West Virginia Is Geothermically Active 239
sciencehabit writes "Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region."
How 'Green'? (Score:3, Interesting)
Will they be scraping even more mountains off the planet to get to it? Will they fill the remaining creek beds up with the effluvia from getting to it? Will they keep even more public roads under a permanent state of "repair" and detour to disguise the fact that they're simply ruining more tax funded roadway with heavy machinery? Will they drive residents out of even more entire towns due to blasting damages and constant noise from heavy machinery? Are they going to do anything with the energy rather than find cheaper ways to dig coal? WV has two industries, coal and railroad. If they replaced coal money with energy money the railroads would die. They won't let that happen. They've been fighting off a 3/4 MV high tension line for years, you think they're going to allow an energy exporting industry to pop up, string wire for multi MV lines and sell electricity to its neighbors now that they're got them hooked on WV coal? I lived there are loved it. But I realized the state is owned by stockholders for whom green is considered a place to dig. Even of they took advantage of a chance to do something good, they wouldn't do it right -- they'd do it cheaply to maximize profits and the population would suffer the effects. WV *was* green. It's owners don't give a shit about green.
Amazing how short-sighted dems and pols are (Score:3, Interesting)
Dems run around throwing money at Wind (meh) and Solar PV (a waste of money). Yet, the simple answer here is to not just support geothermal, but do it in a smart way. Most dry wells are ran down to about 10'K feet. Yet most heat is in the 10-20'K feet arena. So who not offer up a tax break for dry wellers to drill down to that region to locate heat. This would not occur everywhere, but it would occur where ever heat is generally known to exist. With this approach, drilling companies bear the first half of the risk while gov. then helps in the second half.
Re:Welcom heavy metals (Score:4, Interesting)
Skipping the sarcasm, the drilling will likely be a binary system, and would be a good way to obtain minerals, elements since it is a by-product. Then what is left can be re-injected back in. Basically, it turns a well from a energy producer into a energy and mineral producer.
Re:Dammit it's not green energy (Score:5, Interesting)
Just don't do it near cities.. (Score:4, Interesting)
They tried it in Basel (Switzerland), didn't work out too well for them.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Amazing how short-sighted dems and pols are (Score:3, Interesting)
Dems run around throwing money at Wind (meh) and Solar PV (a waste of money).
Wind is a proven technology, although all these horizontal-axis wind turbines are stupid. Solar PV could pay back the energy cost of its production in 7 years in the 1970s, and can safely be assumed to be much better today. There really are things more important than money. Unfortunately, those in charge do not agree.
Yet, the simple answer here is to not just support geothermal, but do it in a smart way.
Oh, so you mean, only do it on a small scale with heat pipes?
Most dry wells are ran down to about 10'K feet. Yet most heat is in the 10-20'K feet arena.
Most of the time, if you dig down to where it's really hot, you're going to be making a steam vent. And then you're going to bring up radioactives. We don't need a copy of The Geysers anywhere in the world, it's an ecological disaster.
With this approach, drilling companies bear the first half of the risk while gov. then helps in the second half.
Why should government help at all? All they need to do is stop hindering. Government is against green power anyway; otherwise we'd have not just strip mining on BLM land, but also solar plants and the like; numerous entities would like to build them there but are being stymied while clear cutting is A-OK.
Geothermal is not the answer. Solar would be far more useful, as it produces power when we need it most, and we have control over the pollution inherent to the process... which we do NOT have over geothermal.
Re:Welcom heavy metals (Score:2, Interesting)
I think the birthplace of the word "geyser" would disagree with you on that assessment.
And yet, you lack the courage of your convictions necessary to log in.
"The Geysers" is the most geothermally active region in the world acre for acre. If you measure a country, which is too large to build a single geothermal plant on, you will get another result. If you measure a 1x1 inch area, you can probably come up with still another result. In practical terms, The Geysers is the most geothermally active spot that there is. This doesn't mean it's the best place to build a geothermal plant, of course; there are other considerations.
