renewables
12 Nov 2009
Is Geothermal The Baseload Alternative?
Clean, cheap, and abundant: geothermal sounds too good to be true. Is it? David Hollier investigates
On Tuesday, the media pack woke up to a post-clean coal Ian Macfarlane. "The reality is," he had said in the Four Corners report of the night before, "you are not going to see another coal fired power station built in Australia. You can talk about all the stuff you like about carbon capture storage, that concept will not materialise for 20 years, and probably never".
AM’s Alexandra Kirk got on to Martin Ferguson, Rudd’s Minister for Resources and Energy, early the next morning. "If clean coal proves unachievable, doesn’t that leave nuclear as the only viable option for baseload electricity reduction?"
No, actually, it doesn’t. Like so many others, this question fails to take into account the promise of geothermally generated electricity as a viable baseload energy source. Geothermal, or "hot rocks", is clean, abundant and cheap power.
By clean, we’re talking about zero emissions to produce, with no waste.
And by abundant? When he launched the deep-drilling phase of Petratherm’s Paralana project in South Australia, Martin Ferguson asserted that just 1 per cent of geothermal reserves could produce 26,000 years’ worth of electricity.
Every politician or industry spokesperson, when caught in the spotlight of business-as-usual energy policy, will rattle off the "alternative energy sources" to be "part of the mix". Solar and wind. Wind, tidal and solar. We all know that these can’t yet deliver baseload. If geothermal can — and it is so clean and so abundant — why have we heard so little about it?
The fact is, Australia has still got about 90 billion tonnes of coal in the ground so there’s not a lot of pressure coming from electricity companies to find alternative baseload sources. The export price of coal will move in only one direction: up. Volume’s going up too: forecasts by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) predict that Australia will export 140 million tonnes of coal in the 2009/2010 financial year, up 2.6 per cent from the previous year. That’s a lot of coal being dug out of the ground, sold and burnt.
Nevertheless, the potential of geothermal is beginning to emerge through a smog of misinformation. The nascent industry received a major boost last week when Ferguson announced $235 million in funding. Two leading geothermal development companies, Geodynamics and Petratherm, will get $90 million and $63 million respectively.
Currently there are 48 companies exploring for geothermal sites in Australia and several of these expect to have projects running within two to five years. Geodynamics’ project in the Cooper Basin near Innamincka in South Australia is one of the more advanced and the company believes it will soon have energy available for industrial use.
Around the world, 24 countries already generate geothermal energy, among them the United States, Iceland, New Zealand, Italy and Japan. They predominantly use water that has already been heated by volcanic springs rather than heating it by flushing it through hot rocks as we do in Australia. And it’s growing rapidly: the Earth Policy Institute predicts as many as 46 countries may be generating geothermal power by the end of next year.
To harvest geothermal energy, you need to drill four to five kilometres below the surface where the rock temperatures are 200 degrees or more, hot enough for the liquid they heat to drive turbines. The first challenge is to get wells down into this layer to check that the rocks are hot enough. If they are, you can pump water into the rock at a pressure high enough to fracture the rock and to allow the water to move through the fractures, forming a reservoir. Then other wells are drilled and the hot water is pumped back up to the surface where it drives the turbines.
Once the system is up and running, this hot water can be constantly recycled. There are no other inputs into the process. Unlike wind and solar, it does not rely on specific weather conditions. And apart from the wells, there is no "mine" as such: minimal demands are made of the land. Geothermal is a renewable energy source that taps the ceaseless heat production at the earth’s core as it radiates towards the surface.
The first discoveries of these "hot rocks" in Australia were in South Australia. Discoveries of hot rocks beneath layers of brown coal in the La Trobe Valley have led to speculation that coal acts as an insulator for the rocks. Indeed, it seems that brown coal is a better insulator of hot rocks than black coal for the same reason that it’s a dirtier power source — because it’s wetter. Beyond this, the connection between coal deposits and the presence of geothermal is not fully understood.
Be that as it may, the existence of geothermal reserves under coal deposits means that they are close to existing electricity grids, a distinct advantage as it solves the costly problem of getting a new form of energy from the source to the grid.
Professor Edwin van Leeuwen, scientist and former head of BHP’s Global Technology Group, is the project manager of the Victorian Geothermal Assessment Report, which is being prepared at the University of Melbourne’s Energy Research Institute. He estimates costs of $5–6 million for drilling to see if "hot rocks" are hot enough and permeable enough to establish a reservoir. Drilling further wells for power generation will cost $10 to $15 million and, according to Van Leeuwen, setting up a plant that can maintain generation of five to six megawatts will cost $50–60 million.
Van Leeuwen is confident that it will take only four to five years to have a plant generating 50-megawatts of power. All that’s missing is the cash.
One factor speeding geothermal’s emergence as the best alternative, baseload-delivering energy source is the relative weaknesses of its competitors. Neither solar nor wind can yet produce reliable baseload power. Nuclear is simply not viable because the massive set-up costs cannot be recovered in Australia’s small-scale market, and because of the huge time-lag involved in getting nuclear plants running here. A commission into the viability of nuclear energy in Australia set up by pro-nuclear John Howard, and headed by his old mate Ziggy Switkowski, presented its best-case scenario in 2006: 15 years to build 25 nuclear plants that could meet a third of Australia’s energy needs by 2050. And even this assessment was roundly criticised by leading scientists as optimistic and heavily biased.
And unlike nuclear, geothermal has the advantage of being relatively cheap. Thanks to coal, Australia’s electricity is already the fourth cheapest in the OECD. There’s a range of conflicting figures available about the relative costs of electricity generation — but all of them suggest that geothermal is cheaper than coal, partly as a result of the fact that geothermal has no ongoing costs. In a report released by investment bank HSBC in 2009, a coal-fired megawatt was priced at AU$100, as opposed to a geothermal megawatt hour, priced at AU$70. A study by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, called "The Hidden Costs of Electricity", calculated the costs of energy production factoring in wider costs, like costs to health, climate and crops. Their findings placed geothermal very favourably against coal — although they don’t offer a figure per megawatt hour for geothermal.
So if all this is true, why have we heard so little about geothermal? If it’s a solution to the clean energy crisis, why hasn’t industry development been accelerated before now? Is it a victim of coal industry resistance — or a PR failure? Or might it have something to do with the fact that there are now more lobbyists than credible climate change scientists doing the rounds in Canberra?
Geothermal certainly sounds like it presents a powerful alternative to coal-fired electricity generation. Admittedly, much of the research available about its application in Australia has been produced by the industry itself, and it remains to be seen how the technologies will function on a larger scale than the proposed test plants. But they’re putting their money where their mouth is. The Australian Geothermal Association is hosting a three-day conference in Brisbane, starting today and I’ll be trying to nail down some answers to these questions. This article is the first of a two-part series; the second will report on how the industry plans to establish geothermal as the number one alternative to coal in Australia.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Twitter
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
“So if all this is true, why have we heard so little about geothermal?”
Perhaps because politicians and industry lobbyists remain deluded by the clean coal mirage …
Yes, alas, it is all too good to be true - as the promising Aussie start up Geodynamics recently showed (yet again) in South Australia.
When one is dealing with issues of:
* adequate well head water supply;
* maintaining energy intensive high injection pressures;
* extreme and non-constant pressure gradients through the well field heating zone;
* mineral dissolution and redeposition issues leading to pathway closure and non steady state conditions,
it can all easily turn into a nightmare.
MS. PhD (geochemistry/hydrogeology)
The trouble with geothermal is the same, to some extent, as solar energy. There’s a shedload of energy there, sure - but can we figure out how to extract it reliably and cost-effectively?
The first thing to note is that if you drill down far enough - there is hot rock everywhere on the planet, but there are limits to how deep we can drill with current drilling technology. Even in favourable locations, drilling deep enough really pushes the limits. Both Geodynamics and Petratherm have found simply drilling to their target zones quite challenging, to say the least.
The second thing to note is that you have to maintain a circulation of water between the two wells through the rock for extended periods. I’m no geologist, but as I understand it, it remains an open question whether this will work over periods of years.
Then there’s the unknown unknowns. Geodynamics, the furthest along of the Australian geothermal companies, were going to install a one megawatt demonstration plant to power Innamincka. But the casing of the well broke because dissolved gases in the hot water caused “hydrogen embrittlement”, spewing hot water and steam all over the place.
Undoubtedly, there will be more problems and delays before commercial-scale geothermal power is produced in Australia.
Finally, it’s worth noting that while geothermal energy may be a major solution for Australia, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a major contributor on a global scale. Australia has the advantage of a lot of land on which you can prospect for suitable geothermal resources, and comparatively modest power demands.
Oh, and it may be “renewable” on geological time scales, and globally, but heat reservoirs will exhaust locally. But, then, “renewable” is a political rather than a technical term.
I hope geothermal energy delivers on its promise (particularly as I have a few shares in Geodynamics). But it’s not guaranteed to pan out any better than clean coal has. That’s why I believe it would be prudent not to rule out nuclear energy.
Enjoy the conference.
