Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
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Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
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Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#2[deleted]
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#3[deleted]
How would you rank the danger of all our energy sources?
edit:// The parent comment was saying that as someone who doesn't know much about it, geothermal sounded potentially more dangerous than nuclear. I was hoping to make the point that nuclear is pretty safe, even when you include recent disasters.
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#4It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma, but is it possible to survey the land and intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner?
If not, isn't the question of whether you can effectively harness the energy or not moot?
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#5[deleted]
How would you rank the danger of all our energy sources? edit:// The parent comment was saying that as someone who doesn't know much about it, geothermal sounded potentially more dangerous than nuclear. I was hoping to make the point that nuclear is pretty safe, even when you include recent disasters.
I guess large-scale geothermal power plants are an unproven concept, but isn't the risk of volcanic eruptions completely independent of whether we tap it for energy or not?
Perhaps there could be a scenario where the sudden cooling of a region in the magma pocket could lead to clogging and local overpressure. OTOH releasing magma in a controlled manner could just as well decrease overall pressure.
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#6It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma, but is it possible to survey the land and intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner? If not, isn't the question of whether you can effectively harness the energy or not moot?
Not going to say its easy. But you can pretty accurately map magma under the surface using seismology. I believe it requires an earthquake and having the correct equipment in place, so its far from ideal. But it does work well.
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#7It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma, but is it possible to survey the land and intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner? If not, isn't the question of whether you can effectively harness the energy or not moot?
I see what you are saying, if you can't find it, why do we care?
Two reasons, as the article states, it has been found, twice in fact. Once in Hawaii and now in Iceland. The Icelandic team is drilling another hole near the existing hole to investigate further. Maybe the same can be done in Hawaii.
The other reason we care is that perhaps technology doesn't exist yet to easily find these near surface reservoirs, but maybe it will in the future. If they determine this hole can be utilized, it will drive research into finding these reservoirs.
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#8It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma, but is it possible to survey the land and intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner? If not, isn't the question of whether you can effectively harness the energy or not moot?
I think that there is probably some catch up that surveying needs to do to make this more practical, but it's probably more an effect of not having wanted to find magma before. A quick Google search turns up the following page about remote sensing for volcanic activity.
http://www.geo.cornell.edu/eas/PeoplePlaces/Faculty/matt/vol...
If there's money in finding magma, research will follow. 36 - 50 MW of non-carbon energy is good news. Geothermal is already competitive with coal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#U...) and with recent improvements in drilling technology, magma is within reach. The borehole mentioned above had a depth of 2,100 m. Deepwater Horizon drilled to more than 10,000 m (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepwater_Horizon).
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#9It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma, but is it possible to survey the land and intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner? If not, isn't the question of whether you can effectively harness the energy or not moot?
> It sounds like they didn't intend to drill into magma
Correct.
> intentionally find magma near the surface to exploit in this manner?
They're not at the exploiting point yet.
Re: Drilling surprise opens door to volcano-powered electricity
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would you rank the danger of all our energy sources? edit:// The parent comment was saying that as someone who doesn't know much about it, geothermal sounded potentially more dangerous than nuclear. I was hoping to make the point that nuclear is pretty safe, even when you include recent disasters.
I guess large-scale geothermal power plants are an unproven concept, but isn't the risk of volcanic eruptions completely independent of whether we tap it for energy or not? Perhaps there could be a scenario where the sudden cooling of a region in the magma pocket could lead to clogging and local overpressure. OTOH releasing magma in a controlled manner could just as well decrease overall pressure.
> I guess large-scale geothermal power plants are an unproven concept
Depends on the definition of large-scale, the biggest plant in the world is the 300MWe Hellisheiði power station in Iceland, and the largest geothermal field (a single "location" hosting multiple plants) is The Geysers in California, with 1500MWe over 22 plants.