at some point we will figure out that because we took some much energy out of earths core that it stops spinning and causes the magnetic field to collapse ;-)
They've already made a move about that. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/
The time has finally come for geothermal energy
131–140 of 282 posts
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#132Purely as an aside, I had the pleasure of visiting Iceland in August and it was great. Truly beautiful, rugged land.
Another way they've utilised geothermal energy is with large, sophisticated greenhouses which allow growing of many produce they would otherwise import. I only had the opportunity for a brief visit but a lot of it looked hydroponic with really interesting monitoring and control technology. (Plus the biggest bees this Antipodean has ever seen! These suckers were so big they didn't buzz, they rang the doorbell.)
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#133Sorry the time had not come for geothermal. It will always be an expensive niche market. Will there be more? Sure but its ever going to fly globally.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to build commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over budget in time and money. China is having success but even they are not projected to have nuclear account for more than single digit percentages of their generation. Maybe SMR's, thorium, 4th gen, etc will work out, but maybe not.
The US Navy consistently builds reactors on-time and in-budget
There’s something to be said for a standardised design with replaceable parts.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of housing politics from 'old school' environmentalist groups are a pretty big own goal as well. Denser urban living is pretty energy efficient, and forcing lengthy commutes on people because of NIMBYism is a huge waste.
People want houses. Planners can either yell and stomp their feet about this or adapt to circumstances. It's like electric cars. People want cars. Better they have the ability to have an electric SUV or pickup, because if you try to force them into little tiny econoboxes or lecture them about how they should really be using mass transit, they're just going to flip you the bird and walk away. Similarly, better to have…
Allowing people to live in apartments is not demanding that they do.
Reversing the downzoning of the 70s - 00s is about allowing construction in cities again.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#136Baseload generation is useless in 2025. It's in the name; it's called "base load", not "base generation". Base generation was a cost optimization. Planners noticed that load never dropped below a specific level, and that cheapest power was from a plant designed to run 100% of the time rather than one designed to turn on and off frequently. So they could reduce cost by building a mix of base and peaker generation plan…
Or just build out nuclear like France and pay just 20 Cents per kWh. https://particulier.edf.fr/content/dam/2-Actifs/Documents/Of...
The two nukes that recently came on line in the US were so over budget and timeline that all customers now pay a “surcharge” on their bill to pay for it.
Western counties building nukes is so expensive it makes the cost of electricity go up.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#137Baseload generation is useless in 2025. It's in the name; it's called "base load", not "base generation". Base generation was a cost optimization. Planners noticed that load never dropped below a specific level, and that cheapest power was from a plant designed to run 100% of the time rather than one designed to turn on and off frequently. So they could reduce cost by building a mix of base and peaker generation plan…
Suitable locations for pumped hydro are very limited, it is a comparably rare resource.
A lot of mountainous places are dry, and a lot of wet places are flat.
Of the remaining places, some are so unique that they cannot be destroyed by industrial construction (National Parks etc.)
For example, the main ridge of Krkonoše (Riesengebirge) on the Polish-Czech border has a lot of wind and rain and deep valleys, but it is the only place south of Scandinavia with a Scandinavia-like tundra and many endemites surviving from the last Ice Age. Any attempt to construct pumped hydro there would result in a national uproar on both sides of the border.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of housing politics from 'old school' environmentalist groups are a pretty big own goal as well. Denser urban living is pretty energy efficient, and forcing lengthy commutes on people because of NIMBYism is a huge waste.
People want houses. Planners can either yell and stomp their feet about this or adapt to circumstances. It's like electric cars. People want cars. Better they have the ability to have an electric SUV or pickup, because if you try to force them into little tiny econoboxes or lecture them about how they should really be using mass transit, they're just going to flip you the bird and walk away. Similarly, better to have…
"People want houses."
(Source needed. This probably depends on a lot of variables in play.)
Plenty of people in dense urban areas are happy with living in an apartment and, where I live, buying a condo in the city is at least as frequent as buying a house 20 km away from it for the same price.
Living in suburbia has its downsides - long commute, very limited entertainment and cultural possibilities, very limited choice in schools. Not everyone loves cutting the lawn etc. either, I surely don't. If any of your family members has any disease that could flare up, ambulance response time tends to grow worse with the growing distance.
Of course, a lot depends on factors such as "is the transport authority willing to make public transport actually safe and nice". That requires keeping raving drugged lunatics out of it, plus paying enough money for it. AFAIK in the US, Republicans have an ideological problem with the "paying money for it" part and the Democrats have an ideological problem with the "suppressing antisocial behavior in it" part.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of housing politics from 'old school' environmentalist groups are a pretty big own goal as well. Denser urban living is pretty energy efficient, and forcing lengthy commutes on people because of NIMBYism is a huge waste.
People want houses. Planners can either yell and stomp their feet about this or adapt to circumstances. It's like electric cars. People want cars. Better they have the ability to have an electric SUV or pickup, because if you try to force them into little tiny econoboxes or lecture them about how they should really be using mass transit, they're just going to flip you the bird and walk away. Similarly, better to have…
People want houses, but absolutely hate other people having houses.
Re: The time has finally come for geothermal energy
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
To be fair, that promise of fission made sense from a purely scientific and mathematical perspective, before running into the practical realities of how its externalities interact with real-world politics. Fission is expensive because in practice it turns out we care quite a lot about proper waste management, non-proliferation, and meltdown prevention. In a world where anyone could just YOLO any reactor into producti…
I fully understand that waste management of fission reactors is a Very Big Deal. But I still stand behind the argument that opposing nuclear power in the 70s and onward is possibly the biggest own goal the environmental movement has ever achieved. At worst, nuclear waste contaminates a discrete section of the Earth. Climate change affects literally everywhere. The correct answer would have been to aggressively roll o…
Back then, it affected everyone in two ways, which were the things Greenpeace campaigned against: nuclear weapons, especially overland testing, and dumping waste at sea.
Chernobyl took out Welsh farming for years, and in a few places decades, because it spread a thin layer of bioaccumulative poison over the whole of Europe.