Robert Merkel
I fail to get excited by geothermal since I believe that the energy oozing up per sq M of land averages about 1/10th watt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient#Heat_flow
whereas the sun at the middle of an equatorial summer’s day pours down over 1000 watts per square metre. Averaged, presumably over 365x24 hours, this amounts to about 120 watts/sq M:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunlight
OK, so I’m a wikipedia addict. Is all the above correct?
And yes, in the best areas (typically near tectonic plate boundaries) geothermal can be excellent, but it is no silver bullet to our energy demands. I feel confident that David Mills and friends, now sadly working mostly in California for lack of (earlier) Australian government support, will soon deliver base load solar thermal electricity from overnight pressure storage systems.
As for nuclear, the entire fuel cycle operational carbon budget is far from nil, the capital carbon budget (concrete and steel) is massive, the time from now till on-stream in Australia would be ~10-15 years minimum, the waste issue is pretty much as unsolved as ever, and the risks significant, even if you build the right sort of reactors.
I believe a very important option at present is still energy efficiency. While seeking urgently to make electricity in a more environmentally correct way, we must continue diligently in providing technologies and learning habits to reduce the demand, whilst getting just as much or more value from the energy we use.
Thoughtful use of the OFF SWITCH is in our hands - literally - at zero incremental capital and operational costs!
Nice article, but i would add…
the actual need for base load power is very small, infact any look at electricity use over a 24 hr period shows extreme peaks and troughs, usually matched to people’s and business patterns.
the concept of base load is emphasised by coal and nuclear because that is all they can realistically provide, and have worked hard to even out our energy use to better match their generation short-comings. eg, off peak electricity prices to encourage wasteful hot water systems.
this is not to say baseload doesn’t exist, but it is not as significant as people think.
if only the govt had given the 1.5b clean coal money to Geothermal/solarthermal/PV. peace
If anything sounds too good to be true…..ir probably is! Unless you live in one of those places that happen to be on a plate boundary with ready access to magma (i.e. Iceland) then geothermal will always be a supplement. And as evidenced recently by the stuff at Innaminka it’s not as easy as the “Alice in Wonderland’ers” make out.
Well know geologist Tim Flannery’s geothermal company has to be supported with yet another $90m grant to prop up the failed geothermal experiment. Flannery claimed that “the technology to extract that energy [from hot rocks] and turn it into electricity is relatively straightforward.” However the 2 month old well failed because of corrosion and the whole project is stalled. The sort of research to do this should have been conducted on small scale at universities UNTIL we get the technology working.
HOW MANY MORE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WILL BE WASTED ON MEDIA STUNTS OR LINING THE POCKETS OF CLIMATE MESSIAHS BEFORE PEOPLE UNDERSTAND: IF IT WAS EASY IT WOULD ALREADY HAVE BEEN DONE!
ecoeng…
* adequate well head water supply;
Geothermal systems are designed to be closed loop and therefore have zero water consumption in terms of the heat transfer systems
* maintaining energy intensive high injection pressures;
Parasitic power consumption expected to be less than 1% depending on input temperatures
* extreme and non-constant pressure gradients through the well field heating zone;
I’m not sure what you mean by “extreme” or by “non-constant”, or why any interpretation and applcation of those terms would present a problem to the geothermal power generation capabilities of a given field
* mineral dissolution and redeposition issues leading to pathway closure and non steady state conditions
Laboratory Tests and Feild Tests to date point to this not being an issue. Natural Fracture systems are enhanced as part of the geothermal well construction and flow paths are large compared to flow rates.
I’ve been following the geothermal progress for quite some years and I must say that apart from anything else I love the adventure of it all.
The quest is heroic, the problems immense but what a prize. It seems to me that through grand effort and perseverence most of the technical challenges have been been resolved. Somewhat distressing that on the cusp of success the casing embrittlement problem emerged. But I’d be surprised if there is not a way through this.
My money is on this being the zero emission winner - I bought some shares as well.
icedvolvo
“HOW MANY MORE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS WILL BE WASTED ON MEDIA STUNTS OR…”
Or??? How about $3 billion plus or your taxes being wasted on “clean coal”??????
“Unless you live in one of those places that happen to be on a plate boundary with ready access to magma (i.e. Iceland) then geothermal will always be a supplement.”
Not true! Australia will have Geothermal power plant operating and selling into the national grid within the next five years.
“However the 2 month old well failed ”
Where do you get your information??? The well that failed was drilled in 2005
” And as evidenced recently by the stuff at Innaminka it’s not as easy as the “Alice in Wonderland’ers” make out. ”
You are right - it is not easy. But it can be done and there is no reason why Australian Companies and Australians generally shouldn’t be the ones to do it!
Alancarpenter
“Somewhat distressing that on the cusp of success the casing embrittlement problem emerged. But I’d be surprised if there is not a way through this. ”
There is a simple but expensive engineering solution in the form of using steel alloys that are immune to embrittlement. This is already quite common in oil and gas well construction where H2S is present.
Tilden cats: what a load of rubbish!
Night time usage is about ~50% of peak daytime usage for most industrialised societies but can be >70% if heavy uses like smelting are involved. That is the “baseload” i.e. the minimum amount of electricity needed is ~50% of peak usage! This is because electricity usage is about 1/3 is industrial which generally goes 24/7 and 1/3 is commercial some appreciable proportion of which also goes 24/7.
Collar the Berator
1: I agree “clean coal” is another media stunt!
2: Predictions about what will or will not happen are just that: predictions!
3: There are three wells, the latest was only 2 months old and ALL failed because the briny water made the steel brittle.
4: Yes geo thermal can and should be done but like solar thermal: BASED ON GOOD PROVEN SCIENCE not because some politically appointed “Aussie of the Year” media tart has a vested interest in the company promoting it.
icedvolvo
2: Predictions about what will or will not happen are just that: predictions!
Indeed. And in that regard yours are no better than mine, are they? There are several listed geothermal companies on the ASX and Wilson HTM have started publishing a bimonthly geothermal newsletter for their investment customers. Suffice to say, there are several projects well under way and many more on the drawing boards. Within the next two years at least one of these companies will have started selling geothermal power. “Within two years” is a “prediction” and “within five years” is a 99.99% certainty!
3: There are three wells, the latest was only 2 months old and ALL failed because the briny water made the steel brittle.
I’ll have to ask you again where you are getting your (mis)information from? Geodynamics have a total of five wells. When Habanero-3 failed they secured the other wells as a precaution and suspended drilling operations pending investigations. It was not “briny water” that caused the problem - it was dissolved gases in the water!
4: Yes geo thermal can and should be done but like solar thermal: BASED ON GOOD PROVEN SCIENCE not because some politically appointed “Aussie of the Year” media tart has a vested interest in the company promoting it.
The Science, and more importantly, the engineering has been proven and there are already geothermal power plants operating around the world, including New Zealand and PNG just to choose two examples close to home.
Also, I’m quite sure that the CEOs and Boards of the ASX Listed geothermal companies would treat your “media tart” comment with more disdain than you used when you made it!
Ben: My first question to Martin Ferguson yesterday was whether he agreed with his good buddy Macfarlane on clean coal being a mirage. Talk about duck and cover!! It will be interesting to see how long all those concerned can prop that fantasy up.
ecoing: I think Collar the berator effectively responded to your points. I’d just add that Australia has particularly stable geology in the areas being explored for geothermal, meaning that ‘pressure gradients’ are a long way down the list of concerns for the industry.
njsharp: I’d definitely be exploring a little wider than wiki. The energy is in the rock as naturally occurring heat. There’s a hell of a lot of it -it’s renewable and sustainable for that reason.
goonie: the consensus on the lifespan for a fracture-produced water reservoir seems to be 30 years. As for the heat resource, compared to coal for example, it’s massive. Check out the oft-repeated Ferguson quote of 1% of Australia’s total geothermal being able to electrify the nation at current demand for 26000 years.
icedvolvo: as with any new/newish industry, there is a lot of trial and error. The small scale research you speak of has been going on in universities for more than three decades. The only way to test it, is to test it. The well failure was a big set back at the time but no-one in the industry, or the government that just dished out the hundreds of millions ($90mil of it to the same company that had the failed well) sees it as more than a setback. Do you know how many wells and setbacks there have been for the oil and gas industry. And did you know hydro-electric power kills more people in accidents than any other?
There are still many issues getting resolved, but every credible body in the energy field (CSIRO, Geoscience Australia for a couple of examples) reckons geothermal energy will provide power in Australia. All say within ten years. My next article will explore how, when, where and by whom.
Hhhmmmm:
“I’ll have to ask you again where you are getting your (mis)information from? Geodynamics have a total of five wells. When Habanero-3 failed they secured the other wells as a precaution and suspended drilling operations pending investigations. It was not “briny water” that caused the problem - it was dissolved gases in the water!”
True, but may I be ‘allowed’ to wonder what was keeping those particular dissolved gases dissolved? Pressure maybe? I’m sorry David. I don’t agree that Collar the berator has effectively responded to your points. Rather he has glibly spun his way around them in a manner only likely to be believed by those who have absolutely no experience of the science and technology.
