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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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On September 25, 1960, the first turbine at the world's largest geothermal power plant started spinning. Using the steam created by hot rocks deep beneath California, The Geysers power plant has been pumping out 6 million megawatt-hours of power a year ever since—and it remains the world's largest such geothermal power plant 50 years later.
Geothermal power has a lot of advantages: no CO2 emissions, renewable if used correctly and constantly available. Unlike other renewables, such as the wind or sun, the Earth's heat never stops. Scientists estimate that geothermal alone could supply 2,000 times the amount of energy used by the U.S. annually.
That's why the U.S. Department of Energy is investing at least $35 million in a bid to expand its use. As is Google. And countries from Indonesia to Guatemala are also looking to expand its use. Australian companies have even begun drilling wells for new, entirely man-made geothermal power plants.
But The Geysers remains the world's largest such power plant for two simple reasons: cost and risk. Drilling a well to the depths required is expensive, time-consuming and there is no guarantee of success. Perhaps the best way to expand geothermal is to pair it with another industry that likes to poke holes deep beneath the Earth: oil and gas.
After all, the world could use more CO2-free forms of energy generation and this one's just a few kilometers beneath our feet.
—David Biello
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8 Comments
Add CommentIt doesn't really matter if it is the largest geothermal power plant in the world or not, what matters is that it has been producing free electricity for almost over 50 years. And another thing I liked hearing is that geothermal can produce 2,000 times more electricity than the U.S. uses in a year.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as expense goes...it takes $20 billion to build one class 4 nuclear power plant that uses spent nuclear waste. Can you imagine what geothermal can do with that much money and a few spent oil and natural gas wells.... West Virginia has enough spent natural gas wells that we could build about 1,500 geothermal power plants by using all those spent gas wells. Bring that $20 billion with you and start building about 50 geothermal power plants and we can provide enough power for all America and all the electric cars they want to throw at us throughout America. Let's get this deal on the road and get away from fossil fuel before the end of this new decade.
I don't want you to believe that I am down on my knees begging you, but I can provide a photo if you want. And while you are at it, bring those new solar panels with you and build a solar PV plant while you are building those geothermal power plants.
The biggest deterrents to any good idea are the industries which will be hurt by them. Sasucks and James are right on, sadly congress does the bidding of their contributors; and the lobbyists that overwhelm them with counter arguments. Once upon a time congress represented the people, no longer. When congress once again starts using "what is good for the country" as its premise for decision making ideas like broad geothermal power production will leap forward. Until then it will be more of the same. Vote for term limits!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs stated by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The Geysers is a complex of 22 geothermal power plants, drawing steam from more than 350 wells, located in the Mayacamas Mountains 116 km (72 mi) north of San Francisco, California. The largest in the world..."
If I recall correctly, those hot wells used to be geysers but the power plants actually drained them dry. The plants must now continuously pump enormous quantities of water down the wells to continue operations. This is just barely alluded to in wiki and not mentioned at all in the article.
In order to derive a significant amount of this nation's power requirements from geothermal, I suggest development of facilities pumping water into wells near the Yellowstone magma chamber. It's an enormous reservoir of thermal energy just waiting to be tapped, or explode.
Of course if we're not careful we might set off the supervolcano eruption that could doom the human species. On the other hand, if designed correctly such a facility might defer an upcoming eruption by moderating the magma chamber's thermal pressure.
Ugh. A megawatt-hour is a unit of ENERGY, not power. 6 million megawatt-hours of ENERGY per year. Assuming 24/7 operation, the actual power output is about 680 megawatts.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMass large scale gigawatt level geothermal energy requires drilling deep into the earth injecting water and pumping with not yet invented 400 deg C pumps supercritical steam to the surface driving generators but also causing earthquakes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour car will be powered by a Mr. Fusion device long before large scale geothermal becomes viable.
Like all deniers James invents numbers out of the air. $20B for a Gen IV nuke waste burner?
The first of a kind nuke waste burning 500 MW Gen IV nuke plant going to service next in India cost $2.5B and the next 5 scheduled for service before 2020 will be much cheaper building on that experience.
All reactors can burn nuke waste at about the same cost as new uranium as reprocessed MOX. Indeed France runs half its reactors that way.
The nuke waste burning molten salt reactor is speculated to cost 25% of todays PWR reactor. It is so simple that according to the experts, a prototype could be up and running with mass production set to go in five years. Only Big Oil payoff money to Obama is keeps the DOE from spending a dime on this project.
@sethdayal, I've read a bit about the thorium fluoride reactors and they do indeed seem to have great potential. They almost seem too good to be true so I am waiting for the other shoe to drop. Reprocessing u233 is one of those challenges. But I'm sure this will be resolved. An interesting application would be to use a thorium fluoride reactor to power a desalination plant, then use the excess sodium from the plant to combine with C from CO2 to create sodium bicarbonate which can then be sequestered in mines or empty oil wells to reduce atmospheric CO2 levels. The devil is always in the details but a man can dream.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI didn't think pulling U233 from the LFTR blanket was a problem at all.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile we are waiting for a LFTR demo we can start up a thousand nuke waste powered ultra simple non breeding 1 Gw DMSR's on available waste stock.
Brilliant idea on the desalination to carbon sequestration scheme. A lot better than wasting the billions on coal CO2 sequesteration.
Sethdayal's comments are accurate with one exception. He wrote- "Only Big Oil payoff money to Obama is keeps the DOE from spending a dime on this project."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSadly, it is not big oil stopping the construction of these types of power plants, it is people like James Davis and other so called environmentalists who are spreading untruths and fear about nuclear energy. The United States needs to standardize the design of nuclear power plants and vastly simplify the administrative process associated with their construction. We should build hundreds of these plants over the next ten years. It would be good for the the environment and the economy (both in the short and long term)