GeoEarth Power – Forget fusion power, nuclear, coal or natural gas

If we can perfect this method, who needs any other form of energy? Yes we should keep producing Solar, Wind and Local geothermal. But with Deep Geothermal the only horizons we would have to conquer to be carbon free would be water shipping and air transport. Maybe Deep Geo could even make electric water transport possible. This stuff is so cool.

https://www.wired.com/story/want-unlimited-clean-energy-just-drill-the-worlds-hottest-well/?utm_source=digg

Want Unlimited Clean Energy? Just Drill the World’s Hottest Well

An engineering team bored 2 miles into hot rock without causing major earthquakes—a good sign for harnessing the Earth’s heat as a power source.

There’s treasure buried deep beneath the viridescent foothills of Tuscany’s Apennine Mountains, where the stark metal trusses of the Venelle-2 drilling tower mark its location like an X on a map. This geothermal well reaches nearly two miles beneath the surface to a region where temperatures and pressures are so high that rock begins to bend. Here, conditions are ripe for supercritical geothermal fluids, mineral-rich water that exhibits characteristics of both a liquid and a gas. It’s not exactly gold, but if Venelle-2 could tap into a reservoir of supercritical fluids and use them to spin a turbine on the surface, it would be one of the most energy-dense forms of renewable power in the world.

But getting there isn’t so easy. Boring deep into the ground risks triggering an earthquake if a large chunk of rock slips out of place. This risk was amplified at the Venelle-2 well, which aimed to breach the K horizon, a poorly understood boundary between the hard rock near the surface and the more pliant rock below. What would happen when the drill punched through this layer into the supercritical fluids below was anyone’s guess.

And for now, the mystery remains. Drilling at Venelle-2 stopped just shy of the K horizon when temperatures at the bottom of the well overwhelmed the equipment. Sensors at the bottom of the well indicated temperatures had breached 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and pressures 300 times greater than at the surface. Nevertheless, Venelle-2 is the hottest borehole ever created, and it demonstrated that it’s possible to drill at the extreme end of supercritical conditions. And this week, a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research showed that it could be done without producing any major seismic activity.

The authors say they hope their study will assuage fears that all geothermal drilling causes earthquakes. After all, the public usually hears about geothermal wells only when something goes wrong. But Venelle-2 shows that “there are also many positive cases of wells drilled for geothermal purposes,” says Riccardo Minetto, a researcher at the University of Geneva and coauthor of the study.

;]

Go there and read. More next week.

;]

Are We Going To Die Of Thirst – Two views presented

I do not usually put up two opinions in one post. These are timely articles so I think it is important to hear both sides. One side basically says we are going to die. The other side says we will have to move ourselves or large amounts of water. You decide.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-42982959

The 11 cities most likely to run out of drinking water – like Cape Town

  • 11 February 2018

Cape Town is in the unenviable situation of being the first major city in the modern era to face the threat of running out of drinking water.

However, the plight of the drought-hit South African city is just one extreme example of a problem that experts have long been warning about – water scarcity.

Despite covering about 70% of the Earth’s surface, water, especially drinking water, is not as plentiful as one might think. Only 3% of it is fresh.

Over one billion people lack access to water and another 2.7 billion find it scarce for at least one month of the year. A 2014 survey of the world’s 500 largest cities estimates that one in four are in a situation of “water stress”

According to UN-endorsed projections, global demand for fresh water will exceed supply by 40% in 2030, thanks to a combination of climate change, human action and population growth.

http://www.straitstimes.com/world/water-why-the-taps-run-dry

Severe water shortages around the world: Why the taps run dry

Published

Feb 13, 2018, 7:30 pm SGT

PARIS (AFP) – The world has abundant freshwater but it is unevenly distributed and under increasing pressure, UN agencies say, as highlighted by the severe shortages in Cape Town.

WATER, WATER ‘EVERYWHERE’

More than 97 per cent of the planet’s water is salty, most of it in the oceans and seas, but there is also a good supply of freshwater.

