Out in California the Green Crowd is excited about generating electricity from geothermal sources – using hot subsurface conditions to create electric power.
But, these interesting efforts have run into a real world snag.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers on line IEEE Journal edition reports, “In the American Southwest, the Energy Problem is Water.”
Very simply, the geothermal field in Southern California needs water to generate electricity, and there isn’t enough of the liquid stuff around. In addition, competition for the water that is available comes from California’s rich produce farms along the Colorado River.
Further tapping into the Colorado could bring on some interesting environmental problems. As the Salton Sea, into which the Colorado eventually flows, dries up, there are fears that severe dust storms could be triggered. That dust will contain nasty material like selenium and sodium sulfate, which are not kind to the human body. Taking more water from the Colorado River to generate electricity could turn the geothermal generation area into a hazardous location for both the electricity generating machinery involved and the workers who would operate it.
So, here is another Green idea that’s not panning out too well in practice.
We better keep our coal options up. It beats breathing selenium.
The article doesn’t mention it, but I can envision another potential threat. Tapping into deep underground heat sources could eventually result in cooling of that underground region. When things get cooler, they generally contract. Since this area is on or near a major fault line, changing the deep underground support strata by accelerated cooling might just trigger a really “Big One.” Who knows?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Before we kill off coal: Let's be sure there is a viable replacement
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5 comments:
And one other thing that is never mentioned, and I may not understand the science completely but with wind, solar and even geothermal, I don't believe there is any way to hold the electricity. Sure, you can move it along the grid as it's being generated, but that gives to bursts and lulls and doesn't allow for a steady stream. The only way to "hold" electricity is to "store" it in a lead acid battery. I know oil spills and coal mining accidents are unfortunate and scary, but what do people think a lead acid spill would look like if we were to transfer all of our energy needs over to methods that require more and larger batteries. Just asking the question....
Lady Cincinnatus brings up a good point. Electrical power storage is an issue for such generators as wind and solar that don’t always provide energy.
There are some ideas about how this could be done on a large scale, but I don't think they are well developed. One idea, for example, is to use hydroelectric dams in reverse, pumping water back up into the reservoir to store the energy in a mechanical form.
Of course, you have to have suitable dams available, probably a lot of them. That leaves out many areas of the country.
This also could create problems with downstream users of water from those dams.
Anyway, there are a lot of unintended consequences lurking out there for the Green ideas (e.g. how much energy does it take to deice a wind generator in the winter, and how much is left for users? And, have you ever been in the path of a chunk of ice tossed by the tip of a wind generator with a fan velocity of 15 RPM and a diameter of 250 feet? And, how many birds might get creamed by a blades of such a wind generator? The blade tips move at speeds somewhere around 134 miles an hour. Etc.)
There's a viable replacement for coal that's been around for about as long as coal has been around if not longer.
It's called hemp. Charcoal from hemp can replace coal, and produce thousands of new jobs. Hemp can produce more jobs than the coal industry now has in Kentucky.
The problem? Too many people like prohibition. It destroys a free market because it stifles competition.
I've yet to hear anyone from Freedom Kentucky, or whatever other bogus names you use to hide your feudalistic, anti-capitalistic agenda.
RE: David Dunn's Comment
I don't see how hemp is going to do anything to solve the coal issue. Hemp would still be a carbon-based energy source.
Furthermore, I suspect we'd have to grow a huge amount of it to create the equivalent energy to that we get from coal.
Hempy,
FreedomKentucky.org is a gov't transparency project by the Bluegrass Institute.
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