March 2010 Archives

Came across this great video about Geothermal Electric Generation in Nicaragua. Very informative, especially to people who may be unfamiliar with how geothermal electricity generation can take place on a large scale.

This short video goes over what Geothermal Power is and how it is THE solution to greener energy supplies for the world. Filmed in Nicaragua at the end of 2007, this video was made in conjunction with a corporate documentary produced by NetTV for Polaris Geothermal Inc.. Polaris Geothermal is a renewable energy company focused on the design and construction of geothermal energy projects in Central and South America.

An article in Scientific American discusses Google's investments in a variety of Geothermal Electrical Generation technologies and companies. It seem that Google, one of the world's largest consumers of energy itself, sees the clear benefits that Geothermal Electric Generation technology improvement would have upon the Earth's (and Google's) economy and environment.

The article says:

Mastering said drilling is why Google.org also invested $4 million into Potter Drilling, a Redwood City, Calif., enterprise built from EGS drilling work done at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico during the last oil crisis in the 1970s. As it stands, the oil and gas industry routinely drills wells of more than 18,000 feet--nearly 3.5 miles, or 5.5 kilometers--which would "essentially unlock the entire country" to produce geothermal power, said Dan Reicher, director for climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org and former assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, at the same conference.

But that also means that would-be geothermal companies are competing with the flush oil and gas industry for drilling rigs. "There are roughly 1,900 drilling rigs in the U.S.," added Lou Capuano of ThermaSource, another geothermal drilling outfit, at the conference. "Seven, maybe up to 11 now, are geothermal."

And, even if the rigs become available, it remains unclear just exactly what is lurking where under the surface. Maps for geothermal potential have not been updated since 1974 despite more than a million new oil and gas wells in the interim offering more data. So Google.org is also giving $489,521 to Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Laboratory to update the resource maps.

We at Atlantic Geothermal applaud Google's investments in this area, and we encourage other megacorporations to do the same. The future will belong to those companies that do make such investments. Google has long proven to everyone that they are that type of company. Bravo!

Fresh water is one of the most, if not THE most, precious commodity on Earth. In places like the Middle East, it's a serious problem facing all the people who live there, and it's getting worse. The ability to efficiently desalinate water, inexpensively and in very large volume, is one of the major benefits that we see as an outgrowth of widespread application of the CLEM Geothermal Electrical Generation Model.

As far back as 2004, articles were touting the breakthroughs in technology that were making power-plant waste heat desalinization a reality in areas where fresh water was in short supply.

An article in Innovations Report read in part:

University of Florida researchers have developed a technology that can tap waste heat from electrical power plants as its main source of energy, an advance that could significantly reduce the cost of desalination in some parts of the world.

"In the future, we have to go to desalination, because the freshwater supply at the moment can just barely meet the demands of our growing population," said James Klausner, a UF professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, whose research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. "We think this technology could run off excess heat from utility plants and produce millions of gallons each day," said Klausner, lead author of an article on the system that appears in the current issue of the Journal of Energy Resources Technology. He co-invented the technology with fellow UF mechanical engineering professor Renwei Mei

More than 7,500 desalination plants operate worldwide, with two-thirds of them in the Middle East, where there often is no other alternative for fresh water, Klausner said. The technology is less common in North America, with plants located mostly in Florida and the Caribbean producing only about 12 percent of the world's total volume of desalinated water, he said. U.S. residents get less than 1 percent of their water from desalination plants, he said.

The need for desalination is likely to grow, however, as the population increases and residents consume more fresh water. In Florida, for example, desalination has been touted as one solution for metropolitan areas where freshwater resources are becoming ever more scarce. With more than 97 percent of the Earth's water supply composed of salt water, desalination is even more urgent in developing nations, such as China, Klausner said.

We think that this type of technology will be an integral part of the benefits that can be derived from a widespread program to implement CLEM Geothermal Electrical Generation development. There's a lot of profit to be made and a lot of standards of living that can be improved dramatically if this were to become a reality.

Much more recently, advances in desalinization technology using ultrasound have made this prospect literally three times as appealing and profitable as it was only recently. More about that in an upcoming post. Until then, reach out to your elected representatives and make sure they're aware of the incredible potential of the vast reserve of energy stored right beneath our feet.
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Just came across a great "click-to-donate" site.

Click Here to Help Stop Global Warming!

It's really easy, and totally free, with no catches at all. Just click on the link shown on the destination page, and you'll go to a page where a bunch of folks have paid money to have their banners displayed to environmentally-minded people like you. Every time there's a visitor to the page, the sponsors make another donation, and it really does build up over time.

All you have to do is visit the page, you don't have to click on anything once you're there or stay there for any length of time.