Given that, world-wide, geothermal is a very mature technology (and I’m an old Kiwi geochemist/hydrogeologist with some exposure to the established technology you might say) perhaps you may like to ask yourself why, if we are dealing with such straightforward technology, ‘stable geology’ etc the much hyped Geodynamics endeavour has proven such a tough row to hoe?
More like a case of the numerous stumbles to be expected of wallies who are stubbornly intent on re-inventing their own Antipodean wheels I suspect.
It is alas a very common syndrome Down Under.
An analogous and very similar story may be found in the local bumbling efforts at UCG despite Yank experts having run dead perfect UCG trials on the Kupakupa Seam in NZ way back in 1993/4! I was there too.
Collar the Berator
Indeed. And in that regard yours are no better than mine, are they?
Actually I don’t think I made any predictions!
There are several listed geothermal companies on the ASX and Wilson HTM have started publishing a bimonthly geothermal newsletter for their investment customers. Suffice to say, there are several projects well under way and many more on the drawing boards. Within the next two years at least one of these companies will have started selling geothermal power. “Within two years” is a “prediction” and “within five years” is a 99.99% certainty!
Oh I have little doubt that no matter how much it costs nor how inefficient they are there will be plants operating at some time (that’s a prediction BTW). Question is are they worth it or could the money be better spent on solar thermal or thorium reactors or GM crops for bio fuels or plasma research or …..
I’ll have to ask you again where you are getting your (mis)information from? Geodynamics have a total of five wells. When Habanero-3 failed they secured the other wells as a precaution and suspended drilling operations pending investigations.
You obviously have more detailed info than I do, I only knew that three wells had been capped not five, I don’t consider that a positive outcome.
It was not “briny water” that caused the problem - it was dissolved gases in the water!
So it was dissolved gases rather than dissolved salts that caused corrosion, but are you sure the gases did not ionise in the water then of course it would be dissolved salts not dissolved gases … but I can live with either.
The Science, and more importantly, the engineering has been proven and there are already geothermal power plants operating around the world, including New Zealand and PNG just to choose two examples close to home.
Well if they had done proper testing perhaps they may have found the problem in the field before wasting how much again … was that $200m in public tax payer grants. And if the science is so “settled” and its all so “fait accmpli’ then why does the public need to kick in hundreds of millions of dollars, surely there are private investors just lining up to reap in the profits? Could it be that the science is not so “settled” after all?
Also, I’m quite sure that the CEOs and Boards of the ASX Listed geothermal companies would treat your “media tart” comment with more disdain than you used when you made it!
I do not refrain from the comment, the AGW camp consists of many people, some are genuine in their passion and beliefs, some are highly intelligent while others some suffer from some messianic complex to save the world while other are simply using the FUD to line their pockets. I am not sure where Flannery and others fall but I am sure that there are many much more deserving research projects than speculative geo thermal which although will probably prove useful will not be mainstream because of Australia’s stable thick crust will not allow easy access that say Mexico and Iceland have (4km drilling is NOT easy access!).
njsharp,
Yes the typical rate of heat flow from deep in the Earth is about 0.1 W/m2, but we don’t sit around waiting for it to trickle up at that rate, slowly conducting through rocks that are actually moderately good thermal insulators. The point of hot rock geothermal is to find places where high temperatures occur relatively close to the surface, drill down to them and inject fluids to get the heat out quickly. Although the obvious place to look is in volcanic regions, mostly close to tectonic plate boundaries, it turns out, perhaps a bit surprisingly, that there are some high temperatures out in the middle of our stable old continent. I hadn’t heard about high temperatures under brown coal too.
Ecoeng, Icedvolvo and other dumpsters, I suppose I’m fantasising as much as the clean coal tooth fairy, but I wonder if we could just have a constructive, polite, informed and instructive debate? Without the instant knocking and colourful insults. I’ve seen it happen on other websites (overseas usually). We don’t have to agree, but the experience can be more pleasant and more informative.
Geoff
I wondered what the thermal conductivity of rock was and of course its dependant on actual temperature differences (I seem to remember a non linear exercise in calculating elliptic partials by finite differences for heat flow across a uniform plate somewhere back in the dark UG days). As I understand the problem in Oz even at its closest it’s about 4km down but I will stand corrected if someone knows better. But places like Mexico and Iceland and other “active” regions are much easier to access and therefore much cheaper. 4km is a big expensive drill so I have to wonder if its all worth the effort.
To be honest I am not worried about the greenhouse argument, we will run out of fossil oil with the century and coal will only be a hundred or so years behind. We have to have viable alternatives by then otherwise its back to the mud huts for all of us. As a scientist physics tells me that the only source of large amounts of energy will have to be nuclear and solar! Yes yes I can hear all the bogey man but there are safe types of nuclear power i.e. Thorium based reactors which cannot melt down and have little waste but we still are not quite there just yet. And as soon as we find efficiency and storage solutions solar thermal and voltaics will play some major part. And yes some combination of all the others will make up the rest including geo! But we NEED the following first:
1: some safe fission based solution i.e. Thorium/pebble etc
2: we need batteries (heat and electric) 10-100x more efficient than present
3: we need solar cells >35% efficiency, current cells are ~<15%,
IMHO this is where the public grants should be going not into geo which will always be a side issue in Australia.
Let us not confuse the two types of geothermal power. As far as I can determine there does not exist anywhere in the world a commercial geothermal power plant of the type which Geodynamics and other Australian companies are planning.
There are plenty of geothermal power plants located in volcanic areas essentialy related to hot molten magma reserves and in situ superheated water.
The energy which Australian geothermal companies are attempting to harvest is located in Hot Dry Rocks which do not obtain their heat from the earths hot molten core. These hot rocks are generally granites which contain natural radioactive material. It is the radioactive decay of this material over many years which has heated up the rock and it is overlying insulating layers such as sandstone whick prevent this heat from escaping. This heat does not come from the “centre of the earth”.
The vast majority of the money being invested in these enerprises is provided from private non government sources. Investment spent and planned from 2002 to 2012 is more than $800 million (as at 2007) with 31 companies involved. This includes companies such as Origin Energy which already provide electic power and gas to 3 million Australian homes and private individuals such as myself who have a few thousand dollars invested in Geodynamics.
Private investors such as these are putting and risking their money where their mouth is and contributing to the solution from which all stand to benefit - even climate catastrophy deniers. If we profit from this then I think it will be a well deserved profit. If we do not profit then it will be because civilisation as we know it has collapsed because of wars over ever diminished resources in a hotter world in which case investments of any type will be fairly worthless anyway.
If geothermal comes through despite issues with drilling, fracturing, and crap turbine efficiency due to low temperatures, it could be handy, though it’s not actually a renewable resource.
In the meantime, the solar thermal revolution is taking off around the world and Australia is missing out. Solar thermal power can provide reliable, 24 hr power around the clock due to its ability to cheaply store thermal energy via tanks of molten salt. There are already commercial scale (50MW, several of them) plants operating in Spain which provide 24-hour power. The first central receiver plant is under construction in southern Spain, Torresol’s Gemasolar (http://www.torresolenergy.com/en/index.html). There are over 97,000MW of solar thermal projects under application in the U.S.A.(http://www.doi.gov/news/09_News_Releases/062909.html) with the first ones to be breaking ground early next year. Solar Reserve is a big player (http://www.solar-reserve.com/), who also have the leading technology of central receiver towers with salt storage for up to 18 hrs.
For more info on solar thermal power check out Beyond Zero’s submission to the Aus Govt’s Solar Flagships program:
http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/sites/beyondzeroemissions.org/files/d…
As well as plenty of other useful info on the Beyond Zero website - we have interview leading solar thermal experts from around the world on our radio show.
ecoeng…
“True, but may I be ‘allowed’ to wonder what was keeping those particular dissolved gases dissolved? Pressure maybe?”
Are you kidding? How ELSE do you keep a gas dissolved in a liquid? Have you opened a bottle of soda water any time in the last ten years??
“Rather he has glibly spun his way around them in a manner only likely to be believed by those who have absolutely no experience of the science and technology.”
really? Would you like to pitch your knowledge and understanding of the science and engineering of well construction against mine? Bring it on!
“Blah blah blah… I was there too.”
Yeah.. I’m sure you were! And nobody listened to you then just like nobody is listening to you now… And none of us are wondering WHY that might be…
IcedVolvo
I have a boolean question for you…
“Actually I don’t think I made any predictions!”
If I predict that a thing will happen and you respond by saying that I am merely making a prediction and that the thing I have predicted will NOT happen, then are you not, in fact, making a prediction that is simply contrary to my prediction?
Just Asking…
IsaidVulva…
“As I understand the problem in Oz even at its closest it’s about 4km down but I will stand corrected if someone knows better.”
The “efficiency” you refer to elsewhere in your diatribes is simply a function of flow rates and temperatures - the deeper you drill the hotter it gets and therefore the more efficient it gets! Also, 4km drilling depth is no challenge other than drilling granite is comparitively slow. This will be addressed in the next three years as drillers target speeding up drilling rates in granite which is something they have not had to bother with inthe past.
“As a scientist physics tells me that the only source of large amounts of energy will have to be nuclear and solar!”
