Sunday, July 27, 2008
Geothermal
Using water heated by deep volcanic activity is not new; Iceland has been using it for decades. It's fairly new in the US, and a promising operation is underway around Bend, Oregon. The plant could supply electricity for about 100K households, which is worth the gamble of drilling at present power prices.
Story here.
Needless to say, the ecotyrants are protesting against this, even though geothermal is supposedly one of the few Gaia-friendly ways of getting power. An activist with the wonderfully hippie name of Asante Riverwind heads the Sierra Club in that area, and he's trying to get the operation stopped. As usual this gives the lie to the claim that ecotyrants are looking for "clean power". They're looking to stop civilization plain and simple.
A different form of geothermal is now being tested in Iceland. Instead of relying on water that's already stored underground, this method would pump cold water down to the hot spot, let it heat and expand, and use the temperature differential to run a turbine. Identical in principle to closed-cycle plants that burn coal or oil, except that the heat is essentially free. This should be more reliable and permanent than simply sucking out the existing water. ¶ 3:31 PM
Story here.
Needless to say, the ecotyrants are protesting against this, even though geothermal is supposedly one of the few Gaia-friendly ways of getting power. An activist with the wonderfully hippie name of Asante Riverwind heads the Sierra Club in that area, and he's trying to get the operation stopped. As usual this gives the lie to the claim that ecotyrants are looking for "clean power". They're looking to stop civilization plain and simple.
A different form of geothermal is now being tested in Iceland. Instead of relying on water that's already stored underground, this method would pump cold water down to the hot spot, let it heat and expand, and use the temperature differential to run a turbine. Identical in principle to closed-cycle plants that burn coal or oil, except that the heat is essentially free. This should be more reliable and permanent than simply sucking out the existing water. ¶ 3:31 PM