Every year around 42.8 trillion cubic metres of renewable freshwater circulates as rain, surface water or groundwater, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

This equals 16,216 litres per person per day – four times the amount required in the United States, for example, for personal and domestic consumption, industry and agriculture.

Depending on diet and lifestyle, a person needs between 2,000 and 5,000 litres of water a day to produce their food and meet their drinking and sanitation requirements, the FAO says.

About 60 per cent of the planet’s freshwater reserves is locked in the Antarctic.

:}

They don’t even agree on how much water we have. Go there and read a lot. More next week.

:}

The Swiss Endorse Renewable Energy – If a land locked mountainous country can do it

Then anybody can do it. Really, think about it. They are a really affluent society, who have never directly been involved in a war. They are Bankers to the world. They have no incentives what so ever. Yet here they are, for the good of the world. They deserve a postcard from the world that says, JOB WELL DONE!

https://www.thelocal.ch/20170521/swiss-vote-for-gradual-nuclear-phaseout-preliminary-results/

Swiss vote for gradual nuclear phaseout

15:10 CEST+02:00
The Swiss voted on Sunday in favour of a massive overhaul of the country’s energy system by gradually replacing the power from its ageing nuclear reactors with renewable sources.
A full 58.2 percent of Swiss voters supported the shift, according to a final tally after Sunday’s referendum, with only four of the country’s 26 cantons voting “no”.
“This is a historic day for the country,” Green Party parliamentarian Adele Thorens Goumaz told public broadcaster RTS.
“Switzerland will finally enter into the 21st century when it comes to energy.”
The move has been in the making since shortly after Japan’s Fukushima nuclear plant was destroyed in the March 2011 tsunami disaster, when the Swiss government decided to gradually close its nuclear plants.
Instead, it aims to increase reliance on hydraulic power as well as renewables like solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

:}

Go there and read. More next week.

:}

Wave Power – It could crash through traditional power sources

Attempts to generate electricity from tidal and river flows has had some success. People that tried to generate electricity from ocean waves have struggled. They may be on the edge of real change and I find that to be exciting.

http://qz.com/634989/the-promise-of-ocean-wave-power-has-enticed-and-eluded-engineers-for-40-years/

sea change

The promise of ocean wave power has enticed, and eluded, engineers for 40 years

It’s 1974. A man stands on the Scottish coast and stares out to sea. His dark hair is ruffled by the wind, while his mind is fixed on a new, pressing problem: How can all the teeming, crashing power of the ocean be harnessed to produce electricity, in a world that has just discovered it can’t rely on cheap oil forever?

That man, and his colleagues, are still searching for the answer.

For four decades, the problem of how to create an economically viable business producing power from waves has fascinated a specialized group of engineers, many of whom are concentrated around the sea-beaten coast of Scotland. Inventors have created all sorts of strange and wonderful devices to coax energy out of the water; investors have poured millions of pounds into the effort.

The problem is arguably one of the most perplexing in energy production. And maybe, just maybe, the answer is getting closer.

Seeking lovely, smooth lines

:}

Go there and read. More next week.

:}

Berta Caceres – She was murdered for the environment

Sure everybody in power down there says it was a robbery gone bad but she was assassinated. I mean the cops that were suppose to be guarding her were guarding the wrong house blocks away in another neighborhood. Damn those damn dams.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/03/gunmen-murder-honduran-environmentalist-leader-160303181349473.html

Politics

Honduras: Environmentalist Berta Caceres shot dead

Berta Caceres, who won the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize, has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

| Politics, Human Rights, Environment, Latin America

Honduran environmentalist leader and winner of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Berta Caceres has been shot dead at her home in the town of La Esperanza.

Caceres was killed early on Thursday by two assailants who broke into her home, a member of her group, the Indian Council of People’s Organizations of Honduras, said.

“Honduras has lost a brave and committed social activist,” fellow activist Tomas Membreno said in a statement.

