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Politics : MITT ROMNEY -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Alan Smithee who wrote (2916)	3/14/2008 5:12:51 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Respond to of 5586

Here's the deal. One of the reasons technology advances is because the market forces the issue to some degree. Just like we found ways to better gas mileage we'll find ways for alternative energy to become more effective, have great % of power supply impact and cost less. Heck, I remember buying a computer back in the early 90's with DOS, a monochrome monitor, a 20 meg hard drive, kilobytes of memory etc etc for 1700.00. Now you buy 500 times the machine for 499. Calculators in the early 70's were 300-400 bucks. Now I can buy one with more computing power than we had to launch the Saturn V rocket to the moon. The point is as production ramps the cost will come down and we KNOW the technology will improve and become more efficient. I've seen a lot of posts regarding how certain potential energy sources will NEVER have a major impact - never say never. Just like the Model T wasn't the end of advancement in cars; oil, gas, coal and nuclear are not the end of advancement in energy. These are all very much the infancy of power in the first 100 or so years in the industrial revolution in our society.

To: Alan Smithee who wrote (2916)	3/14/2008 10:22:25 PM
From: Augustus Gloop	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 5586

<<I live in an area where there are hundreds, perhaps over 1,000 windmills. No matter how many of these they set up (at a cost of over $1.0 million per, wind energy will be only a small part of the country's energy consumption. Geothermal even less. en.wikipedia.org If heat recovered by ground source heat pumps is included, the non-electric generating capacity of geothermal energy is estimated at more than 100 GW (gigawatts of thermal power) and is used commercially in over 70 countries.[4] During 2005, contracts were placed for an additional 0.5 GW of capacity in the United States, while there were also plants under construction in 11 other countries.[11] Estimates of exploitable worldwide geothermal energy resources vary considerably. According to a 1999 study, it was thought that this might amount to between 65 and 138 GW of electrical generation capacity 'using enhanced technology'.[12] A 2006 report by MIT, that took into account the use of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), concluded that it would be affordable to generate 100 GWe (gigawatts of electricity) or more by 2050 in the United States alone, for a maximum investment of 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years.[11] The MIT report calculated the world's total EGS resources to be over 13,000 ZJ. Of these, over 200 ZJ would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's energy needs for several millennia.[11] The key characteristic of an EGS (also called a Hot Dry Rock system), is that it reaches at least 10 km down into hard rock. At a typical site two holes would be bored and the deep rock between them fractured. Water would be pumped down one and steam would come up the other. The MIT report estimated that there was enough energy in hard rocks 10 km below the United States to supply all the world's current needs for 30,000 years. [11] Drilling at this depth is now routine for the oil industry (Exxon announced an 11 km hole at the Chayvo field, Sakhalin. Lloyds List 1/5/07 p 6). The technological challenges are to drill wider bores and to break rock over larger volumes. Apart from the energy used to make the bores, the process releases no greenhouse gases. Other important countries are China, Hungary, Mexico, Iceland, and New Zealand. There are a number of potential sites being developed or evaluated in South Australia that are several kilometres in depth. _______________________________________________________________ Advantages The Nesjavellir Geothermal Power Plant in IcelandGeothermal energy offers a number of advantages over traditional fossil fuel based sources. From an environmental standpoint, the energy harnessed is clean and safe for the surrounding environment.[4] It is also sustainable because the hot water used in the geothermal process can be re-injected into the ground to produce more steam. In addition, geothermal power plants are unaffected by changing weather conditions.[5] Geothermal power plants work continually, day and night, making them base load power plants. From an economic view, geothermal energy is extremely price competitive in some areas and reduces reliance on fossil fuels and their inherent price unpredictability.[6] It also offers a degree of scalability: a large geothermal plant can power entire cities while smaller power plants can supply more remote sites such as rural villages.[7] _______________________________________________________________ Disadvantages There are several environmental concerns behind geothermal energy. Construction of the power plants can adversely affect land stability in the surrounding region. This is mainly a concern with Enhanced Geothermal Systems, where water is injected into hot dry rock where no water was before.[8] Dry steam and flash steam power plants also emit low levels of carbon dioxide, nitric oxide, and sulfur, although at roughly 5% of the levels emitted by fossil fuel power plants.[7] However, geothermal plants can be built with emissions-controlling systems that can inject these gases back into the earth, thereby reducing carbon emissions to less than 0.1% of those from fossil fuel power plants.[9] Although geothermal sites are capable of providing heat for many decades, eventually specific locations may cool down. It is likely that in these locations, the system was designed too large for the site, since there is only so much energy that can be stored and replenished in a given volume of earth. Some interpret this as meaning a specific geothermal location can undergo depletion, and question whether geothermal energy is truly renewable, but if left alone, these places will recover some of their lost heat, as the mantle has vast heat reserves. The government of Iceland states: "It should be stressed that the geothermal resource is not strictly renewable in the same sense as the hydro resource." It estimates that Iceland's geothermal energy could provide 1700 MW for over 100 years, compared to the current production of 140 MW.[10]