In Texas, geothermal isn’t classified as green energy, and isn’t oil and gas either, and most importantly, all the technology and workers trained for drilling for oil and gas can be applied to developing geothermal energy. It’s the one energy that unites republican and democrat state lawmakers.
Utah is also looking to expand its EGS geothermal power plant.
However, LA is probably going to take the crown for the largest single EGS geothermal plant, at least for a while.
Looks like we are in a boom for the geothermal energy industry.
How it is not “green energy”? You need to drill (ok, that’s resource intensive) but then you just need to maintain pumps to keep the thing going “forever”, unlike, say, oil or coal, where you drill/dig out stuff that then needs to be transported long distances until eventually there’s no more oil/coal there and you have to find a new space to destroy. You also don’t need to worry about storage of waste (or a total meltdown…Chernobyl and that incident in Japan ~15 years ago are the examples of the level of what does go wrong) as is the case of nuclear plants. Nor are you irreparably polluting the water in China (and wherever else) as is the case with solar panel production.
Geothermal plants actually have tiny space footprint proportional to its energy output. It is very green in every sense of the word. The issue with fracking has more to do with polluting water resources with oil and gas.
What are the chances that a new power plant of any kind is built around existing population centers anyway? They are all going to need additional infrastructure.
That’s because with oil what you can get out of that fracking is limited. With geothermal, the mantle of our planet isn’t cooling down anytime soon.
I like a bit of all the above. FF are going anywhere and there’s a lot left. Some places should have windymills; some should have solar panels, some Geothermal.
It shouldn’t be an either or conversation. However, you kind of lose the “It’s truly green” argument when you say this:
Which is why the SMRs getting hooked up to former coal plants would work very well. Nearly everything is already in place. And the nuke waste storage isn’t the issue it once was, from what I’ve read.
Except for waste storage that is. Unless physics itself has changed, we have the waste storage issues as we’ve always had since the 50s. Scandinavian countries are the only ones actually building permanent waste storage.
I think the geological “issues” are really the only issue people have with it. Correct me if I’m wrong. Some claim possible earthquakes and such from franking. I’m. It well read on that issue.
Taiwan should be ripe with opportunity, and the current government is exploring it decently. The couple I have been around though keep having troubles of consistent heat, so they keep trying to drill deeper.
Fracking does cause earthquakes. I remember Oklahoma getting frequent quakes a few years back and the epicenter was always where ever the fracking was taking place. Haven’t heard about that in a few years now though.
But I’m a bit confused about depth here. I know someone who knows someone that uses geothermal in lieu of AC/heat on their house in Texas. Combine that with triple pane windows and solid insulation in the walls and that house is a consistent, comfy temp year round. In Texas. I’ve also read of homes in Chicago built similarly. So where’s the difference (depth-wise) between heat pumps for one’s home and geothermal as a form of energy?
I think using the term geothermal energy for pipelines that run under the yard or home to regular indoor temperature is confusing a lot of people with actual geothermal power plants.
Yeah, but not swarms of quakes that sink cities and topple governments.
Reports of hydraulic fracturing causing felt earthquakes are extremely rare. However, wastewater produced by wells that were hydraulic fractured can cause “induced” earthquakes when it is injected into deep wastewater wells.
Wastewater disposal wells operate for longer durations and inject much more fluid than the hydraulic fracturing operations. Wastewater injection can raise pressure levels in the rock formation over much longer periods of time and over larger areas than hydraulic fracturing does. Hence, wastewater injection is much more likely to induce earthquakes than hydraulic fracturing.
Most wastewater injection wells are not associated with felt earthquakes. A combination of many factors is necessary for injection to induce felt earthquakes.
I think the largest quake triggered by fracking is like a magnitude 5.7, and if that happens in Taiwan no one would bat an eye. If that happens in parts of the US without earthquakes though, no building would be left standing.