Geothermal Ain't Green (Score:2, Interesting)
How much heat can we suck out of the earth before we start noticing effects? When we first sipped from oil deposits we thought the supply was unlimmited - so we built billions oil-fueled cars and painted ourselves into a corner. Would someone with real credentials please stand up and say what needs to be said: Geo-thermal is a finite supply - and at some level of human consumption mining it will destabilize our planet.
Re:Dammit it's not green energy (Score:1, Interesting)
Have you ever been to West Virginia? Much of the economy is based on mining, forestry, tourism, and agriculture. It's not hopelessly poor and dead end; many parts of it are quite nice. Even the low income areas are orders of magnitude better than inner cities in more populous areas.
question about geothermal energy (Score:2, Interesting)
Much of the earth's internal heat is not generated by radioactive decay or tidal forces, but is transient, left over from when the earth formed. Its necessary for plate techtonics, which helps keep the surface chemically in balance despite erosion and natural forms of pollution. Its also necessary for the magnetic field and its shielding effect.
If we drill for geothermal energy for power on a large scale, do we hasten the earth's cooling by any appreciable amount? The effect must be tiny, and adverse results would be very, very, long term. But people don't seem to care very much about the very long term, and hastening the geological death of the earth would seem to me to be a very bad thing.
Maybe someone who's done a crude estimate could answer this. I haven't seen it discussed anywhere on the net.
Protected Land (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that this comment will get read, you know, being so far down the page...
Presumably, the hotter the temperature, the better, in terms of generating geothermal energy. That means that the eastern part of the state (with the exception of the panhandle) would be the best for generating geothermal. However, a lot of that land along the WV/VA border is protected: state parks, national forests, national rec areas, and a large number of caverns that are declared off-limits. The Greenbanks radio astronomy telescope is also in that area, and a couple miles around it are restricted from having wireless communications or other serious electrical equipment that could interfere with radio astronomy.
On the other hand, if coal ever goes out of fashion, I guess the state will have to make a decision - with coal and tourism being our two biggest sources of money, I guess they'll have to decide whether the state parks are more valuable for tourism or generating power.
Iceland (Score:3, Interesting)
Just got back from Iceland, the whole country is powered by geothermal wells. In fact, the main power plant has a pipe feed of hot water to supply Rejykavik, and when you take a shower there you smell like rotten eggs.
Re:Amazing how short-sighted dems and pols are (Score:3, Interesting)
And then there is geo-thermal. Much lower cost than Coal. And much cleaner. Geysers has had issues, but that is because it is an open system. They and Iceland are one of the few that run an open system. Most have moved to closed systems, which solves all of those issues. And right now, America and the world needs LOADS of geo-thermal.
Re:Amazing how short-sighted dems and pols are (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Amazing how short-sighted dems and pols are (Score:3, Interesting)
Photovoltaics can supplement that. On the other hand, they will only be very useful once we install them on the roof like shingles.
Some years ago I saw on a broadcast television program the installation of self-adhesive thin-film solar panels on metal roofing. The solar panels are rolled out onto the roofing panels before they are lifted. The cords hang over the top end. They plug into one another and the wiring is covered with the roof cap, providing excellent protection of all kinds. IIRC the inverter mounts inside in the attic area, but you can probably run some fat bus bars down the wall. I often imagine using strips of stainless for this purpose, drilled and bolted together with stainless hardware, and encased inside PVC pipe. (PVC wiring insulation is required for code compliance in many cases... But I don't know what kind of blessing you need to do custom work like that and get it signed off, or if it is even possible.)
Metal roofing is considerably lighter and more durable than the usual paper and asphalt shingle crap, and the panels are supposed to last twenty years or so.
After this long comment I did an applicable google search [google.com] which turned up some pretty good-looking results here including videos and what looks like some sites selling something.