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Man-Made Geothermal Power
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Can Geothermal Power in Iceland Thaw a Frozen Economy?
Since the 1920s The Geysers geothermal power plant 72 miles (115 kilometers) north of San Francisco has been pumping out electricity harvested from hot rocks deep within Earth's crust. But there are only so many natural volcanic formations to be tapped. In locations that are not blessed by easy access to this natural resource, drilling into the hot rock bed and pumping fluid through it has the potential to unleash 2,000 times the total annual consumption of energy in the U.S., according to a 2007 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The 1.5-megawatt geothermal power plant at Soultz-sous-Forêts in France is an attempt to deliver on that promise in Europe.
Slide Show: Man-Made Geothermal Power
Companies in Australia like Geodynamics are nearing completion of similar systems, and even Google has invested in developing the technology here in the U.S. After all, for just $1 billion over the next 40 years, the U.S. could develop 100 gigawatts of geothermal electricity generation, which pumps out power 24/7 and emits almost no greenhouse gases or other air pollution.
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6 Comments
Add CommentHeadline should read "...One kilowatt-hour at a time."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKilowatts measure power, kilowatt-hours measure energy. I hate to nitpick, but it's in the headline, and it's a very common mistake for all news media to make. When will the companies you expect to do better, well-edited international newspapers and science mags, learn?
Rated power can be considered a measure of maximum instantaneous capacity of a plant, and energy the cumulative value of the output of the plant.
Alaska is in a very poor location for geothermal power, but yet, they have geothermal power which saves them millions of dollars a year in utility bills. Why can't each state follow Alaska's lead and build a geothermal plant that will provide all the clean energy they will ever need, and it could be very cheap to all the states citizens where they can afford to heat their homes and businesses in the winter time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there a danger of causing long term problems by tapping into these hot rocks beneath? I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it strikes me as somewhat hazardous to drill lots of holes deep into the ground everywhere. I hope my worries are unfounded, as this does sound like the very fairytale of all energy sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there a danger of causing long term problems by tapping into these hot rocks beneath? I can't put my finger on it exactly, but it strikes me as somewhat hazardous to drill lots of holes deep into the ground everywhere. I hope my worries are unfounded, as this does sound like the very fairytale of all energy sources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWith over 1,000,000 old oil wells in the continental US, it is very likely that some of these could be re-entered, cleaned up, and re-completed as hot water wells dedicated to geothermal power production. I'm willing to bet that the USGS even has on file the bottom-hole temperatures of most of these wells plus geothermal gradient maps that show subsurface temperature trends at depth. I concur with James Davis' comments.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGeothermal. The only way to go! Constant, no doubt about baseload. Non polluting - no gas, solid or radioactive storage problems. No energy storage problem. No possible nuclear accident worry. Only problem is location and energy transport - both only transit loss - so what?
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