Logic tells me that you are not a “scientist” if you cannot recognise the potential of geothermal! You should come clean and tell us what your emotional objection is all about!
1: some safe fission based solution i.e. Thorium/pebble etc
Why? Why when there is heat in the earth?
2: we need batteries (heat and electric) 10-100x more efficient than present
Why would we create more TOXIC waste for the future when we have heat in the earth?
3: we need solar cells >35% efficiency, current cells are ~<15%,
I agree! The government grants fr “clean coal” should have gone towards breaking the PV cost vs demand impasse!
IsaidVulva..
To turn some of my valuable time and attention to other things you wrote..
“Oh I have little doubt that no matter how much it costs nor how inefficient they are there will be plants operating at some time ”
Would you care to reiterate that statement in terms of the many ASX listed companies that are aiming to sell electricity on a commercial basis?
“You obviously have more detailed info than I do, I only knew that three wells had been capped not five, I don’t consider that a positive outcome.”
The big furfie on your part was the “two months old” thing… Also, only the three Habanero wells were plugged. This information is available from the ASX announcements made by Geodynamics.
“So it was dissolved gases rather than dissolved salts that caused corrosion, but are you sure the gases did not ionise in the water then of course it would be dissolved salts not dissolved gases … ”
It was not corrosion It was embrittlement. as for dissolved gases equating to dissolved salts, I’ll leave that to any year 10 chemistry student readers to answer..
” was that $200m in public tax payer grants. And if the science is so “settled” and its all so “fait accmpli’ then why does the public need to kick in hundreds of millions of dollars, surely there are private investors just lining up to reap in the profits?”
John Howard flicked Manildra $20 in a grant and Dick Honan responded by donating $200,000 to the Liberal Party. The Taxpayer is making a contribution to renewable energy systems and that’s just the way it is.
” but I am sure that there are many much more deserving research projects than speculative geo thermal which although will probably prove useful will not be mainstream because of Australia’s stable thick crust will not allow easy access ..”
You are simply making it very clear that you just don’t have a clue. Not a clue! Never mind!
Relevant to all this is DESERTEC-Asia’s proposal for a ‘Pan Asian Energy Infrastructure’ that could provide a pathway to market for Australia’s abundant renewables over the long-term.
See www.desertec-asia.com
Mr Berator, people with hot and intemperate natures don’t last more than a few months in the drilling industry - at a very young age. They either have an accident or leave or get forced out by the boss. Drilling is a quintessentially team endeavour and a calm disposition is required for the necessary sensistivity to personal and group OH&S issues. It is an easy business in which to lose a hand, eye foot etc. Therefore you don’t seem like a typical or experienced driller to me.
Drilling is also a business where a unique combination of basic nous, lateral thinking, very long practical experience and quite esoteric science (much of it not in textbooks) wins out. I base that comment on 35 years experience of real world hydrogeology and geochemistry in NZ, Oz, PNG, New Caledonia, the US, Germany and Switzerland. At 61, I run a successful mining industry consulting business (major client BHPB) and also have a one quarter share in a business which designs, installs and maintains 80% of California’s ASR (Aquifer Storage and Recovery) schemes. My son is a driller.
I just don’t believe you know what you are talking about.
Ecoeng…
“I just don’t believe you know what you are talking about.”
It clear that at least one of us doesn’t!
Wow! So many responses, well done! Thanks again David Hollier for producing such a thought provoking article.
As to all who question why has geothermal been a secret?
Well, I’m no scientist, but when I see films such as “Who killed the electric car?” I get a sense that vested interests i.e. the oil industry, and in geothermal’s case, the coal industry make darn sure that they are the no. 1 suppliers of energy.
To me it’s yet another case of “the market” being skewed and short-terms “profits” coming before anything else.
To think of the money invested in coal and oil over the years! If a fraction of that were spent on geothermal, we’d be hotrockin’ in no time!
Not to mention the DISASTROUS failures of oil exploration! Is there not some oil rig spewing its filth in our pristine north-western shelf ATM?
Perhaps Mr McFarlane hasn’t heard about integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) which is clearly the most efficient, environmentally friendly method of producing low cost energy from fossil fuels.
The gasification process vastly reduces emissionss creating byproducts that can also be used for indusrtrial purposes.
And there’s no dangerous drilling for ‘hot water’.
So to answer your query about why there has been little about geothermal in the media, it is because the media are obviously well aware of the unknowns and dangers about this new technology.
Another negative aspect to this technology is location, location.
IGCC plants can be erected within reasonable distance of the highest population masses.
So, ten years for geothermal, eh?
Let’s see other stuff that our futurists/predictionists have got in store thus far:
- stem-cell organ transplants: 10 years
- clean coal: 20 years
- quantum computers: 20 years
- nanorobots: 50 years
Sounds familiar? I watched this movie twenty-years ago and it said people would be driving flying cars by now. Heck, people even said plenty more than cruising in the sky on four wheels back in the fifties, sixties, seventies… How many of these things actually got fulfulled at the end? A measly few, maybe. And if ecoeng is right, then geothermal is probably just as elusive as clean coal and all the rest of those “promising” technologies out there. And the future of video recording technology is definitely not Betamax.
I don’t want to single out any particular commentor here, but now it all seems to me that David Hollier has somehow either intentionally or unintentionally attracted an irrational crowd of Internet users who will throw all kinds of rhetorics and insults at those who don’t agree with them to even just a slightest extent (see also: “Ron Paul”, “Apple”, “New World Order”). C’mon, what is the difference between this article and all the stuff out there by tech journalists? “Yeah, it’s all pure magic and easy and it’ll be out there in the market in so-and-so years…” Yep, let’s see whether we’ll all start using computers the size of a salt grain or just the same old-fashioned semi-conductors. Maybe then we’ll also all start using free software and taking capsules that keep us youthful and healthy. The future painted by tech journalists are indeed always beautiful and full of wonders, although the cretins in the real world will just have to stick with the word “viability” for now.
Why don’t they build concrete chambers down there and build smaller generators with specialized robots? And why shouldn’t they use alternative liquids instead of water?
Anyway, they should look the case from a different perspective.
Collar said lots of things but one in particular stands out as indicative of his knowledge:
IV: “So it was dissolved gases rather than dissolved salts that caused corrosion, but are you sure the gases did not ionise in the water then of course it would be dissolved salts not dissolved gases … ”
CB: It was not corrosion It was embrittlement. as for dissolved gases equating to dissolved salts, I’ll leave that to any year 10 chemistry student readers to answer..
Hmmm so we dissolve gases like CO2, SO2, H2S in salty (MHa/M2Ha/MO) water:
CO2(g) + SO2(g) + H2S(g) + M+1 + M+2 + H^-(aq) + xFe + xH20 ->
H2CO3(aq) + H2S04(aq) + H2S(aq) + M+1(aq) + M2+(aq) + Ha-(aq) + xFe + xH20 <—>
xH+ + HCO3-1 + HS04-1 + HS-1 + M+1 + M+2 + xHa- + xFe + xH20 <—>
xH+ + CO3-2 + S04-2 + HS- + M1+1 +M+2+ + xHa- + FeS + Fe2S3 + H2 + xH20
Sure looks like salty water to me, which of course only speeds the corrosion process :-)
“embrittlement” it is a form of corrosion regardless of the mechanism i.e. oxidation, hydrogenation or sulphidation
But of course having shown complete ignorance of the chemical processes perhaps you had better check “with your year 10 chemistry readers”.
Interesting article.
Tilden cats: Clearly icedvolvo entirely missed your point.
1.The shedding and balancing of load by power stations in this country has been well documented. With power stations offering off-peak price cuts and contracts to large commercial users to ‘leave their lights on at night’ - so to speak. The reason why night load would be 50% (though not entirely true) is because it is much more efficient to run coal stations equally around the clock, even if you hve to shed load. Peak load happens in the daytime - always!!
2.Of course wind and solar can produce base load (no, i am not talking about pv). More importantly, solar for example, produces most of its energy at the same point as most of its load.
3.Large industrial users are increasingly using co-generation to reduce their energy demand…. massively. Commercial and residential energy usage also stand to massively reduce their consumption through more efficient space heating and cooling, and energy efficient appliances and lighting. This is all before we even consider upgrades to the grid.
As far as geothermal, it is an engineering problem wrapped up in a whole lot of dodgy politics - like every other important project in this country. I look forward to seeing it in action in 5 or 10 or 15 years… because that’s how engineering projects work see? If there is money to be made from it, they will just keep testing and testing until they get it to work. …miles
My Kiwi contemporary, Dr. Bruce Pound (PhD, Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, 1977) has published extensively on the subject of hydrogen diffusion/trapping embrittlement of steels etc including in the context of high strength alloys (and their choices) used in geothermal power production, over the period approximately 1985 - 2000.
http://www.exponent.com/bruce_pound/
Hydrogen embrittlement has long been a well-studied field particularly in relation to oil well brines high in H2S.
No Miles it is you who do not understand!
