An idea i have for renewable power, do you guys think its possible?

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Geothermal is difficult, mostly due to heavy corrosion in the turbines unless they're made of a metal that can withstand volcanic fumes. I remember a discussion I had with a friend who was into the idea and much better with metallurgical properties than I and he brought up gold as an idea, but its way too expensive and difficult to maintain due to it being one of the softer metals.

Also the idea of digging that far down is not feasable. Digging is also expensive, and the further down you go the more likely the drill:

1. will break
2. hit a natural gas pocket and ignite it possibly causing a devastating accident
3. will hit a pressurized pocket of magma which could follow the path of least resistance (the drilled hole)

Thats just with the drilling, not to mention working with magma is extremely dangerous and also difficult... just doesn't seem worth the risk for a technology that may not produce enough energy to warrant it.

 

[NoPants2win]

Some perspective:

The deepest man made hole in the world is 12 km. The radius of the earth is 6000 km.

 

[Naeo]

As mentioned, it already exists.

My impression is that it's not as efficient as fossil fuels--i.e., you need more water/heat and perhaps significantly larger facilities to generate the same level of power output as with a traditional fossil fuel based plant. Additionally, there's the issue of this not being useable in areas with significant geological activity, since the pipes have to go reasonably far down and can't break if they're going to be left in long-term.

It's a really neat idea, and could absolutely be implemented in certain areas of the world--but as with all green/renewable energies, it has to be tailored to the right location. You wouldn't put a solar power plant in northern Alaska (because there's so little reliable sun there--the "basically no one lives there" is not the point I'm getting at), or a tidal power station in Denver, or a hydroelectric dam in Phoenix.

 

[M Silverthorn]

Indeed, you're referring to Geothermal power.

Here's the thing that gets me about this form of energy if you're tapping it for heat. The heat of the earth is available at ANY time, 24/7, and can be tapped from pretty much ANYWHERE on the surface geographically - underwater or not. The way I see it, we should be looking further into this power source!

 

[Olas]

Some perspective:

The deepest man made hole in the world is 12 km. The radius of the earth is 6000 km.

Your point? The earth's crust is only around 30km on average and temperatures start rising dramatically long before you actually get to magma.

 

[rednose1]

Works on the small scale, but I don't think it would be practical at the commercial levels.
I don't know how much location plays a factor, but Iceland has tons of geothermal vents, so they use this more. Just drilling down anywhere isn't going to wok. (maybe Old Faithful in Yellowstone could be converted, but good luck getting that idea to ever pass.)

Personally, I'm for the next gen, small scale fission reactors while research is done into fusion/solar energy (wind varies too much for my tastes). One day we might be able to get by with just fusion and space based solar energy (which is awesome, why aren't we looking into it more?)

 

[Phrozenflame500]

To round up what everyone else has said:

Yes, it will work. It's being already used and it's called <a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_electricity>Geothermal Energy.

But it costs a lot because drilling is expensive and it requires a ton of space. Because of this solar and wind power tend to be more viable as they have a much lower initial cost to attract investors.

 

[mad825]

I think we would be better off building wind turbines that reach-up to the jet stream....

That may be the worst idea for renewable energy I have ever heard. That's almost as bad as putting a generator on car axles.

Then I suspect it will take a genius to adapt a design for such hazardous environment. The problem is getting it up there rather than making one to work/survive.

 

[Your Fearless Captain]

I think we would be better off building wind turbines that reach-up to the jet stream....

That may be the worst idea for renewable energy I have ever heard. That's almost as bad as putting a generator on car axles.

Then I suspect it will take a genius to adapt a design for such hazardous environment. The problem is getting it up there rather than making one to work/survive.

Engineering a turbine that would work high in the atmosphere isn't the problem. That would be the easy part. Somehow rigging the turbines at a minimum height of 23,000 feet (7km) would be nearly impossible.

A tower that high would be ridiculously expensive not to mention almost, if not entirely, impossible to stop collapsing from it's own weight. Suspending the turbines by balloon and cabling it to the ground would also be infeasible because it would require an enormous balloon to and it would also be blown way off course by the jet stream itself not to mention the fact that the jet streams moves with the seasons.

 

[lacktheknack]

Some perspective:

The deepest man made hole in the world is 12 km. The radius of the earth is 6000 km.

You don't have to dig to the core of the earth to access the heat...

...in fact, you might ruin everything if you tried. Think world-shattering apocalypse.

OT: As others have mentioned, Iceland has done it. This is because Iceland happens to be the only spot on the globe where the tectonic spreading centre cuts through land above the ocean, so the crust is really thin.

In other places, such as mid-continent, it's simply too much money to dig deep enough to have effective geothermal generation.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I'm not a expert on the science of the Earth's crust , but wouldn't it be bad for the planet to have thousands upon thousands of tubes bored into the crust and all sucking at the heat for the mantle be somewhat bad for the planet in the long run?

The planet's internal heat is a cocktail of geothermal heat and radioactive half-lifes going off over an insanely-long period of time, thus the pressures and releases (plus radioactivity) down there. We've been exploiting the radioactive materials for a long time now, and now we have some of the thermal as well. Now, will it cause us trouble in the long run? Yes. The thing that allows people to shrug it off is that this won't be seen for generations, due to the sheer amount of stuff that's involved.

However, that's not to say nothing will happen and that it wouldn't be bad. In science fiction (or just regular science), there are theories that enough exploitation (digging too deeply or greedily, as though to expose a proverbial Balrog) could be hazardous. They would be right, and the utmost in precautionary measures should always be taken, since you might actually be forming an artificial volcano. And if the core should cool, we would have a problem. The core of the planet is responsible for roughly half of the world's overall heat. That would be a problem down the road, eventually.

I was more wondering about the stability of the crust layer being affected by all those tubes going down into the earth and in effect being mini lava tubes, which could create their own disasters, and effecting on the tectonic plates themselves.

The Earth's core is massive. Really, really massive. As someone said , the crust is 12 km at its thickest while the Earth has a diameter of 6000 km. I seriously doubt geothermal stations will cause any significant effect on its cooling.

I doubt you'd need to get down to magma level. The Earth is already quite warm if you go a few hundred meters, though maybe not sufficient for super hot steam you also don't have the "all my stuff is melting" problem.

 

[Wyes]

I'm not a expert on the science of the Earth's crust , but wouldn't it be bad for the planet to have thousands upon thousands of tubes bored into the crust and all sucking at the heat for the mantle be somewhat bad for the planet in the long run?

The planet's internal heat is a cocktail of geothermal heat and radioactive half-lifes going off over an insanely-long period of time, thus the pressures and releases (plus radioactivity) down there. We've been exploiting the radioactive materials for a long time now, and now we have some of the thermal as well. Now, will it cause us trouble in the long run? Yes. The thing that allows people to shrug it off is that this won't be seen for generations, due to the sheer amount of stuff that's involved.

However, that's not to say nothing will happen and that it wouldn't be bad. In science fiction (or just regular science), there are theories that enough exploitation (digging too deeply or greedily, as though to expose a proverbial Balrog) could be hazardous. They would be right, and the utmost in precautionary measures should always be taken, since you might actually be forming an artificial volcano. And if the core should cool, we would have a problem. The core of the planet is responsible for roughly half of the world's overall heat. That would be a problem down the road, eventually.

The internal energy of the core is a stupidly large amount. Cooling really isn't an issue, at least not for probably billions of years.