities, but if there is massive financial support and powerful government intervention then a resource can be harnessed. The only remaining ingredient in this instance would be the technology. Development of Technology can also be advanced rapidly by these two inputs (plus great will and creativity, of course).

There are however very rare instances where such powerful support will overlook financial viability.

1. In short-term ventures where a country will get in there 1st and develop a technology in order to later have a market edge. As in the case of the solar energy efforts in Europe - I suspect.

2. In times of war.

3. In desperate situations or disaster. Eg., the miners trapped in South America.

Just to end by saying, in the spirit of creativity and motivation, Never accept any response that says "It cannot be done". No such thing !

solid thinking. ga my friend.

I would like to remind folks here about the Marshal Hydrothermal patent, which was brought to cr4 a couple of years ago by the inventor Bruce Marshal. wiki

it would appear to me that this system would solve many of the ecological issues. (while capital costs remain high)

chris

I really don't understand why this isn't generating more attention.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/4245896

Since all the environmentalists say the available quantities of oil and coal are dwindling, will they agree that the geothermal energy of the earth is limited? What will happen in a thousand years if we install thousands of geothermal plants around the world, and the core starts to cool? Will the earth slow down, will it cool down? Who can realistically answer this question. If you look at it from a thermodynamics point of view, there is a limited amount of heat in the earth's core. Once it is used up, what happens? This would mean that every time a volcano erupts, and throws tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, that the earth's core cools a minuscule amount.

Why, oh why is this world is stuffed with party poopers, like you, I ask? While you are a bit mistaken in the source of the heat (uranium decay), you make a fundamental error: You ask a sensible question.

When one is in the heat of a New Idea, It is not simply distasteful, It Simply Is Not Done In Polite Company.

Asking a sane questions? Now, who ever heard of that one?!?

Next time we hear, you may imagine, you can live on your own! Argghhh!!!

To reiterate, there are two distinct forms of this type of energy. One is the potent form and the other is the less potent form. Both are recoverable in terms of harnessing the relatively free energy provided in nature! Some countries are blessed with the potent form (Iceland, Ethiopia, New Zealand, parts of the USA, etc.). Other countries have only the less potent form. Our country, South Africa, for example, has only the lesser form of Geothermal Energy as there are no volcanoes in this region (active or inactive).

Nevertheless, even this form can be harnessed. Indeed, small groups (of which I have been a part of) in our country have looked into the viability of harnessing Geothermal energy in SA. Despite the low intensity of the Energy Source in SA, it might still be viable. In the case of South Africa (SA), by the way, this energy source lies in the Karroo area which is pretty much a semi-desert right in the middle if SA. It happens to be the same region where there lies great non-conventional petroleum resources which could be harvested by fracking. Of course, this is currently a topic of great debate. I am not sure how the two might fit together, if at all (i.e. Geothermal and Fracking). If anyone out there knows, please enlighten us. It could well be that the two could work together? Please let's not get into the great environmental debate as this is a very relevant but separate discussion. This thread hopefully should cover the great opportunity that geothermal energy presents to certain regions.

Wrt Geothermal Energy in SA, an (EPC) construction company also became involved in this (theoretical) project. There are energy gradient limits that dictate whether a particular Geothermal source is technically viable. This is usually the rate of heat given off by the rock per M2, the temperature, etc. These are apart from the economic factors.

Just to mention the strong contrast between the two levels of intensity of geothermal energy: Those countries blessed with the potent form are pretty much going "full steam" ahead. Iceland, for example, raises a great deal of it's energy to it's national grid from natural sources such as geothermal (the main one). It even converts energy into Hydrogen which is used in as motor as vehicle fuel.

The gist of my 1st thread was not to underplay the role of geothermal energy in any way. It was merely to point out that there are 2 distinct forms of this energy. Both of which have their role to play in energy generation. In our 1st wave of enthusiasm for Geothermal E in SA, we lacked data for the thermal gradients. This was later made available and the study went ahead.

Incidentally it was myself that pushed the idea of thoroughly investigating this form of energy in SA to the group which has since taken it up. The bottle-neck lied in the lack of data which was overcome. One find that there are so many different fields of science and engineering involved in such ventures. The data, came in fact, from a very obscure source indeed.

In the case of the lesser form there are certain off-shoots as well. The water from the geothermal source can sometimes have some properties that can be of value elsewhere. Note, the two types are distinguished by the source of the heat within the rock. In the 1st type, the rock itself has "sensible heat" which it receives from a nearby volcano. The lifespan of this form of GE depends of the lifespan and activity of the Volcano. In the 2nd type, the rock is heated up by substances within the rock (the lifespan of this depends on that of the substances in the rock). Note : The depths to which one must drill are also very different between the two.

In conclusion, the economic viability for the potent form of G. Energy (volcano-based) is probably more powerful and obvious than the lesser form (indirect heat from substances within the rock). Nevertheless, the lesser form should not be overlooked (it may even have a safety advantage over the 1st type because of the absence of a volcano).

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to clarify my 1st thread.

Until they provide a true closed loop for the "potent" form of geothermal, you will always have a problem with the nasty stuff that resides down in the bottom of the well coming to the surface, hence, the only thing green is when the H₂S combines with the moisture coming off the cooling towers and falling on any exposed copper, thus turning the copper green. It all sounds extremely valuable until you have to start a clean-up process. Mercury is called "Quick Silver" for a reason.

Why thank you for stating that I asked a sensible idea. I try to look at every problem from its most basic element. Many times recently, I have come across reports and articles, where it appears as though the authors start out with the answer they want to hear, before they do any research. Then they cherry pick the information, only using that which agrees with their preset conditions/answers. True scientists they are not!