1: You cannot just turn off turbine based generators, you have to plan days in advance how much power you will generate. Spinning big turbines up/down requires significant effort and planning and danger. Similarly you cannot just turn aluminium/steel/oil production on/off as you please they MUST run 24/7, and it has nothing to do with efficiency but just simple physics. But your views are typical of the “city” greenie who believes that we can still have all our wonderful technology without understanding the processes that occur to support it.
2: Tell me how solar can produce baseload at night (no not research proposals but actual working technology)? Tell me how wind can produce reliable baseload ANYTIME. And you need RELIABLE baseload to run all the foundries and smelters and oil production plants.
3: Yes co/tri gen is a real possibility for small industrial plants which can use the electricity and hot and cold water efficiently but its useless for residential and heavy industrial use. It also means massive redundancy as every plant has to have an identical ready to run backup in case of failure. The infrastructure cost to run duplicate plants and pipe insulated hot/cold water everywhere are astronomical.
Why is it that we seem to believe that we can get something for nothing? Is it because the study of science/maths has become optional at schools in Australia? The dumbing down of the population with regards to basic physics and chemistry is going to come back and bite us! If I was a conspiratorial sort I would start to think its all some giant plot to bring us back to an uneducated agrarian lifestyle……is it?………
Why is it that we seem to believe that we can get something for nothing? Is it because the study of science/maths has become optional at schools in Australia?”
Maybe. But keep in mind that the article that you are looking at here is not really targeting at people like you or me as an audience but the sort that you see shopping at whole-food stores and spending most waking hours yammering about how unnatural and unhealthy things are and how the “big corporations” have poisoned people with bad products and lies. Not convinced? Then let me break things down a little here:
* “… this question fails to take into account the promise of geothermally generated electricity as a viable baseload energy source. Geothermal, or “hot rocks”, is clean, abundant and cheap power.”
Notice the word “promise” here, as in “the magical hot rocks promise us they will give us the adequate base-load electricity to support local industries and public infrastructures”. Now let’s move on…
* “If geothermal can — and it is so clean and so abundant — why have we heard so little about it?”
Yeah, why?
* “The fact is, Australia has still got about 90 billion tonnes of coal in the ground so there’s not a lot of pressure coming from electricity companies to find alternative baseload sources. The export price of coal will move in only one direction: up…”
Ah… Big corporations! That’s why.
* “Around the world, 24 countries already generate geothermal energy, among them the United States, Iceland, New Zealand, Italy and Japan. They predominantly use water that has already been heated by volcanic springs, rather than heating it by flushing it through hot rocks as we do in Australia.”
So these magical hot rocks are everywhere, are you saying? Shame on us for being so backward and useless, despite our obvious lack of volcanic springs saving a few scattered locations in the mainland. And damn you, big corporations!
* “The first discoveries of these “hot rocks” in Australia were in South Australia. Discoveries of hot rocks beneath layers of brown coal in the La Trobe Valley have lead to speculation that coal acts as an insulator for the rocks… Beyond this, the connection between coal deposits and the presence of geothermal is not fully understood.”
“Not fully understood”? I suppose that can be translated to “promising”, right?
* “Van Leeuwen is confident that it will take only four to five years to have a plant generating 50-megawatts of power. All that’s missing is the cash.”
Forget about the “not fully understood” bit. All that’s missing is just cash. 5 years later and you will have a power plant turning Adelaide into the next Sydney. No joke!
* “In a report released by investment bank HSBC in 2009, a coal-fired megawatt was priced at AU$100, as opposed to a geothermal megawatt hour, priced at AU$70.”
Note that the link provided points us to The Wall Street Journal, an American publication. The estimated costs are listed in euros, and undoubtedly the environment that the estimates apply to are more likely foreign than Aussie.
* “So if all this is true, why have we heard so little about geothermal? If it’s a solution to the clean energy crisis, why hasn’t industry development been accelerated before now? Is it a victim of coal industry resistance — or a PR failure? Or might it have something to do with the fact that there are now more lobbyists than credible climate change scientists doing the rounds in Canberra?”
Translation: Big corporations are killing us all!
Icedvolvo, what you witness here is the making of a typical media puff piece likely designed to suit the taste of a post-1960’s hippie-like demographic that is common within the latte-sipping population of the society and the anti-cultural of the Gen-Y. They don’t care how unconvincing and self-contradicting an argument is - as long as it’s something edgy, alien to mainstream and against “big corporations”, they will buy it with their wallets. This is a winning money-grabbing formula nowadays - get used to it.
The technichal issues involved in weighing up different methods of power generation are no doubt interesting, but have no place in public debate IMHO. Once we put an approproate price on carbon emissions, we can end the public debate over issues like this and let the market decide on the cheapest way to provide low carbon baseload power. After all, pricing things is exactly what markets are good at, isn’t it? The very fact that the issues involved are so complicated demosntrates the need for this approach, rather than having technically naive policicients trying to weigh up different methods. Of course in order for this to work we need to get rid of policies which favour particular technologies, which will mean overcomming the pro-coal and anti-nuclear bias Australian governments invariably have.
Pan you are basically correct but there is a catch: it is not the scientists who make the funding decisions about what to do with that carbon tax! Rather it is the politicians who decide and they make decisions based firstly on other considerations like how it will be perceived in the electorate, payback to party faithful etc etc with good scientific grounds coming a long way down the list.
The article above is a perfect example where HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of tax dollars have been poured into a project which has failed pretty miserably, which is not to say it will not meet better success in some future time. However it is seems obvious that proper research had not been done first and one has to ask whether how much of the decision to fund was based on the fact that one of the company directors was a high profile “friend” of the government and how much was based on good scientific principles?
PS the technology discussed above was not complicated, on the other hand the GCM computer climate models are Complicated with a capital C!
icedvolvo
How much taxpayer money has been used to subsidise the fossil fuel industry in Australia.?
Answer… in the financial year 2005-06, total energy and transport subsidies in Australia amounted to about $10 billion. Of that, over 96% provided support for fossil fuel production and consumption. Less than 4% of the identified subsidies provide support for renewable energy and energy efficiency. The coal industry receieved support of around $1.7 billion in 2005-06.
“How much taxpayer money has been used to subsidise the fossil fuel industry in Australia.?”
That’s just completely irrelevant to what icedvolvo or any other commenter here is trying to point out. Fossil fuels are a proven technology serving as a backbone of the modern society. You would be silly not to subsidise such things unless you believe people will just stop driving cars or using electricity altogether. “Hot rock” geothermal electricity generation, on the other hand, is not even remotely a proper, production-ready industrial process. We are not talking about funding a small-scale seven-figure research project but hundreds of millions of tax dollar being dumped into costly expeditions that have no solid basis to begin with. Why not wait for half a dozen more explosions before someone finally grows wiser and stops tossing money into the same bottomless pit? As ecoeng has already pointed out, the embrittlement of steels is a well-understood phenomenon, and thus there is absolutely no excuse for incidents such as that at Innamincka to take place. Such waste of resources is not only against proper scientific practices but also established business management principles. What happened to doing basic research at Universities? Is now writing academic papers considered out of fashion? Do we need to all jump to building giant rigs in the middle of nowhere just to show the rest of the country that WeAreDoingSomethingAboutClimateChange(TM)? And we aren’t even talking about whether all these will eventually give us a viable energy source to sustain the whole Australian economy.
Geothermal’s potential really needs to be developed as far and as fast as possible; spending 10 to 20 times as much on Carbon Capture and Storage as geothermal simply because it provides an excuse coal use to go on increasing unchecked says a lot about the lack of seriousness within Federal and State governments. Minimally resourcing something with such enormous potential as a genuine low emissions energy source is indicative of the ‘too hard, can’t do’ attitude that currently dominates Australia’s energy industry.
I’m not asking big companies to stop doing business, just to face the reality that there is a huge future cost to unchecked emissions that they currently find in their short term interests to ignore or outright deny. There are enormous business opportunities in clean energy but those future costs have to figure into it because no amount of clever accounting and financial finangling will make them go away.
What people don’t seem to realise is that hot, dry rocks at depth are only geochemically stable whilst they remain dry. As soon as water is passed through them the large array of geochemical reactions then become possible and many will if fact occur. These reactions are most typically:
* increasing levels of dissolved gases such as CO2, H2S, AsH3 etc
* putting many dissolved species into the water such as major cations and anions (Na, K, Ca, Mg, Ba, Sr, Cl, SO4, HCO3, CO3), aluminium species, silica etc.
Subsequently in the loop wherever conditions of temperature and pressure change various gases, minerals and dissolved species will want to move into or out of solution. This leads to issues such as scaling (mineral deposition), absorption of gases into the casing and/or grouts etc etc.
What this means in effect is that a whole management system needs to be put into place to manage the potential adverse effects of all these ongoing changes. In some cases it actually means that hot recirculating fluid needs to be bled out of the loop (e.g. to solar evaporation ponds) to avoid scaling which would block up the fracture network and injection/extraction wells and to maintain dissolved gases at levels which are not problematic e.g. to casing alloys, turbine blades etc., etc. This means in practice that a significant amount of low salinity makeup water will have to be continually supplied.
Just as Carbon Capture and Storage (as liquid CO2) is largely (with a few exceptions in oil fields) an immature and problem-riddled technology, hot rock geothermal is presently an even more immature and difficult technology.
