Geothermal Energy: A Win-Win for Democrats and Republicans?

[Meredith Poor + 884]

As has been demonstrated in the geothermal plant in the Salton Sea, geothermal brings up more than hot water. Other minerals include lithium, rare earths, potassium, various base metals such as iron, zinc, manganese, and uranium, and so forth. This is true even of the 'process water' from conventional and fracked oil wells. This creates various grey areas - Democrats may not like oil, but the lithium and rare earths are certainly within the scope of their agenda(s). When Republicans are harping about 'energy security', it's a bit hard to argue with extraction in one's own backyard.

One of the reasons the US 'owns' the global oil industry to the extent that it does is the technical aspects of getting oil out of the ground. Schlumberger and Halliburton are the 'majors' that make this stuff work - it's hard to ignore the American flags on their hard hats.

This goes double for geothermal - the US Department of Energy is pouring money into research on this. The universities and corporations doing the field work are, for the most part, domestic companies. The mineral extraction is an afterthought, at least right now.

Supposedly New Mexico is one of the 'richest' geologic regions for geothermal in the US. Given all the wells in the Permian, one might not even notice that some of the wells aren't producing hydrocarbons.

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,136]

Sigh: Without gargantuan amounts of FRESH water, geothermal is DOA  Have you BOTHERED to read about all the gargantuan problems of geothermal which is ALREADY being used at the Salton sea? Or next door at the Geysers and why the Geysers are "working" at 1/7th capacity?...--> No.  Arsenic, calcium, barium, chlorine, sodium are chief among them with Trace minerals which people care about. 

Or you can play make believe closed loop Geothermal is economical.... --> Hint: its not and here is the rub, nearly zero of the geothermal "resources" flow... in other words, once the heat is tapped, the heat quality disappears.  It has no source from deep in the earth.  Vast majority of said "resources" are the scraps left over from old volcanos...

Geothermal is truly pittiful unless you tap ACTIVE volcanos such as Iceland.  An actual POWER source with continous HEAT flow

[TailingsPond + 495]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Geothermal is truly pittiful unless you tap ACTIVE volcanos such as Iceland.  An actual POWER source with continous HEAT flow

It's not like the USA doesn't have volcanoes.   Mount St. Helens is active; Yellowstone is a giant one.

I wonder how much energy could have been drawn from the Old Faithful if some sort of power plant was put on it a long time ago.  There have been more than 1,000,000 measured eruptions.

It varies but it is around 25,000L of boiling water per hour.

Edited April 19 by TailingsPond