Geothermal power

[davepamn]

How often does the steam field disspate?  What happens if the field strength reduces?

[davepamn]

How many MWs will geothermal produce by 2020 in the US?

[cplai]

@davepamn Geothermal power generation can be controversial. Some operations triggered earthquakes. Pumping water into the ground to produce steam is like adding lubricants to the tectonic plates. It may be a good thing to do by releasing the stress. Would you rather to have a daily 1.0 earthquake or a 8.0 in thirty years? Until the earthquakes controversy is settled, it is hard to guess what will be done.

[urzaspath1234]

im only 16 correct me if im wrong but how does earth stay warm lava comes out and forms new land mass right? so how does it fill back up is the surface were on today going to be covered by lava and then be the "inner layer"

[cplai]

@urzaspath1234 It all depends how the heat energy distribute. When hot lava comes to the surface to become land where does the heat energy go? Some radiate as infrared and shoot straight up into the atmosphere. When there is no cloud cover, some heat escape to outer space. Some hot lava touch water and generate steam, water vapor become clouds and share the energy with the local weather systems. In theory the core of Earth would cool down a tiny bit whenever lava ooze out.

[cplai]

@urzaspath1234 What happened in Japan two days ago was kinda related to the layers you are talking about. Some of the old land mass were pushed back to the center of the Earth and when rocks melt, they turn back into lava again. When gravity of the Sun and Moon pull on the earth's ocean, the energy turns into powerful tidal waves. The same will happen to the lava though less obviously. LIke when you knead a piece of dough for hours, the dough will warm up. "Kneading" lava keeps Earth warm too.

[LeetKillaDethKrew]

the sun is not renewable energy! when it runs out of fuel in 1.5 billion years, what will you do then? huh?? yeah, I thought so.

[RedSandStudios]

@LeetKillaDethKrew Good point ;) If only we could make gravity power plants

[Olennex]

Well how about the sun? It constantly heats the surface and that in turn goes downwards as well. If we carefully plan and extract heat it can be sustained indefinanrly, so long as we are careful about it. Used in conjunction with wind and solar farms we can have all the power for the world without oil

[MrFilipe1980]

Won`t we be killing the centre of the earth slowly as well ?

We already killing the surface so why not kill the inside as well . I am not being negative I am in favour of renewable energy but if we are going to do this we need to know really well if is worth it.

Will it be another greedy company running this type of drilling? And you know that after a while they will send us the bill :)

Just thinking...

[cplai]

@MrFilipe1980 Strictly speaking, this is alternative energy, but NOT renewable energy. The heat loss in the core of the earth can never be recovered, hence NOT renewable. Some of these projects had to be stopped because of the Earthquakes resulted when the water was pumped into the cracks. The water/steam acts as lubricants that accelerated the movement of the earth crust. It really depends on where the water sipped into. So the earthquakes do not occur at all Geothermal site.

[Sohave]

@cplai There are three main sources of heat in the deep earth: (1) heat from when the planet formed and accreted, which has not yet been lost; (2) frictional heating, caused by denser core material sinking to the center of the planet; and (3) heat from the decay of radioactive elements. So yes most of it will never be replaced. but you can also say that the sun is not renewable since it will also some day burn out. the interesting thing is the time horison. Which I do not know.

[Sohave]

@Sohave Self corection!!! I went on a little research and came by an article featuring Professor Chris Marone claming that the original heat and frictional heat is only acounting for about 10% the major heat resource is the decaying radioactive elements. Howewer in some billions of years the core and crust will cool of and solitify but that will presumably hapen after the sun has burned out.

[Goblineng]

We've got power from heat, we've got power from wind, we've got power from water. Some needs to tap earthquakes already, not like the world is in short supply of them!

[Jermell28]

We are doing a geothermal project on the small carribean island of Nevis and the problem i see with Geothermal production is the funding , alot of banks think it hard to put there money into a hole that might not produce , they rather spend there money producing oil

[daltonagre]

Here in Brazil, there's no electricity from geothermal power.

[frankmrd22]

I remember that day, we had all the camera crew on rig 102 i am in frame's 5:20 to 5:37 the good looking roughneck in the black shirt =) Frank Madrid aka TANK. thermasource is a good geothermal company to work for....

[anividz]

sounds like a lot of digging

[cplai]

drilling to be precise.  Should be easier than drilling for oil.

[jsb400]

I like this idea for energy but does propose some problems. I'm not liking that it can cause earth quakes and what happens when we run out of water to use? In some places water has become scarce.

[bigchew14]

Its bullshit that we could easily run everything on the planet with this, oh but that would put the oil and coal companies would go under.

[frankmrd22]

@bigchew14 it's not bull shit you can heat & cool your home with it to if you do some home work you will find lout's of things you can do with geothermal i drilled for oil. geothermal is cleaner

[bigchew14]

@frankmrd22 I think you misread my comment (probably my fault). I meant it's bullshit that the only reason every watt of power on the planet doesn't come from it is that the oil companies won't allow it.

[frankmrd22]

@bigchew14 LOL NO BIG DEAL BRO & YOU ARE RIGHT ABOUT THAT

[Bolsillo89]

8:25 what is that bullshit of "we made them, we can stop them"? God complex??

very informative video, but im interested in the problems that geothermical energy can produce.

[eyetheskies]

Very interesting video...........

[moshlievious]

what tv show was this originally from?

[cplai]

The show is called eco tech on cable TV's science channel.

[brainlessmuscle69]

this video blows.... xD

[cadz2008]

Muted

[cplai]

The record level was pretty low. It was the problem of the source. I could have increase the audio level before exporting into the mp4 file. Try the speaker icon below the video and also crank up the volume of your computer speaker. It is low, not muted completely.