The bottom line is that it has a very long way to go. Indeed it is quite likely that if is ever to be successful the best fluid to use won’t even be water at all!
In both cases, we probably do not have the time, in historical terms to develop and broadly implement such technologies - and it may not even be possible. I say that even from the perspective of a mild sceptic. In my view the only technically and economically realistic options we have are the following:
(1) increased deployment of nuclear power including steady movement into thorium cycle;
(2) widespread retrofitting of algal biosequestration technology to existing and new coal-fired and gas-fired power plant and production of liquid transportation fuels thereby; and
(3) re-greening of e.g. North Africa, parts of northern Asia and central Australia etc via coastal desalination + inland irrigation to produce a large global, tradeable, carbon sink ‘bank’.
Most everything else falls into the category of ‘latte sipping New Age First World green fantasies’. Great for generating ‘good feeling’ amongst certain social groups - otherwise useless.
“What people don’t seem to realise is that hot, dry rocks at depth are only geochemically stable whilst they remain dry… What this means in effect is that a whole management system needs to be put into place to manage the potential adverse effects of all these ongoing changes… we probably do not have the time, in historical terms to develop and broadly implement such technologies - and it may not even be possible.”
Shamefully, the same story also applies to most other “emergent technologies” out there. What people don’t understand is that often a lot of resources, time and luck are needed to turn a scientific discovery into something usable, and when a technology doesn’t come out as expected, the only thing that people see is a promise left unfulfilled, not the reality that our abilities to create and innovate are limited to what we have and what the laws of physics have left us with. This is the same reason that accountants don’t work in the advertising industry - people want to see new and exotic things flashing before their eyes, not boring numbers, figures and rules shattering their hopes, dreams and fantasies. People buy into alternative medicine, organic farming, beauty products and all sorts of political ideals, not because these things actually help them in any way, but because they want to believe that by investing financially and emotionally into these things they are in effect doing themselves or people around them a good favour. This kind of wishful thinking is exactly what keeps many, many businesses around the world running for years and years.
To quote a guest at the Gruen Transfer on ABC - “If people woke up one day, look into the mirror and told themselves, ‘I look fine!’ The whole economy would crumble!”
Hey JMonco, you are so cynical yet you NEVER offer any solid counter arguments or any solutions to the arguments you continually bag on this site.
I read all these comments with amusement—what a bunfight! Can’t help thinking that there are all sorts of unstated ‘vested interests’ hidden behind many of these opinions. In any case, most naysayers miss the whole point of Davids article-which was an excellent introduction, to the general public, on a relatively overlooked but exciting potential source of future power generation in Australia and beyond. As such, his article didn’t need to cover off all the technical challenges.
As a geologist it’s quite clear to me that geothermal energy, even within stable cratonic regions far from plate boundaries, has great theoretical promise. The volume of heat accumulated in the upper crust by millions of years of radioactive decay is quite simply enormous, and a fantastic potential resource. Its the earths own natural, safe, nuclear reactor. Realising it’s potential is technically challenging of course, but so what? Humans are pretty good at dealing with these sorts of challenges provided they are suitably motivated. And a few relatively minor setbacks along the way are no reason to abandon the quest.
Many naysayers ask of geothermal—“if its so good, why hasn’t it been developed before?”. There’s an easy answer to this: it just wasnt needed. Nothing is easier (and cheaper) than digging up coal and setting fire to it! When you are blessed with truckloads of easily accessible coal, as Australia is, and there was no good reason not to burn it(as was clearly the case prior to ‘global warming’ becoming a mainstream concern), why would you bother with potentially difficult and poorly understood alternatives? A variation on this logic has stifled all alternative energy projects over the years. But times are a-changing….
The new reality is that, whether or not you accept global warming and/or humanities contribution to it (for the record, I do), Australia had better get ready for a highly carbon-constrained future. And a near future at that. Coal is going to look a lot more expensive then.
To this end, all alternatives are in the mix. Government would be crazy not to provide a modicum of monetary support(and a few hundreds of millions is a modicum, compared to the billions of the public purse spent on coal-fired power generation nfrastructure over the years) to each of these emerging alternative energy technologies in order to spread the risk.
It is often said that there will be no ‘silver bullet’ alternative to large scale power generation after coal, more likely a ‘spray of shotgun pellets’, with an array of smaller scale renewables combining to take up the challenge. If geothermal can do no more than be one of these ‘pellets’, it will be worth it. But if the technology can be properly mastered, it has the theoretical capacity to indeed become a ‘silver bullet’ of sorts. Surely that’s something worth striving for?
“Hey JMonco, you are so cynical yet you NEVER offer any solid counter arguments or any solutions to the arguments you continually bag on this site.”
Numerous commentors have already provided sufficient information on the issues regarding “hot rock” geothermal electricity generation, so what is the point of repeating the same stuff over and over again? If you have trouble comprehending the scientific, business and political aspects of the picture, then may I suggest you to spend a bit of time to study the basic theories behind them? Frankly, no one gives two bits about ideals. What people care about are you business plans, your viability assessments, your balance sheets, your estimates, your solvency and whatever with an actual meaning in the real world. Why not try and present your bright ideas regarding drug legalisation or belching cows to your local politicians, tell them how these things are “older than Cicero” and see how fast you get laughed out of the door? There is a reason for me are others to be cynical but you just seem to be the only person here who has completely failed to grasp the reason behind that.
Have fun with your philosophy-class arguments/counter-arguments.
Dear Ross C, you raise some good points but on this line, “and there was no good reason not to burn it(as was clearly the case prior to ‘global warming’ becoming a mainstream concern)”, I have to disagree.
Are you suggesting that global warming is a recent concern? or perhaps not a legitimate concern at all?
I would argue that both the coal and oil industries have been active in making sure that those who predicted we should move away from these sources of energy, more than 30 years ago, didn’t get the air play they deserved.
Vested interests are to blame here, aside from arguments relating to the past availability of coal.
Oil, has been increasingly difficult and expensive to procure. Also, both coal and oil, no matter how “cheap” they have been, have caused massive environmental and social damage, regardless of whether you believe in global warming or not.
Just ask people in the Nigerian delta what they think of the availability of cheap oil.
That’s great JMonco, yet again you prove my point. Thank you (: Now back to my philosophy class
RossC, you are correct but really are just restating what has been said above; no one has said that geothermal (easy plate boundary or hard deep RA rock) should not be investigated or researched so as to add to the mix of alternative energy sources.
And as stated above: no one doubts we need alternatives to fossil fuels (the AGWers because they believe the catastrophic computer predictions and sceptics like me because I know we are going to run out of fossil fuels within ~200 years anyway). The only question is HOW DO ALLOCATE THE RESEARCH DOLLARS: do we spend billions on geothermal and nothing on Thorium reactor research (the present case) when we KNOW for certain that geo will NEVER be a major baseload supplier in Australia whereas Thorium has potential for almost limitless energy (as do several other technologies such as solar thermal).
There is a huge difference between spending billions on proven technology to supply power on a predictable reliable basis (coal) which will give a positive monetary return into the bargain and spending big on unproven speculative technologies (i.e. deep RA rocks) which will cost (taking into account plant MTBF, transmission costs etc etc) at least 5-10x coal based power?
Your last paragraph is probably true for plate boundary based situations (i.e. NG, NZ, Iceland, Mexico etc) with relatively easy access to very hot magma and no heat transfer issues but is probably not true for deep hot rock (i.e. Australia) for fairly obvious physics reasons.
RossC as a career geochemist/hydrogeologist I would agree with you in theory.
However, in a nice irony I have spent a significant part of my career deeply involved in fundamental scientific and engineering research studies in North America and Europe on high level nuclear waste repositories in stable cratonic regions.
Thus I find it highly ironic that the environmental movement can easily and dogmatically reject the massive body of data produced by the now 30 odd years of R&D supporting the notion that such repositories can be located, designed and engineered to be safe.
Yet the environmental movement is more than willing to embrace a hot rock geothermal industry.
However, that industry, if successful would, in effect, continually harvest much of the extractable uranium and thorium chain isotopes from large volumes of deep hot rocks (i.e. the very elements that make them hot) including gaseous radon and thoron isotopes, bring them all to the surface and then spread them and their ingrowing radioactive daughters around at the surface, both within the power plant, during various ventings and in the solar evaporation ponds which will inevitably be required for the blow down waters (to control gas and scale issues).
Now why can’t I avoid thinking that there is something of an unstated ‘vested interest’ hidden behind their enthusiasm to do that…..
Wonky Funkart, you misinterpret the reason behind my statements. Global warming has been recognised as an issue since the early 1960’s —indeed some of the earliest climate predictions and estimations of how CO2 levels would change with increasing population and fossil fuel use, made with a slide rule-have now come to pass. But these ideas remain just that until such concerns finally register with politicians and policy makers—thats what I meant about ‘mainstream’. Believe me, governments in Australia have only been seriously thinking about alternatives to coal, and/or CCS for 7 years or so, and its still baby steps.
