er. Almost everything most people think they know about geothermal power is wrong.
For very high yields you want to go someplace where the heat is deep and there is little activity.
all of that surveying is looking for easy cheap hot spots.
Its good to know you aren't trying right at a particularly thick part of the crust, but for the most part theres lava heat no matter where you go its just a matter of how deep you have to go to get to it.
We can drill oil wells 9 miles deep or 1 mile under the ocean before even starting in earth.
2 miles on the one coast and 3 miles on the other and 5 miles in the thick parts in most situations means that geothermal is available anywhere.
Going for hot spots is like looking to start tectonic entropy.
hot spots are hot because of fissures and tectonic boundaries. Yes the energy is easy to get to and no, you don't want to build anything there you expect to stand more than a century.
This is particularly true f a geothermal power station, which relies on the cave over principle and the distance of bedrock between you and the heat to ensure that the whole thing doesn't end up a mess.
What it comes down to is that EL cheapo geothermal power is what everybody has heard about, but wise geothermal power being only a little bit more expensive really is also a better long term investment for civilization as a whole.
Don't even get me started about why using water to explode and fracture rock isn't the way to do this. Wait. Maybe thats my cue.
issuepedia.net/index.php?title=Geothermal_Power_Responsible_Versus_Irresponsible_Technologies
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== Introduction ==
It has come to my attention of late that the current mainstream geothermal power explorations have gone to the dark side. I must admit to
being a bit out of the loop for almost a decade, as the research which I performed is for the most part ten years old. There are obvious different ways to go about Geothermal power, and it seems that the means which are now predominantly being employed are the worst kind.
Perhaps I should have foreseen this, after all, humans are invariably and predictably short sighted and greedy in general. However, I did not foresee it, and for this I feel quite a bit of regret. It seems that I have been accidentally advocating Geothermal Power use alongside others whos intentions were very different from mine.
== Different Kinds of Geothermal Systems ==
There are several different ways to go about obtaining geothermal energy or drilling Geothermal wells.
The only means which I personally advocate is exclusive to other technologies and is in some senses probably somewhat more expensive
over the short term. However, the alternatives will prove to be more expensive over the long term, and to have assorted negative consequences. The only good way to do geothermal power is to drill a conventional well using conventional standard drilling technologies,
and then to build closed circuit double loop systems. What this means is that firstly, an actual linear well is drilled straight down into the earth, secondly, that the water which is heated to power the system never leaves the piping which contains it, and thirdly,
that water is circulated down on one circuit or loop and rises as steam on a second circuit or loop.
The Alternative being now explored is to use water as an explosive, and to drill non linear wells by pumping water into rock.
This creates many small fractures or fissures in the rock, rather than a straight down conventional well. It also can cause earthquakes,is prone to the problem of erosion, and is likely to create a geothermal system which cools very quickly, especially when compared to closed circuit double loop. Claims made about such systems that they are closed systems are obviously false, if the water
leaves the tubes then there is obviously potential for that water to leave the geothermal system. Another issue to consider is that a closed circuit double loop system never loses water and never loses pressurization. The systems which they are now creating are highly entropic, and while they may for the time being demonstrate properties of a closed system, they are certainly not truly closed.
www.mcquay.com/McQuay/DesignSolutions/GeothermalPage2
www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=iup&q=open+loop+geothermal+system&revid=1035713177&ei=F5NJStPtD4HcsQPb1JCHBQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=6
www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=iup&q=closed+loop+geothermal+system&revid=1035713177&ei=F5NJStPtD4HcsQPb1JCHBQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=2
www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=iup&q=geothermal+ground+loops&revid=1035713177&ei=F5NJStPtD4HcsQPb1JCHBQ&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=7
== Four Main Types ==
There are four main types of geothermal system, they are;
* Vertical Closed Loop
* Horizontal Closed Loop
* Open Loop (Vertical open Loop)
* Surface Water or Lake Loop. (Horizontal Open Loop)
*In addition, each of these types of systems has many variants, for instance, you can have single or double circuits, A primarily
vertical loop system with deep vertical shafts (my personal pick for best over all) Or a primarily horizontal system with vertical shafts. (Useful for places where the heat is very close to the surface.)
*What they are now calling "Advanced Geothermal Systems" are in fact open loop, primarily vertical systems terminating in entropic
and random lesser micro circuits that because of the way they are created may be any combination of vertical, horizontal, or diagonal.
Such systems are not in any real way advanced, they are in fact just an exotic and idiotic way to cut corners.
== Tectonic Stress Sites ==
The kind of Geothermal power systems I am advocating are best implemented far away from tectonic stress sites, whereas these hot rock
fissure systems exploit tectonic stress sites and thus add, obviously, to potential tectonic stresses.
Several older open loop systems are demonstrably new epicenters for earthquake activity, particularly in California.
== The Technology Challenge Excuse ==
Claims are frequently made that conventional drilling technology can't drill geothermal wells due to the heat. This is an issue,
but it does not prevent oil exploration, it just complexifies it. If we can drill 9 miles deep for oil, or a mile deep under the ocean
before we even hit ocean floor, then we can drill down to accessible geothermal heat. Much like the cries that we need new battery technology in order to have electric cars- when we already have electric cars and even electric busses that have been running for 20 years, this excuse depends upon ignorance to be taken seriously.
== Site Testing ==
For these corner cutting pig headed systems they are now creating trying to save money, they spend typically two years just making sure that the hot rock is permeable, and can be easily fractured. Thats a two year slow down compared to conventional well Geothermal power, which does not require such specific conditions to work.
== Time to return on Investment ==
While it is true that conventional well geothermal systems may cost more, the time to return on investment is much shorter, potentially as short as 4 years.
== Scalability ==
A conventional well Geothermal power system could be built with far higher yields than any fractured hot rock open loop system,
because the heat energy is more directly accessed and more directly uncovered. Scalability is a very important issue because as you increase in scale, your costs per unit of recovered energy go down. The madness of their method is that they are cutting corners to save money, but the systems they are building operate at much smaller scales than a conventional well geothermal system can, and thus
over the medium term (10- 15 years) a conventional well system that is very large will prove to also end being more cost effective and more efficient. This is important when figuring the cost of solving the problem of our total energy crisis, because if you use very large scale Geothermal Power stations of the conventional well type, the problem can be solved for probably as little as 100 billion dollars. If you instead make lots of short term corner cutting el cheapo wells, the cost of solving the problem with geothermal power rises into the trillions of dollars.
The key issue here is the question of installation costs versus maintenance costs, and how those factor into kilowat hours.
[category:Energy and Environment]]
[Category:Issues]]
