Talk:Geothermal power

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Contents 1 Earthquakes 2 nuclear energy 3 Apology 4 Vandalism 5 Use of geothermal in Canadian oil sands 6 Southampton 7 renewable

[edit] Earthquakes

doesn't show much inddication of credible opinion of causaulity. All that is provided is a link to an earthquake map that shows lots of earthquakes near a geothermal plant. Correlation does not prove causaulity or the direction of causality, if it exists. But does geothermal water injection cause earthquakes or are earthquake zones prefered sites for geothermal plants (seismic activity is considered benificial for geothermal plants as it cracks the rock). Injecting water might conceivably influence siesmic activity but the effect might be benificial rather than harmful. Assume that earthquakes induced by geothermal activity are due to lubrication of seismic plates and that the energy comes from the motion of the seismic plates not from the steam itself. If we imagine the steam/water lubricating the plates so they can slide freely, the result could be more frequent but less severe earthquakes - which is exactly what you want. Reduce the stored energy in the system and you reduce the potential for catastrophic damage. In the short term, you might stimulate the early release of the "big one" - though that earthquake is inevitable and the severity would be lessened slightly by premature release. Whitis 27 August 2005

[edit] nuclear energy

Shouldn't nuclear energy be omitted in the "Notes" Part? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy#Nuclear_power

nuclear energy is close. Fairymeimei 12:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apology

Although I did not commit the vandalism, I apologise for my fellow users of this IP--169.244.70.146 18:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vandalism

This seems to be a majorly vandalized article. Any idea why?--Shark Fin 101 21:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

Removed the vandalism. No idea why some people feel the need to do this. Just today I've had to clean up two articles that contained similar types of crap. Phrique 15:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"crap" is not a suitable word to say on a site like this! If you are going to use such profaine language you must put a warning above it! I should hope that tou will apologize for your actions! User:chipmunk15 5:16 June 17 2006 (CAST)

Wow, I sincerely hope you're joking. I cleaned up a bunch of articles and I used the word "crap" in a single line and someone feels the need to respond about it? If you're offended by such a silly word you need to get out more. You'll get no apology for me for using it. Phrique 19:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

PLEASE VANDALIZE NOT OUR SITE !

Some more rudeness has entered the page. Can someone fix it?--Markparker 14:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Get your vocabulary and spelling right. "Crap" isn't a profanity. A profanity is a vulgarity. What's so vulgar about it? It's just rude. Furthermore, it's "profane", not "profaine". --218.186.9.3 11:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

(From A in Australia): What is crap, shall be called crap - we must get away from softening language that blurs issues.

My observation is that vandalism is undertaken by people who cannot build up anything - they lack the feeling of success and importance from positive contributions so they destroy, getting a false feeling that they have done something. It is quite apparent when you look at the young males driving modified cars that roar and disturb people. That's graffiti for the ears and they feel noticed, marking territory like the doggie who lifts his leg at the lamppost. Vandalism is also territorial marking behaviour.

I looked at this article to find something about our, Australian, geothermal project. It is said to be the largest or maybe hottest, project in the world, could supply the whole of Australia with electricity, and has just been recognised by a federal minister as the only renewable energy source that can provide baseload.

Would be nice, if that could be mentioned in the artice, if it is true.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I just removed the "rudeness" I believe you where talking about.

 wun.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[edit] Use of geothermal in Canadian oil sands

I just thought I'd point out this article: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/180278; I have been unable to find on-line references to the "GeoPower consortium".

The article discusses rising interest in the use of Geothermal power in oil sands extraction. This is of note since current production methods use natural gas. I thought the article might reference this application, but unfortunately vandalism has crept in and made that difficult. Nextrelease 20:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Southampton

Just a suggestion, and I'm no expert on the subject, but the Southampton Geothermal power station might provide an interesting case study for this article. See [2] [3], etc. Cheers, DWaterson 22:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] renewable

"The heat of the earth is so vast that there is no way to remove more than a small fraction even if most of the world's energy needs came from geothermal sources."

I thought that the internal heat of the earth was caused by the crushing force of its gravity and thus inexuastible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.105.99.247 (talk) 10:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC).

For the causes, see Geothermal (geology). If heat is extracted faster than it is replaced, then the temperature will reduce at the extraction point until it is too cool to be economic. Gralo 14:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

My concern - if a mass scale of geothermal extraction takes hold could the internal convection currents of earth be drained to a point that magnetic flux is halted? I understand this would be very grave for deflecting solar radiation.Greg0658 16:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

No - despite the potentially large quantities usable geothermal heat available in terms of human usage, it is still a very tiny fraction of the heat within the earth's core. Gralo 18:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi, somebody with specific knowledge of the subject can correct me if I'm wrong, but geothermal energy is basically "catching" the waste heat escaping from the earth's core; since the heat is extracted from at most a few miles depth I don't think it could affect the core/mantle temperature, even if the entire crust could be converted into a giant geothermal system extracting all of the heat as it escapes. As long as the isotopes are still breaking down for below the crust, heat will always be escaping to the crust.--HarryHenryGebel 12:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the map under Geothermal (geology), you will notice that a flow of heat greater than 1/10 watt/square meter is rare. This is about 1/10,000 of the amount of solar that hits the earth when the sun shines. It is more like mining the heat than catching the flow, as it will not be renewed on a human timescale.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pstudier (talk • contribs) 19:43, 16 March 2007 (UTC).

Paul, I wasn't trying to suggest that capturing 100% of the heat escaping would be a practical, just that even if you could it wouldn't affect the core or mantle temperature, which was the concern of the question I was responding to. I'm sorry if my poor word choice made my reply unclear. Thanks for the map reference, and all of your energy related contributions, which is one of my favorite subjects.--HarryHenryGebel 03:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)