Until then, it was always going to be ‘business as usual’, ie burning coal, because its cheap, easy and plentiful. Love him or hate him, you have to give Al Gore the credit for breaking through the political and policy business-as-usual barrier.
And Icedvolvo, your optimism that the climate might look after itself because we will be ‘out of fossil fuels in 200 years anyway’ is misplaced. We have seriously damaged the climate with 70years of fossil fuel burning already-can you imagine what the climate/ocean chemistry would look like if we stuffed 5x more CO2 into it? Not to mention that there are actually way more than 200 years worth of fossil fuels left at current rates of consumption. Victoria (Australia) alone has more than 500years worth of Brown Coal alone at current consumption rates, and that’s just counting the easily accessible stuff. Hopefully in the future they might use it for something of high value (eg. to produce synthetic liquid fuels—easier to sequester CO2 from that process as well), rather than sending it up in smoke at 10% efficiency to generate power and CO2. Canada’s ‘tar sands’ resource has more contained hydrocarbons than Saudi Arabia. That’s just two examples for starters.
Silly me, and here I thought you were actually posting rational stuff and then you come up with crap like: “We have seriously damaged the climate with 70years of fossil fuel burning”. What is it with allegedly rational people and especially someone who professes to be a student of the earth that they are both so blind to the history of the earth and so gullible as to believe the quasi religious doomsday rubbish! The earth has survived MUCH higher levels of CO2 than ~400ppm, up to 8000ppm. NOTHING that is happening at the moment (surface, strato or tropo temps, sea levels, ice etc is unusual even in our pitifully short human existence let alone on geological time scales.
As to fossil fuels: the best estimates from the known reserves by the US EIA is ~100 years of recoverable oil at PRESENT usage rates. After this the extraction will be so costly as to make it too expensive for mass transport.
US Energy Information Administration (backed by other groups like BP and BHP) say world reserves are ~800-900Gt of accessible coal reserves which is estimated to last between 100-200 years depending on China and India. However when the oil runs out liquefaction and gasification requirements will seriously increase the rate of coal usage.
If you have better figures you had better quote them here!
PS I don’t normally delve into personal stuff but your comments about earth and CO2 and then quoting figures for Victorian reserves/usage as some indicator of global significance really makes me question your claim to be a geologist!
IcedVolvo
‘dont normally delve into personal stuff’ eh?. The history of this thread alone would tend to dispute that idea. Really I can’t be bothered getting into a serious discussion with someone of your demeanor. Have a nice life.
“What is it with allegedly rational people and especially someone who professes to be a student of the earth that they are both so blind to the history of the earth and so gullible as to believe the quasi religious doomsday rubbish!”
Let’s not resort to name-calling that over this (I know it’s strange to see words like this coming from my mouth). Honestly, I have never looked into details about climate change, so I can’t really tell you exactly about my view on the issue. I do acknowledge, though, that there are numerous counter-arguments against the mainstream idea of enhanced greenhouse effects and they often involve non-human sources such as volcanoes, the biosphere and solar activities. My stance, scientifically, is right on the fence, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel the need, strategically, to do something about the possible threats. Besides, we can’t really keep burning fossil fuels forever anyway, so why not take the whole climate change buzz as an opportunity for an overhaul in transportations and the power industry? I have always questioned the way David Hollier presents his opinions, but never once have I disputed the possibly of global warming. Yes, I do have my reservations in that regard, but sometimes it’s good to use things to your own advantage.
IcedVolvo - I think your ability to select and interpret climate data is deeply flawed.
The enormous changes in climate in the far geological past do not make the changes in the current era insignificant or harmless or mean human activities and our emissions have nothing to do with it. Our ability to support human numbers at the current level are dependent on relatively stable climate as much as on technology.
I think you are extremely gullible for dismissing what mainstream science knows about climate and for jumping on the bandwagon of scientifically unsupported faith that gases like CO2 and CH4 have little or no impact on the Earth’s energy balance. Your quasi-religious belief in the planet’s ability to be unaffected needs a critical rethink.
Ken
You have hit on the two core things which make me a sceptic. I hope you and others read the following carefully because it sort of sums it up and perhaps you might understand just a little.
You are correct in that man relies upon climate to survive but this is not some new piece of wisdom. The famous historian/philosopher Will Durant, after studying many ancient civilisations, remarked that “civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice”. This has always been so and is no different now! Another Ice Age IS COMING regardless of whether AGW is correct or not and it WILL ANNIHILATE most if not all of the civilised societies on earth. To give you an example New York, the hub of the civilised world, was under a 3km (that’s 3000m!!!) thick ice sheet during the last Ice Age. We are already overdue for the next one and it will happen quickly, in <700 years we will go from balmy climate to freezing ice ball. Why are we not more worried about this ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY which will make even the worst global warming scenarios a mere trifling inconvenience!
As to mainstream science I have been involved as a published scientist all my life and I do nothing of the sort, rather the exact opposite: I demand that science be about facts, rigour, reproducibility and reliability and those fundamental requirements have been lost in the new religion of Environmentalism: scientists have come to the conclusion that it is OK to lie to save the world and Climate Science is no exception. Climate science involves two disciplines: physical science and maths/numerical analysis. On the science side the climate scientists exist in a world of secrecy from hidden temp data to secret computer models. The computer models are: a) vastly over simplified with little resemblance to physical reality and b) provably wrong even in the most trivial of tests. On the numerical analysis side there are too many issues to list but unknown initial and boundary issues are two stand out problems which we KNOW ABSOLUTELY destroy numerical solutions to constantly perturbated (i.e. non steady state) integro-differential systems.
“We are already overdue for the next one and it will happen quickly, in <700 years we will go from balmy climate to freezing ice ball.”
Now I am a bit curious here - is this supposed to be due to some unknown perturbations in Earth’s orbit, an imminent eruption of a super-sized volcano (e.g. the Yellow Stone National Park in the US), or some alleged extraterrestrial object that will affect Earth’s atmosphere in one way or another (e.g. Planet X)? I don’t know if you are getting my drift here but what you are saying here strangely sounds like the stuff that the doomsday nutters have been spouting about 2012 (although I was pretty sold by what David Letterman said about Sarah Palin few days ago), and till now I am still not sure if I should put you in a strait jacket or just slowly back away.
Apologies, I didn’t express myself well.
I meant that Ice Ages occur in a predictable cycle of about 100,000 years with short warmer interglacial periods (like the one we are in now) lasting about 12,000 years. This current warm interglacial has lasted about 18,000 years so we are well and truly overdue to return to an Ice Age assuming the pattern continues as it has for the last few million years.
And no I was not predicting an Ice Age in 700 years! What I was referring to was that the ice core record shows that the descent from warm interglacial into Ice Age is quite steep and basically occurs over a relatively short period (as does the reverse!).
However it is notable that the Russian Academy of Science has officially warned that we are entering the orbital situation common to other Ice Ages and some scientists have argued that we should be emitting as much CO2 as we can to offset the Ice Age! But I give that about as much cred as I do the GCM computer models of the AGW side.
“However it is notable that the Russian Academy of Science has officially warned that we are entering the orbital situation common to other Ice Ages and some scientists have argued that we should be emitting as much CO2 as we can to offset the Ice Age! But I give that about as much cred as I do the GCM computer models of the AGW side.”
I know for sure that those folk at the Russian Academy of Science are credited for the invention of Tetris (yep, the game), but little have I taken notice of this whole ice age thing. Before we get drifted too far away from the topic, may I simply point out the facts that computer simulations are only as good as the assumptions that they are based on, and often real-life experiments are needed in order to draw a proper conclusion (e.g. the design of an airplane)? I am glad to know that you don’t take this kind of things too seriously, although I must also say that till not you still strangely sound like you do.
Geoff Davies 19/11/09 1:50 PM on the ‘What Makes Climate Sceptics Tick’ thread (wherein my response below was ‘moderated’ = blatantly censored to not appear, by NM ‘management’) stated:
“….and the Earth has been responding pretty much as was predicted by James Hanson about three decades ago and many others since (except now it’s going faster than expected).”
The graph below shows James Hansen’s famous ‘sweaty’ 1988 testimony to Congress projection Scenarios A, B and C based on various pre-existing ‘real’ temperature records to that data and his own ‘modeling’.
http://www.climateaudit.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/01/hansen20.gif
This graph which includes the subsequent surface and satellite temperature records clearly shows how, over the subsequent 22 year period 1988 - 2009 (last quarter) Hansen’s Scenarios A and B were not even close. His Scenario C was a reasonably fit up until about 18 months ago but has now fallen over.
Furthermore, Davies knows full well that recent mainstream climate researches have shown that El Ninos have a more widespread and prolonged influence on global temperatures than previously believed. Thus Hansen’s 1988 mildest Scenario C trend only ‘worked’ up to about 2 years ago because it was largely sustained by the lagged effects the effects of the unusually strong 1998 El Nino.
So “…as predicted” or “…going faster”? No sir! In his eagerness young Geoff crammed not one but two blatant untruths in the one sentence.
It’s true you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
There never really was any room for hyperbole in real science, and there never will be.
Second ecoeng’s comments!
