An encouraging news today from Australia: The Aussies are making progress in finding ways to generate electricity from hot rocks of the outback. These rocks' temperatures can be as high 570 deg. F! This provides plenty of energy for the coversion from steam power to electric power.
So how deep do we have to drill to reach to these hot rocks? 400 feet? 600 feet? Try more than 3 miles! That's how deep they'd have to get to for this source of "free" energy.
This energy source should not be confused with geothermal energy source used in many parts of the world. Geothermal electricity is generated from steam extracted from underground reservoirs and springs - not dry hot rocks. In the case for hot rocks, electricity is harnessed from the channeled super-heated steam generated from high-pressure water pumped down to the hot rocks.
The idea of mining heat from hot dry rocks (HDR) isn't new. It was conceived and developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory as early as the 70s. While the concept is quite simple, in practice, it's difficult to control the key element in this type of heat mining: the reservoir. And this is what has been the major challenge to geothermal engineers in Australia as well.
So far the Australian government has chipped in about $370 million to develop the technology for commercial HDR energy conversion.
I guess this is one step towards being free from the grip of the petroleum cartels - not to mention the benefit from the reduction in CO2 emission, which is the major contributor to global warming.
So how deep do we have to drill to reach to these hot rocks? 400 feet? 600 feet? Try more than 3 miles! That's how deep they'd have to get to for this source of "free" energy.
This energy source should not be confused with geothermal energy source used in many parts of the world. Geothermal electricity is generated from steam extracted from underground reservoirs and springs - not dry hot rocks. In the case for hot rocks, electricity is harnessed from the channeled super-heated steam generated from high-pressure water pumped down to the hot rocks.
The idea of mining heat from hot dry rocks (HDR) isn't new. It was conceived and developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory as early as the 70s. While the concept is quite simple, in practice, it's difficult to control the key element in this type of heat mining: the reservoir. And this is what has been the major challenge to geothermal engineers in Australia as well.
So far the Australian government has chipped in about $370 million to develop the technology for commercial HDR energy conversion.
I guess this is one step towards being free from the grip of the petroleum cartels - not to mention the benefit from the reduction in CO2 emission, which is the major contributor to global warming.
1 comment:
Let's hope the actually develop this technology. It seems lots of alternative energy sources have had a hard time getting off the ground.
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