Mark Tomlinson
02-10-2008, 09:39 PM
Like geothermal, but not.
A resort and like-named town in Alaska are innovating on a number of technologies, but this one impressed me most.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1353/
One of the biggest challenges of geothermal is the hole they have to dig to make it work. It costs millions to dig deep enough to get water to 300F. Then you have to dig another hole every ten years or so because you've cooled the earth around the first hole. And once in a while things go wrong and injecting cold water into hot earth causes geological events.
These folk use 160F water, which is much easier to obtain. It's real easy for them since they are a hot springs resort. Plus oil rigs produce run off water at about that temperature, meaning they could potentially generate power without burning fuel made from the oil they are drilling.
A resort and like-named town in Alaska are innovating on a number of technologies, but this one impressed me most.
http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1353/
One of the biggest challenges of geothermal is the hole they have to dig to make it work. It costs millions to dig deep enough to get water to 300F. Then you have to dig another hole every ten years or so because you've cooled the earth around the first hole. And once in a while things go wrong and injecting cold water into hot earth causes geological events.
These folk use 160F water, which is much easier to obtain. It's real easy for them since they are a hot springs resort. Plus oil rigs produce run off water at about that temperature, meaning they could potentially generate power without burning fuel made from the oil they are drilling.