I also put a table in showing 5/10/20/30 year trends in from all the major world datasets showing Geoff Davies was just plain wrong in his statements about cooling trends and NM also “moderated” it out.
Congratulations NM, you are in line for taking the crown for “selective” journalism from the ABC!
NCAR Scientist Tom Wigley Honored as AAAS Fellow
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 31, 2003
BOULDER—Tom Wigley, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has been named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for his major contributions to climate and carbon-cycle modeling and to climate data analysis. A complete list of this year’s fellows appears today in the AAAS News & Notes section of the journal Science.
A mathematical physicist with a doctorate from the University of Adelaide in Australia, Wigley is one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change and one of the most highly cited scientists in the discipline. He has published on a diverse collection of topics in climatology including data analysis; climate impacts on agriculture and water resources; paleoclimatology; and modelling of climate, sea level, and the carbon cycle. He has served as lead author in each of the six major scientific reviews of the greenhouse problem.
********
From: Tom Wigley […]
To: Phil Jones […]
Subject: 1940s
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:25:38 -0600
Cc: Ben Santer […]
Phil,
Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip. If you look at the attached plot you will see that theland also shows the 1940s blip (as I’m sure you know).
So, if we could reduce the ocean blip by, say, 0.15 degC, then this would be significant for the global mean – but we’d still have to explain the land blip. I’ve chosen 0.15 here deliberately. This still leaves an ocean blip, and i think one needs to have some form of ocean blip to explain the land blip (via either some common forcing, or ocean forcing land, or vice versa, or all of these). When you look at other blips, the land blips are 1.5 to 2 times (roughly) the ocean blips—higher sensitivity plus thermal inertia effects. My 0.15 adjustment leaves things consistent with this, so you can see where I am coming from.
Removing ENSO does not affect this.
It would be good to remove at least part of the 1940s blip, but we are still left with “why the blip”.
Let me go further. If you look at NH vs SH and the aerosol effect (qualitatively or with MAGICC) then with a reduced ocean blip we get continuous warming in the SH, and a cooling in the NH—just as one would expect with mainly NH aerosols.
The other interesting thing is (as Foukal et al. note – from MAGICC) that the 1910-40 warming cannot be solar. The Sun can get at most 10% of this with Wang et al solar, less with Foukal solar. So this may well be NADW, as Sarah and I noted in 1987 (and also Schlesinger later). A reduced SST blip in the 1940s makes the 1910-40 warming larger than the SH (which it currently is not)—but not really enough.
So … why was the SH so cold around 1910? Another SST problem? (SH/NH data also attached.)
This stuff is in a report I am writing for EPRI, so I’d appreciate any comments you (and Ben) might have.
Tom. ************
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/08/resolving-technica…
“There is however a different way of criticizing scientific papers that is prevalent in blogs like ClimateAudit. This involves challenging, ‘by all means necessary’, any paper whose conclusions are not liked. This can be based on simple typos, basic misunderstandings of the issues and ‘guilt by association’ though there is sometimes the occasional interesting point. Since these claims are rarely assessed to see if there is any actual impact on the main result, the outcome is a series of misleading critiques, regardless of whether any of these criticisms are in fact even valid or salient, that give the impression that every one of these papers is worthless and that all their authors incompetent at best and dishonest at worst. It is the equivalent of claiming to have found spelling errors in a newspaper article. Fun for a while, but basically irrelevant for understanding any issue or judging the worth of the journalist.
While commentary — even quite negative commentary — of papers on blogs is entirely reasonable (after all, we do it here occasionally), claims that a particular paper has been ‘discredited’ or ‘falsified’ that have not withstood (at minimum) the process of peer-review should be viewed with extreme skepticism. So should accusations of dishonesty or misconduct that have not already been conclusively and unequivocally substantiated.”
“There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism, and pointing out errors — even fairly minor ones — is important and useful. The difference, though, between people who want to find out something about the real world and people who just want to score political points, is what is made of those errors. That is the test of constructive scientific dialog. Specious accusations of fraud, plagiarism and the like don’t pass such a test; instead they simply poison the atmosphere to everyone’s loss”
Again and again the same mistakes get repeated - the expectation that climate models and global average temperatures must line up over relatively short periods and the unpredictablility and variation over those short periods is indicative of fundamental flaws in climate science. Nonsense. It’s like expecting winter to progress to summer with each day a bit hotter than the day before and if not - like a whole week or month of cooling weather - then we can’t be sure summer will come around at all! At this stage the expectation of continuing long term warming is almost as certain as summer following winter.
Trying to invoke the possibility of impending ice age as reason to increase CO2 emissions from someone who’s made it clear he doesn’t believe CO2 has significant impacts on climate - and ignoring the more immediate impacts in the thousands of years in the meantime - is fairly indicative of reason to think IcedVolvo’s is a voice that oughtn’t be taken seriously.
Similarly the attempt by EcoEng to read something (?) into a bit of brainstorming by scientists engaged in what sounds like a genuine effort to get an even better understanding of those shorter term ups and downs of global average temperatures and trying to make something (?) of 20 year old projections not lining up precisely over periods as short as 18 months says that this is someone who is only interested in short time climate variablility as a scientific question but as a rhetorical argument for staying on the disbelief bandwagon.
Thousands of emails between top climate IPCC scientists have been leaked by a mole inside the at CRU detailing a decade of deceit and even criminal activity from hiding and deleting stuff from FOI requests to diverting funds to fudging data to entrenched persecution of scientists and journals.
This is the story of the decade and the con is over!
realclimate
climateaudit
whatsupwitthat
are all carrying the story but have are unstable due to overloading!!
The King is dead, long live the King!
Sorry that last part should have read - isn’t interested in short time climate variablility as a scientific question but only as a rhetorical argument -
IcedVolvo, selected excerpts from stolen emails don’t invalidate any conclusions of climate science. It’s quite typical of the way the anti science denialists work though - pick out some idle statements by people who believed they were having private conversations and puff it up into the kind of conspiracy that all the world’s leading intelligence agencies have never uncovered because it never existed.
The planet is still warming from increased emissions and we still have to deal with the consequences.
Ken Fabos
“At this stage the expectation of continuing long term warming is almost as certain as summer following winter.”
Oh yeah?
Most interglacials were characterised by twin peaks in which temperatures and sea level were both above modern. However, it is rare to find a separation between peaks which which exceeded ~10,000 years. That certainly did not happen with the last and penultimate interglacials (the former having two peaks ~ 7000 year apart, the latter having three peaks in <25,000 years.
Therefore see:
A multi-proxy lacustrine record of Holocene climate change on northeastern Baffin Island, Arctic Canada
Quaternary Research, Volume 65, Issue 3, May 2006, Pages 431-442
Jason P. Briner, Neal Michelutti, Donna R. Francis, Gifford H. Miller, Yarrow Axford, Matthew J. Wooller, Alexander P. Wolfe.
Reconstructions of past environmental changes are critical for understanding the natural variability of Earth’s climate system and for providing a context for present and future global change. Radiocarbon-dated lake sediments from Lake CF3, northeastern Baffin Island, Arctic Canada, are used to reconstruct past environmental conditions over the last 11,200 years. Numerous proxies, including chironomid-inferred July air temperatures, diatom-inferred lakewater pH, and sediment organic matter, reveal a pronounced Holocene thermal maximum as much as 5°C warmer than historic summer temperatures from ~10,000 to 8500 cal yr B.P. Following rapid cooling ~8500 cal yr B.P., Lake CF3 proxies indicate cooling through the late Holocene. At many sites in northeastern Canada, the Holocene thermal maximum occurred later than at Lake CF3; this late onset of Holocene warmth is generally attributed to the impacts of the decaying Laurentide Ice Sheet on early Holocene temperatures in northeastern Canada. However, the lacustrine proxies in Lake CF3 apparently responded to insolation-driven warmth, despite the proximity of Lake CF3 to the Laurentide Ice Sheet and its meltwater. The magnitude and timing of the Holocene thermal maximum at Lake CF3 indicate that temperatures and environmental conditions at this site are highly sensitive to changes in radiative forcing.
There is nothing to be gained, other than the wasting of time, trying to separate fools from their fancies.
EcoEng, like IcedVolvo, your ability to select and interpret climate data is suspect.Give me the world’s leading scientific institutions any day.
BTW reprinting the private communications of people in some kind of attempt to discredit them is a new low. The elation such as IcedVolvo expressed is quite appalling.
No what’s really appalling Ken is that so called respected scientists who are employed by public funds and grants and who present themselves as above reproach or question even when being the cause of a massive reordering of society such as human history as never known, are subject of allegations of conspiracy to hide and/or destroy documents from official government FOI requests, conspiracy to have editors/referees of scientific journals sacked because they published contrarian views, conspiring to hide “warming blips” from publications and grafting natural temperature on instrumental series to hide worrying divergences. And this is only what is in writing in a small sample! Imagine what more must have happened without any official record?
If this was exposing some corporate fraud in an oil company the lefties would be calling for an official inquiry and hero status for the brave whistle blower. But because this person has exposed the some of the AGW brethren he or she is vilified as a thief or hacker and the emails as stolen private communications to be discarded as irrelevant.