Energy for the New New Deal; or, "Drill, Baby, Drill"
Thomas Edison once described several perpetual energy sources:
We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Natures inexhaustible sources of energy — sun, wind and tide.... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. --
Wikiquote
Meanwhile, one source of perpetual energy slipped his mind ... and it's less than ten miles from everywhere on earth:
straight down! Besides a perpetual source of energy, figuring out the refinements in current technology required to tap and deliver it also promises a huge opportunity to explore and exploit America's best engineering and technical talent. New New Deal? You betcha.
Most environmental thinkers are familiar with residential geothermal energy generation. Six to 10 feet down, the earth is a constant 54°F. Put some pipes in the ground, circulate a refridgerant through a heat pump and voilà: efficient, money-saving heating and cooling!
Geothermal has another manifestation that you probably also know about. Where there are geysers and hot springs near the earth's surface (as in Iceland, New Zealand, Idaho and Santa Rosa, California to name a few), hot water and steam are used directly to heat buildings and steam is used to drive turbines to generate electricity.
Deep geothermal, though, has barely been investigated. The deeper one goes below the surface of the earth, the hotter it gets. About 10 miles down -- everywhere on earth! -- the temperature is 1000°F. A recent patent, filed in 2002 and granted in 2007 provides the practical means to deliver on the promise of deep geothermal. The geothermal plant described in US Patent 7251938 [pdf] has a surface footprint of as small as 40 acres. Conservatively, it could power 135,000 homes ... all by itself ... and feed the existing electrical power grid. Plants like it could be sited near virtually every city in the US. It uses only local and natural "ingredients", is safer and cleaner than nuclear, oil or coal-fired plants, and produces NO waste by-products. None!
As described in the patent, the first stage is less than a mile down -- shallower than many coal mines. The first stage would house most of the generating gear, eliminating noise and visual pollution and reducing potential surface environmental risks.
As was the case with the construction of the Hoover Dam during the '30s, the technology involved is conventional, but the limits of conventional thinking and engineering have to be stretched to mine and drill to the depths called for. Meanwhile, name an engineering school or research lab that wouldn't love the challenge! MIT produced a report in 2006 for the USGS that discusses the costs and benefits in detail.
An added benefit ... as realized recently in Santa Rosa, CA ... wastewater can be used for the "input" to the power-generation station. Wastewater from sewers and storm runoff has to be treated by municipalities before it can be returned to an aquafer anyway. Why not feed it to a 1000°F. boiler that produces steam to drive a turbine that produces electricity? With most waste solids removed from the wastewater before injection to the wells, they can be warmed with derivative heat and composted to generate methane.
Ultimately clean water can be returned to the local aquafer or into the atmosphere as steam. Read US Patent 7251938 bring some friends together and prepare a draft proposal. The Department of Energy is looking for just such funding opportunities!
Read World Geothermal Power Generation Nearing Eruption for compact survey of world-wide geothermal development. The Energy Policy Institute's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown is a comprehensive survey of world-wide energy resources and development.
Drill, Baby, Drill!
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Link print reference
- This Article
- http://thnktnk.net/drill.html
- Wikiquote
- http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Alva_Edison
- Residential geothermal
- http://www.igshpa.okstate.edu/geothermal/residential.htm
- Geothermal
- http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/powerplants.html
- Deep geothermal
- http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/geothermal.html
- Sothern Methodist University Geothermal Lab
- http://smu.edu/geothermal/
- US Patent 7251938
- http://www.google.com/patents?q=7251938&btnG=Search+Patents
- US Patent 7251938 (pdf)
- http://thnktnk.net/ClimateForChange/US%20Patent%207251938.pdf
- Hoover Dam
- http://www.arizona-leisure.com/hoover-dam-men.html
- Santa Rosa, CA
- http://www.gwpc.org/meetings/forum/2007/proceedings/Papers/Khan,%20Ali%20Paper.pdf
- Santa Rosa, CA
- http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/faqs.html
- US Patent 7251938
- http://www.google.com/patents?q=7251938&btnG=Search+Patents
- Department of Energy
- http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/current_solicitations.html
- Earth Policy Institute
- http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update74.htm