Caceres, a mother of four, led opposition to a proposed dam on the Gualcarque river, considered sacred by the Lencas.

She had previously complained of receiving death threats from police, soldiers and local landowners because of her work.

Activist Carlos Reyes described the assassination “a political crime by the government”.

:}

Go there read. More next week.

:}

Wave Power Comes Back In A Big Way – Or should that be wave

No real comments here except the sponsor is the government and the number of participants are huge.

http://www.hydroworld.com/articles/2015/07/more-than-90-teams-enter-u-s-doe-s-wave-energy-prize-program.html

More than 90 teams enter U.S. DOE’s Wave Energy Prize program

07/08/2015

 

Sure, Throw The Poison Underground – That is a lot better than in the air

All these carbon capture systems are just stupid. Generating poisons through industrial processes has never been a good idea. It just generated profits for the rich and the elites. But now with humanity on the line with global warming we have to just give it up. Right now and shift to renewables.

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uciliawang/2014/07/15/nrgs-1b-bet-to-show-how-carbon-capture-could-be-feasible-for-coal-power-plants/

Ucilia Wang

Ucilia Wang, Contributor

NRG’s $1B Bet To Show How Carbon Capture Could Be Feasible For Coal Power Plants

Green Tech|
7/15/2014

NRG Energy NRG -1.28% said Tuesday it’s building a $1 billion project to capture carbon dioxide emissions from a coal power plant in Texas and ship them 82 miles away to help boost an oil field’s production.

The Petra Nova Carbon Capture Project, a joint venture between NRG and JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration in Japan, will be the largest in the world to use a process that scrubs away the carbon dioxide after coal has been burned to produce electricity, the companies said.

Carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas, would vent into the atmosphere and contribute to climate change if it’s not removed beforehand.

“This project is such a game changer because  it acts like a bridge between the power and oil industry,” said Arun Banskota, president of NRG’s carbon capture group. “Carbon dioxide is something we need to increasingly manage. There is a huge shortage for carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery.”

:}

Go there and read. More next week.

:}

Here Is What Illinois Could Look Like In 2050 – But are we smart enough

So here is a graphic that I borrowed (eh hum) to show the folks that read here how Illinois could swith to clean energy. But do Illinois leaders have the smart to do it? I do not know, but we shall find out. By the way I tried to put the graphic directly up here but you know I am technologically challenged so just follow the link.

 http://thesolutionsproject.org/infographic/#i

 

:}
Go There and read. More next week.

:}

The OIL Drum goes offline – Does that mean that Peak Oil Theory is wrong?

That is a very interesting question. At one level is is just a case of a bad attribution. It would be like saying if Jane’s stopped publication then there are no airplanes. At another level, as all the authors say that were involved, they may have just run out of new and bright things to say. It could also be that with many other things predicting the END OF THE WORLD, when it never happens, the readers got bored. That several major religions have preached that for thousands of years and nobody has gotten bored yet would speak against that. I have always been skeptical about the doom and gloom nature of the blog itself but when the CIA and the Defense Department believe something then, you have to believe it has some credibility and really oil is a finite resource. So with deep water drilling and fracking we may just be buying time. Then there is global warming. Anyway I drivel on.

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com.au/2013/08/our-clean-energy-future.html

Aug 19

Our Clean Energy Future

Posted by Big Gav

Following on my recent post bidding Farewell to The Oil Drum, I’d like to have a look at what I view as our longer term future for energy production and consumption.

As noted in my previous post, for the time being the combination of unconventional oil extraction and the ramping up of extraction of natural gas (from both conventional and unconventional sources) has continued to push the point of peak oil production out into the future, defying the predictions of the more pessimistic peak oil observers. During this period we have seen a boom in the research and development of solutions to help us eliminate our dependency on fossil fuels, which I’ll explore in this post.

