[ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power]

[Eugen Leitl]

On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 09:52:00PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> 2011/4/18 Mr Jones <mrjones2020 at gmail.com>:
> > Unintended consequences?  Is the geo-loop's depth/usage so minuscule as to
> > seriously not even warrant consideration?
> 
> It would be very good if we could figure out how to steal heat from
> the hot spot under Yellowstone to the point of putting off the next
> eruption of the super volcano... Probably a more potent risk than
> asteroids, but fixing the problem seems significantly more difficult.

Geothermal is a niche. It can be an important niche for some
locations, but in the great total it doesn't matter that much.

You can also deplete the local reservoir very easily and/or
cause earthquakes and ground sinking if you don't know where
you're doing. E.g. my place is tapping the Malm karst 
geothermal aquifer, which is somewhat anomalously high
http://www.liag-hannover.de/fileadmin/produkte/20070713113243.pdf
and uses to adjacent well to reinject the Kalina cycle-depleted water,
causing a cooler plume dowstream so you must take care with
well spacing and alignment.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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