Post by marchesarosa on Oct 27, 2011 9:12:10 GMT 1
New research from SMU’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org,
documents significant geothermal resources across the United States capable of producing
more than three million megawatts of green power – 10 times the installed capacity
of coal power plants today.....
Three recent technological developments already have sparked geothermal development
in areas with little or no tectonic activity or volcanism:
Low Temperature Hydrothermal
– Energy is produced from areas with naturally occurring
high fluid volumes at temperatures ranging from less than boiling to 150°C (300°F).
This application is currently producing energy in Alaska, Oregon, Idaho and Utah.
Geopressure and Coproduced Fluids Geothermal
– Oil and/or natural gas are produced
together with electricity generated from hot geothermal fluids drawn from the same well.
Systems are installed or being installed in Wyoming, North Dakota, Utah, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)
– Areas with low fluid content, but high temperatures of more than 150°C (300°F), are “enhanced”
with injection of fluid and other reservoir engineering techniques.
EGS resources are typically deeper than hydrothermal and represent the largest share of
total geothermal resources capable of supporting larger capacity power plants.
Some interesting comments follow, revealing undesirable effects of the exploitation of this kind of energy. Always a snag, isn't there?
wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/26/first-geothermal-energy-map-of-the-us-now-in-google/