Do we REALLY have an energy crisiss ?

[Ed Sirett]

As with all forms of energy technology there is a temptation to discount the capital costs when blinded by potentially low (or even nominally zero) running costs. There is also a tendency to discount maintenance and decommissioning costs when looking at the viability of a source of energy.

Take nuclear power: the 'carrot' is that fissile materials produce enormous amounts of energy and although they are rare minerals and require very careful preparation and handling. This attraction was causing people to say 'electricity too cheap to meter' 50 years ago. The real costs are of course staggering - the plants are expensive to build, expensive to run (safely) and the waste is politically undisposable, and very very expensive to store.

Another factor affecting energy sources is the temperature. There are loads and loads of methods of generating low grade heat energy which is useful for space heating. There are fewer and more expensive ways of obtain high grade heat energy that can be used to raise steam and make electricity.

Geothermal is probably viable i.e. won't cost more to make than it makes! I suspect, it's currently too expensive to complete with simpler methods.

[Guy Dawson]

Bringing my A level geology back from the deeper recesses of my mind and following a slug if 20year old, 62% Talisker...

While the core of the earth is generally thought to be molten iron, there's a lot of hot and molten rock between the crust and the core.

Geothermal heat and energy production is not new. While the Icelanders have done very well out of living on the north Atlantic mid-oceanic ridge it's not always so easy. If you thought London water was hard and made the scale fur up, you've got nothing on the problems the Icelanders have.

The oil industry can drill several kms deep through continental crust. After than things get much harder. As the temperature rises the metal in the drill bit starts to heat up and soften which reduces the ability to drill. There is at least one project to drill to the 'moho' which is the divide between the solid crust and the softer mantle.

A big problem is pumping enough water into the crust and then controlling/capturing the hot water as it rises again.

There is a lot of energy in the core of the planet but getting at it is surprisingly hard.

Happy Valentines!

Guy

[Lobster]

[snip]

Oh Lordy, it's Bullet-Point Girl again.... ;-)

[Owain]

That's probably a good thing - can you imagine Dribble trying to install his own magmathermal system.

Owain

[Brian L Johnson]

Clive George wrote

Last year, I stayed at a place in Rotarua, New Zealand and the landlord there had a thermal vent in his back garden. Basically, it was a 4" hole which went down through a jumble of small rocks in his lawn down through countless miles to the bowels of the earth.

Okay... well, maybe not that far.

But it dribbled enough steam to for him to mount a heat exchanger over it and heat his house and provide hot water for all his needs and run a small sauna all year round.

The disadvantage of this method is, of course, that you have to live over the mouth of an active volcanic vent and so (a) the place permanently smells of bad eggs and (b) it's liable to cough and blow you off the face of the earth.

[Owain]

If we had long enough pipes we could export our warmth to somewhere in the southern hemisphere during their winter, and vice versa.

Owain

[Owain]

They could be concealed inside tidal wave generation schemes and the environmentalists would not know.

Owain

[David Hansen]

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 22:22:05 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be Ed Sirett wrote this:-

It depends on the temperature of the geothermal source. In Iceland Krafla started generating electricity 1977, but most of the sources are used for heating only, with electricity generated from water.

[Huge]

PWRs are horrid. And they're mainly designed to be small and quiet, paremeters which aren't required for land based civilian reactors. I'd rather have CanDu reactors, thanks.

[Brian Sharrock]

I vaguely recall ;'Yonks ago" reading of a proposal to lay an underwater cable from Iceland to Northern Scotland to import geo-thermal sourced electricity to the national grid. IIRC; the economic driver for Iceland was that a large load at the UK end would justify a large scale electricity generator. But , I guess that even such a environmentally-friendly scheme would get 'green-activists' chuntering on about entropy

[The Natural Philosopher]

Cost benefit.

Its mostly a long way down, and tapping it is expensive.

Places like Iceland though have IIRC many geothermal power stations.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well the earth IS a large nuclear reactor. That's partly what keeps it hot..

All energy is ultimately nuclear.

[Andy Burns]

controlling/capturing the hot water as it rises again.

But we'll have plenty of unwanted axtra seawater soon, two birds/one stone, at least for part A

[Mary Fisher]

:-)

I like that idea!

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

...

What makes you think there isn't?

Mary

[sigvaldi]

There are a number of geothermal power stations in Iceland and none of them seems to have problems with that. Geothermal water is also used to heat up buildings etc. and there does not seem to be any problems there either.

Why would you need to pump water down, why don=B4t you just pump up the water/steam that is already there like they do in Iceland?

[Ed Sirett]

I thought the bullets hit the target...as you might say.

[Dave]

All energy is finite.

If enough countries use wave power, how much will that slow down the seas? If enough countries use wind power, again, how much will that slow down the wind?

Having slowed down these two assets, the UK will be as deep in snow as the poles.

Having said that, did you read in the papers this week, that though the Arctic is shrinking, the Antarctic is growing? (I always thought that the ozone layer hole that was growing was at the South Pole.)

Is this due to the fact that this guvmint does not fly South of the equator that much :-) Hence does not pollute that area.

Or could it be that Gordon only wants more money from the plebs, for whatever reason he can think up?

When we use all the oil in the ground and then move onto using all the nuclear energy that is in the ground (uranium based energy.) and having discarded all the carbon based energy, such as coal, how long will it take to suck enough heat from planet earth to provide us with permafrost so deep that all crops fail?

The sun has a finite life, so the earth must be the same, or a lot less.

Makes you think.

Mind you, I will not be around to see this, but it does make me think about my children's children's children's children's children etc. By which time, I will be a memory on some futuristic nano drive :-)

Dave

[John Stumbles]

What about using one f**k-off great big one with an energy distribution system across the planet. And putting it a few (e.g. 93 million) miles away so you don't have to worry about disposing of reaction by-products?

[Andy Hall]

Yes, but what would you do at night?