Drilling Problems, Fear of An Earthquake, Delay New Northern California Geothermal Project.

[NNadir]

From the NY Times today:

The Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels has fallen seriously behind schedule, several federal scientists said this week, even as the project is under review because of the earthquakes it could generate in Northern California. Intended to extract heat from hot bedrock, the project has been delayed because the bit on a giant rig, meant to drill more than two miles underground, has struggled to pierce surface rock formations, the scientists said.

The bit has snapped off at least once and become repeatedly fouled in a shallow formation called cap rock, and the drillers have twice been forced to pull it out and essentially start the hole over again...

...The company has also raised some $30 million in venture capital. Among AltaRock’s high-profile investors are Google and the investment firms Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

Advocates for the technique, known as an “enhanced geothermal system,” say it could eventually generate vast amounts of energy and reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels. But the latest delays come as AltaRock awaits word on whether the federal government will allow the fracturing of rock at all.

The fracturing would be virtually guaranteed to induce earthquakes, which the company has said would be so small as to be nearly imperceptible but which local residents and some scientists fear could be larger. The project is in one of the world’s most seismically active areas.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/us/20alta.html?hp">From the New York Times

[HamdenRice]

1. On cost benefit analysis would the small earthquakes "cost" as much as thousands of thyroid cancers?

Seems like a trivial risk compared to the potential costs of poorly designed nuclear facilities.

Or have you bought into the fantasy of enormous risks posed by geothermal drilling made famous by the science fiction classic, "Crack in the World"?

:rofl:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_in_the_World

[NNadir]

2. What "thousand" cancers are you talking about?

Got any data on thyroid cancer rates, recovery rates in any circumstances, or are you just doing a little chant?

Radon risks - involving a potential lung cancer risk - from geothermal operations are widely known and understood, although not by any fundementalists who despise science, since their "knowledge" of science consists entirely of wikipedia references.

Apparently the fundementalists can't understand the contents of even the New York Times, although the New York Times I admit is often poor at making risk comparisons. It's not like they report on the regular death rate of coal, oil, dangerous natural gas, wind, or other energy systems.

Radon releases from geothermal plants are very low risk, of course, and are generally known by people who know science to be a minor part of their external costs. The major risks of geothermal plants consist entirely of carbon dioxide releases, salt intrusion into ground water etc, depletion of "resource" (as at Geyers).

Geothermal is known to be a relatively clean form of energy, although obviously new risks are associated with new approaches to it.

But again, you would have to have a passing knowledge of the scientific literature on external costs of energy to have a remote understanding of risk.

There are ZERO fundementalists here who can qualify on that score.

You would have to be a fucking idiot to not understand the difference between the risks of an earthquake and the experimentally determined risks of thyroid cancer from nuclear power releases in both accidental and operational settings, for instance from the thousands of references contained on the subject. The risk of showing oneself to be a fucking idiot has not prevented a single fundementalist from doing so, albeit obliviously.

[jpak]

4. LOL!!!111

:rofl:

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Epic Anti-Nuke FAIL

Yet ANOTHER scientific reality that causes peals of phony anti-nuke "laughter".

http://www.google.com/search?q=geothermal+earthquake">geothermal + earthquake at Google

See, when you pursue an ego-based culture war rather than an examination of the body of evidence (i.e., not just from Greenpeace®, NIRS and Mark Z. Jacobsen), you tend to miss stuff. Does getting a shot in at NNadir really matter that much?

--d!

[NNadir]

5. Wow. Another googly hit. In something called the "scientific literature"

the history of geothermal power is often discussed.

Geothermal power, which is not as clean as nuclear but is certainly cleaner than the other stupid forms of fantasy we hear endlessly about here is well over 100 years old.

It was first commercialized in Italy, where they have recently reversed their nuclear phase out out of personal disgust with the fact that, predictably, the phase out did nothing more than entrench dangerous fossil fuel interests.

I note that there is NOT ONE fundie on this website who can cite a scientific reference in any scientific journal (or even in Googly land) showing thathttp://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/alternate/page/renew_energy_consump/table1.html">0.358 > 83.436

One wonders if there is ONE fundie who can explain why, after over a century of commercial operations, geothermal still doesn't produce even one exajoule out of the 500 used by humanity.