Solutions can be divided into 3 groups :

 

  • Renewable energy – solar power, wind power, geothermal power, hydro power, ocean energy and biomass derived power (including biofuels)
  • Distribution of renewable energy – energy storage and the electricity grid
  • Adopting alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels – electric transport, bioplastic, alternatives to fossil fuel based fertiliser and new models for manufacturing, construction and agriculture

 

Renewable Energy

The graphic below shows the energy available from renewable energy sources annually compared to global energy consumption. The numbers are intended to give a rough idea of relative scale – for any given energy source a wide range of estimates can be found in the literature so the numbers are indicative.

 

These numbers in some ways understate the amount of energy potentially available (ignoring solar power potential at sea or in space, for example, or wind power at high altitudes or far offshore, or geothermal power deep below the surface of the earth) but still serve the demonstrate that the renewable energy available to us is orders of magnitude larger than our current global energy consumption.

The contribution made by renewable energy to our energy needs is expected to exceed that made by gas (and double that made by nuclear power) by 2016, though progress needs to be accelerated if we wish to create a sustainable energy system.

Solar power

Solar power is the largest energy source available to us, dwarfing all other sources – renewable and non-renewable. Approximately 36,000 Terawatts of power could be captured by land based solar power generation – compared to current global energy use of around 16 TW. As a result, most of the plans floated for shifting to 100% renewable energy (examples include proposals by Mark Jacobson and Stuart Staniford and local plans for countries like Germany and Australia) rely primarily on solar power.

Solar power is not only the largest energy source available to us but it is also the fastest growing energy source, with solar power generation increasing by over 58% in 2012.

There are a number of options for harnessing solar power – power generation using solar photovoltaic (PV) cells and solar thermal arrays along with passive solar techniques such as solar hot water heaters.

I have been of the view that solar thermal power generation (also known as concentrating solar power or CSP) would become our most important source of power in the longer term. This view was based on a number of advantages that solar thermal possesses – it does not require rare or expensive materials (enabling it to scale without hitting resource limits), it can be built on (and is best suited to) arid land that has few other uses, it can incorporate energy storage (thus avoiding the intermittency issue), it is compatible with the existing centralised generation model and it can be combined with traditional sources of power generation (coal or gas) in hybrid power plants that allow an easy transition using existing connections to the electricity grid.

An area of desert around 250 km by 250 km covered with solar thermal power generation could supply all the world’s current electricity demand.

:}

Go there and read a really long article. More next week.

:}

Solar Islands – This is a great concept

They say nothing about storms or ship traffic so I am not sure how this would work in the real world.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/floating-solar-islands-designed-to-power-crowded-cities-15979

Floating solar islands designed to power crowded cities

By on 29 October 2012

Not to be confused with what could be the biggest storm ever to hit the United States, SUNdy – a large-scale offshore solar farm concept by global consultancy and certification firm DNV – was unveiled at Singapore International Energy Week on Thursday last week.

The core feature of the floating solar concept is a hexagonal array of 4,200 solar panels – roughly the size of a football pitch – which floats on the sea’s surface. The ‘solar island’ would be capable of generating 2MW of power, with multiple islands joined together to create an offshore solar field of 50MW or more, producing enough electricity for around 30,000 people.

“The island has been optimised for solar capability and cabling efficiency,” says Kevin Smith, Global Segment Director for DNV KEMA’s Renewable Energy Services. “The solar arrays are divided into electrical zones feeding electricity produced into two main switches collecting the power for voltage step up at a central transformer (2MVA 480/34.5kV). From the offshore solar farm’s central island, 30kV electrical transmission lines connect, tying other islands in series to form a close loop and continue to the electrical sub-station onshore for grid connection.”

Sanjay Kuttan, managing director of the DNV Clean Technology Centre in Singapore says SUNdy’s thin-film 560W solar panels are flexible and lighter most silicon-based modules, allowing them to undulate with the ocean’s surface. “The key to creating an ocean-based structure of this size is the use of a tension-only design. Rather like a spider’s web, this dynamic, compliant structure yields to the waves, yet is capable of withstanding considerable external loads acting upon it.”

:}

Go there and read. More tomorrow.

:}