Since we think that Geothermal Electric Generation will be a significant contributor in the fight to limit the negative consequences of global warming, we're all for anything that will help, so we encourage people to help spread this link to their friends and associates.

http://www.care2.com/click-to-donate/global-warming/




Click-to-donate advertising got its start with TheHungerSite, which has raised many millions of dollars for the UN Food Programme. Hopefully it can help the battle against Global Warming as well. Help spread the word!

As with most of these sites, you can click to donate once every single day, so make sure you go back and click regularly. Every bit helps when you're trying to save the world...

Ashland Daily Tidings, a regional newspaper in Southern Oregon, reports:

With interest growing in energy with a tiny carbon footprint, the Obama administration revived support for geothermal energy. Besides handing out more than $40 million a year from the Department of Energy, it is funding 123 demonstration projects in 38 states with stimulus funds. Projects include home heat pumps, power plants, drilling, rock fracturing, exploration and underground mapping.

"The goal of the department is to try to validate that a source of energy could be produced at an adequate price," said Jacques Beaudry-Losique, deputy assistant secretary for renewable energy. He expects results in two to three years.

The centerpiece is $25 million to AltaRock Energy, Inc., of Seattle and Sausalito, Calif., to demonstrate EGS can produce electricity economically and without producing earthquakes just outside the Newberry Craters National Monument in Central Oregon. Investors, Google among them, put in $60 million.

Earthquake concerns were mounting around AltaRock's EGS work at The Geysers when they shut it down over drilling problems before getting to the point of trying to fracture rocks, AltaRock CEO Don O'Shei said. They are developing a system to monitor quakes at Newberry.

"If EGS becomes economical, it will really be a game-changer," O'Shei said. "Even though it is relatively high risk in terms of the money to develop that kind of technology under the ground, it is very important."

While we strongly agree that Geothermal energy projects should be funded, especially over significantly poorer options like nuclear power, but we strongly recommend that more investment be funneled into developing the CLEM Geothermal Electric Generation concept. There is significantly less risk of harmful seismic activity, and the long-term benefits are much greater.

Also, easy access to near-surface hot rocks is not a factor, so the potential for suitable locations is greatly increased. In fact, CLEM Geothermal works in almost every state in the US. Find out more about CLEM Geothermal Electrical Generation at AtlanticGeothermal.com

The World Bank announced $400,000,000 in funding to help double Indonesia's geothermal energy capacity.  Officials say the investment is an effort to assist Indonesia and other developing countries produce clean energy and reduce global warming gas emissions.

Indonesia has numerous volcanoes and hot springs, which gives it some of the largest geothermal energy reserves on earth.

Geothermal energy is produced by mining heat stored beneath the Earth's surface. Indonesian officials estimate the country has about 28,000 MW of geothermal capacity. This is the equivalent of about 12,000,000,000 barrels of oil.

Read the whole article.

A friend on Facebook suggested recently that we should explain to our readers how the heat mined during the geothermal power generation process is brought to the surface for conversion to electricity. It's really quite simple. Cold water travels down a supply pipe to a manifold or header. This water is then distributed to smaller lateral pipes for heat transfer (Click here for calculation). As it circulates, the heat from the surrounding rock is absorbed by the water. Thus heated, water then feeds into a return pipe for transport to the surface.

This new concept is dependent on the thermal diffusivity of the rock formation and the size/shape of that formation. We are not trying to find hot rocks close to the surface (the common practice with geothermal power generation). We are looking for rock formations that recharge very quickly and have massive reserves of heat.

Quartzite granite can have a thermal diffusivity as high as 146BTU/hr/square inch. Some of the granitic domes under the East Coast are quite massive. Geologists say some of these domes are "vertical risers", and can reach all the way down to the molten core of the planet.

Larger heat reservoirs are better for this new concept and make it economically possible for much larger power plants.   

The other geothermal models (E.G.S.) we have seen all use fractured rocks for heat transfer, not interconnecting underground pipes.This is why we think that the CLEM geothermal electric power generation concept is superior.

Click here for calculation

We just came across a New York Times Editorial about the future of Geothermal Electrical Generation.

They say:

There is a lot of research yet to be done about geothermal sources, new techniques for deep drilling and energy generation at the surface. But the basics are clear enough. Water is injected deep into the earth where it absorbs heat from the surrounding rock. As the fluid returns to the surface, that heat is used to generate electricity. The fluid is then reinjected.

The system forms a closed loop. It creates almost no emissions and is entirely renewable. It also occupies a smaller surface area than either solar or wind power.

They also strongly encourage the Obama administration to invest in this technology.

We agree, and are glad to add them to the list of Geothermal Electric Generation supporters.

Read the whole article here.