Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Boring a large channel into the magma chamber
and bleeding off the molten lava to heat pressure tanks
would be eco-friendly
then
allowing the lava run-ff to cool in brick forms
hits two birdies with one swing
So the greenies are complaining about fracking for gas, but they're fine with doing the same thing INSIDE A VOLCANO for geothermal.
What f'ing morons.
This is a BAD IDEA....
Who said that they were fine with this? I am a geologist and I think it is a very bad idea. Rock is ALWAYS weakened by water. Pumping cold water on hot rocks not only weakens it, but since that rock acts as a structural cap on the magma plug capping the magma chamber, there is no way they can know how the volcano will react, but it is not likely to be good in the long run. A great deal of volcanic activity has occurred on Newberry's shield, which itself has one of the largest collections of cinder cones, domes, lava flows, and fissures in the world. The last major eruption there was in 480 AD, and produced a plinian eruption on the order of Mt. Vesuvius when it destroyed Pompei. The last known eruption was in 650 AD. This volcano has been active for 500,000 years, and there is no reason whatsoever to expect that it will not erupt again. In fact, the U.S.G.S. has rated Newberry as one of four volcanoes in Oregon with a very high threat of eruption.
This is a variation of the Hot Dry Rock Geothermal concept being tested at Valles Grande caldera in New Mexico by scientists at Los Alamos laboratory in the 1980's. The project was canceled after the oil controlled Republicans got Nixon elected. I know because they were about to hire me as an environmental scientist.
This is not just pouring water on a basalt cap (although on a big scale that might work) in a crater. It is pumping water from one bore hole through natural of manmade fractures to another bore and circulating pressurized water through a surface heat exchanger to operate a steam turbine generator unit. As the area of the HDR assembly, and the heat removed, is so very small compared to the size of something like the Newberry crater I doubt if there would be any adverse effects. The advantage of drilling there is the bores do not have to be very deep to get to very hot rock.
I would like to se an experiment where shafts were drilled very close to or in the magma of an existing volcano and the very high temperatures generated very high energy steam so smaller turbines could be used. A drilling experiment was done in Iceland to tap reservoirs hot enough to generate supercritical steam. The project was ended because fractured rock several kilometers below the surface closed the bore.
This is far more developed than pouring water into a volcano.
This is a variation of the Hot Dry Rock Geothermal concept being tested at Valles Grande caldera in New Mexico by scientists at Los Alamos laboratory in the 1980's. The project was canceled after the oil controlled Republicans got Nixon elected. I know because they were about to hire me as an environmental scientist.
This is not just pouring water on a basalt cap (although on a big scale that might work) in a crater. It is pumping water from one bore hole through natural of manmade fractures to another bore and circulating pressurized water through a surface heat exchanger to operate a steam turbine generator unit. As the area of the HDR assembly, and the heat removed, is so very small compared to the size of something like the Newberry crater I doubt if there would be any adverse effects. The advantage of drilling there is the bores do not have to be very deep to get to very hot rock.
I would like to se an experiment where shafts were drilled very close to or in the magma of an existing volcano and the very high temperatures generated very high energy steam so smaller turbines could be used. A drilling experiment was done in Iceland to tap reservoirs hot enough to generate supercritical steam. The project was ended because fractured rock several kilometers below the surface closed the bore.
This is far more developed than pouring water into a volcano.
I understand the concept. The difference between what they are doing in Iceland and what they are trying to do at Newberry is that the location where the work is being done in Iceland typically generates high temperature, low gas, low silica magma, whereas the latter typically generates high silica magma that is very brittle, has a high gas content, and is subject to both phreatic explosions and plinean eruptions.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
