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

[shootthebandit]

My idea is to drill down deep into the earth and put in some pipework close to the magma, by pumping water through the pipe work the heat of the magma could boil the water and the steam could be used to drive a turbine. I could see this working in volcanic areas or areas where the earths crust is thin (such as iceland). I can see this working in theory but do you guys think this is practically possible?

of course there are obvious drawbacks such as the initial cost of drilling and the danger of installing the pipework, but say it was possible the water could be cooled after the turbine and recirculated through the system. Add a few pressure relief valves that vent to atmosphere just in case an anything goes wrong

 

[Foolery]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

Spoiler

 

[shootthebandit]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

surely this should catch on, apart from the initial set up its has the potential to be incredibly efficient without having to use any fossil fuels and the only by-product is steam

 

[Foolery]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

surely this should catch on, apart from the initial set up its has the potential to be incredibly efficient without having to use any fossil fuels and the only by-product is steam

True. But then they wouldn't be making any money off of fossil fuels, eh? Iceland has geothermal. As do several countries around the world. Profitability is almost always the deciding factor.
Geothermal also isn't quite as clean as most people think. There is a chance of rocks containing minerals with radioactive properties. The primary radionuclides produced with geothermal fluids are radium-226 and radium-228.

 

[Esotera]

Geothermal tends to be done for individual houses rather than power plants (I think). It's really reliable and pays back the investment relatively quick, but you need a fair amount of capital & space to do it.

It's one solution for a problem that needs several answers...every bit of technology helps.

 

[WenisPagon]

Geothermal works well in the small scale but with current techniques we just can't create anything that's efficient enough in the large scale to be viable. In large part because efficiency is largely based on location; a geothermal plant can only really work in select areas.

 

[eBusiness]

After reading only the title of the thread I'm going to guess:

Yes it is at least theoretically possible, but it is not feasible compared with other methods of power generation, basically wind and solar will deliver the same power a lot cheaper.

After reading your post, it is not that bad, though it is only feasible in relatively few spots around the globe, and since the temperature of the steam is relatively low thermodynamics will only allow a small amount of the contained energy to be converted to electrical power, which is why a lot of geothermal plants only produce district heating.

 

[Darks63]

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?

 

[mad825]

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

 

[FalloutJack]

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.

 

[Darks63]

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.

 

[FalloutJack]

Zoiks!

I remember an old, B-rated movie, Crack in the World, with its infectious orchestral dirge of doom and destruction. One would hope that we could avoid a massive disaster with geologists.

 

[renegade7]

My idea is to drill down deep into the earth and put in some pipework close to the magma, by pumping water through the pipe work the heat of the magma could boil the water and the steam could be used to drive a turbine. I could see this working in volcanic areas or areas where the earths crust is thin (such as iceland). I can see this working in theory but do you guys think this is practically possible?

of course there are obvious drawbacks such as the initial cost of drilling and the danger of installing the pipework, but say it was possible the water could be cooled after the turbine and recirculated through the system. Add a few pressure relief valves that vent to atmosphere just in case an anything goes wrong

You're basically describing geothermal energy. It is in very wide use in a lot of developed countries. Unfortunately, it is limited in application because it only works in areas where the crust is very thin, but it is an important part of a total clean energy solution combined with wind, hydroelectric, nuclear, and solar power.

 

[Angelous Wang]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

Spoiler

Not in the rest of the world but in Island is fucking almost perfect.

Island runs on 100% renewable electricity.

Of course they do only have one major city for their plant to power, and few smaller settlements.

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?

No, you send the water down to the heat, not bring the heat up to the water.

 

[Foolery]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

Spoiler

Not in the rest of the world but in Island is fucking almost perfect.

Island runs on 100% renewable electricity.

Of course they do only have one major city for their plant to power, and few smaller settlements.

Island? You mean Iceland?
Anyway, I live in Canada, and we don't have any geothermal power stations. We've done plenty of research into it though.
With hydro-electric power and fossil fuels, there's less of an economic incentive to make it a reality.

 

[Pinkamena]

Already been done. I'm actually building a probe for exactly these kind of boreholes! It's believed there might be a bit of radioactivity in them, but nobody has really checked. Gonna do that.

 

[BNguyen]

I sort of had an idea as well - artificial tidal power - by using pumps to force water jets to spin turbines on offshore platforms - the turbines would power generators which would give off more than enough electricity in order to power to pumps and to be transferred for usage in urban and rural areas by cable. The water jets would be placed under the water so there is always a constant source, or they could be placed above so that the pumps just drop the water into waiting turbines like in hydroelectric dams - basically, all of the benefits of hydroelectric dams without the need to alter the environment to such a large degree by making use of old oil drilling platforms.

 

[Angelous Wang]

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

Spoiler

Not in the rest of the world but in Island is fucking almost perfect.

Island runs on 100% renewable electricity.

Of course they do only have one major city for their plant to power, and few smaller settlements.

Island? You mean Iceland?
.

Yep that's what I meant, dyslexic fuck up.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

New Zealand generates 13% of its power from geothermal energy.

You mean geothermal? Already been done. Not implemented well, but done.

Spoiler

Some stations use that method, others just draw from the already heated water from the water-table or steam vents.

 

[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.