Al Gore on Conan

Yes! That one, too.

I'm worried about Gunner, with those big projects getting started in California. He could slide right off into the Pacific, and his biggest boat won't hold all his stuff. d8-)

Pffhhht! Insults and disrespect? Crankiness? Is that anything like saying my statements are products of "the child's mind of Gore-ish fantasies"? That it's my "environmental tomorrowland"? That all liberals are incompetent? Who is it, really, who is trying very hard to "pick a fight"?

You've dismissed one of the most active and promising energy technologies going, Rich, and your statements make it clear that you're at least ten years behind. But rather than look into the projections from MIT, the DOE, Chevron, and numerous other substantial companies that are making big financial bets on EGS, you draw from your endless well of political bigotry to dismiss "liberals" and anyone who thinks the technology is worth pursuing. You appear to think that all science is political, like the Soviet Union did during their darkest days.

Don't worry, I'm not going to pick a fight with you. I know what you are, and I recognize how you're dodging the issue now. It was only a matter of time before you cloaked yourself in that typical right-wing hypocrisy and claimed that someone else is disrespecting you, when you've done nothing but dismiss and disrespect all of the legitimate scientists and engineers who are putting their effort into seeing how to make this technology work -- as well as anyone who finds the work exciting and interesting, as I do.

Meantime, there are a few people here who have some knowledge of the subject and are serious. You can dismiss all of us if you like. Maybe you'd be happier discussing the science and engineering of it with your little right-wing politico friends.

If you have access to scholarly databases, you may get some answers about seismicity from this:

Majer, E. and R. Baria. 2006. "Induced seismicity associated with Enhanced Geothermal Systems: State of knowledge and recommendations for successful mitigation," Working paper presented at the Stanford Geothermal Workshop, Stanford University, Calif.

I haven't looked for it. I may have access to it through one of two university database access points, if you want me to look.

Meantime, there's the big (274 page) geothermic prospects report from MIT that was published a year or so ago:

-- Ed Huntress

There was the case near Denver of all the seismic events after injecting water. Forget what the projects purpose was or is.

Depends which side of the San Andreas fault you live on. I think he is East of it in Taft, but not very far East.

Apparently there have been quite a few of them, some tied to geothermal energy projects and others to enhanced-recovery techniques for old oil wells. I don't know enough about it.

Aha. Maybe he's holding out to have his property become beachfront...

Keep in mind that water..or steam can act as a self expanding lubricant when injected into a dry mass and by both its expanding action and lubriocity can get the media surrounding it to move.

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

The San Andreas is 5 miles, as the crow flies, from where I sit typing this.

Although..its only one of literally thousands of fault lines here in California, many of which will cause far far more death and destruction if they pop.

One should simply look at the Coalinga Earthquake of 1983...1 fatality..yet it devistated an entire down. Another San Andreas related fault btw.

Then of course..is the New Madrid fault line.... which is actually long long overdue for shaking the middle eastern portion of the US to pieces.

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Are you referring to the quakes back in the late sixties caused by pumping WWI gas down deep wells at the Rocky Mountain arsenal. Once the government quit the pumping, the quakes stopped. Broke some dishes when they fell of the wall and rattled lots of cages in Boulder.

Let the Record show that Gunner Asch on or about Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:07:02 -0800 did write/type or cause to appear in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Anyone else recall the Charleston earthquake? 1886 was the latest, although I seem to recall one from the 1720's ...

The "interesting" thing are the developments here in the Puget Sound area, as "new" faults are discovered, and the geological evidence is developed as to what has already happened around here. Apparently, we get some doozies.

tschus pyotr

- pyotr filipivich We will drink no whiskey before its nine. It's eight fifty eight. Close enough!

True, however if the frac liquid is expanding it will either result in an expansion of the fractures or an increase in injection pressure indicated at the surface, which, at least in the abbreviated reports I've read, isn't being reported. The German report talked about a back flow of some 30% of the injected medium when pressure was released and the well vented.

Granted they weren't specific about the weight of the liquid in the well or any other data but if we assume that whatever medium was used had a weight sufficient to contain any original downhole pressure then if a third of the liquid back flowed it seems to indicate that considerable expansion did take place.

On the other hand the report seemed to indicate that they reduced, or removed pressure and opened the well, which allowed the back flow. This obviously is not a detailed explanation as no one is going to simply "open the valve" and just let it kick - suppose you somehow fraced into a high pressure zone?

Cheers,

John B. (johnbslocomatgmaildotcom)

LMAO, "Anyone else"?

You and Gunner might want to touch base with reality once in a while. What either of you could racall from "the 1720's" would make you wealthy - if you could actually do so.

Is your idiotic and pedantic postulating. Actually, it isn't interesting. It's just pathetic, laughable or both.

Depends on your definition of "promise". It has zero promise of performing with anything close to the engineering economics of oil, gas, coal, or nuclear. Which is to say that it is an engineering rathole. Only pursued for political reasons, not for sound engineering, which is about performance with economy. Only made to work to prove it can work at all, even though it works poorer than Mr Watt achieved. That's why Al Gore, you, or anybody else who soapboxes about technical details (in foolish errors like Gore or presumably correctly like you) is misguided. The issues and problems aren't fundamentally technical, they're political.

Free men in a free country would not generally choose geothermal energy, just like they would not build windmills or solar facilities, other than as experiments. It is only done because of government force applied by liberals. This is not bigotry, it is simply the way the world works today.

There is simply no way to compete with the efficiency of a pure hydrocarbon fuel that pumps itself out of the ground in Saudi Arabia, and basically needs a big faucet to be harnessed and a barge to be delivered. Geothermal only competes when the state forces it.

I agree with you, if one adopts the liberal mind, that all these alternatives make perfect sense.

Possibly..but its more likely they hit a "dome" and it simply built up pressure as it frac'd the zone, moving water out to the sides of the dome. Keep in mind that they were injecting a big Bubble of steam..and when the pressure went away..the surrounding formation tried to return to normal staisis and "all the air came out"... pushing any liquid that was near the perforated portion of the well bottom, into the well and up the annulus.

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Thanks for the reference.

In reading it, it appears that significant seismic activity occurred in one case, and was anticipated at a second - the Basle site - and appears to be dependent, at least to some extent on the structure being stimulated.

Of course it is early days yet but it does look as though these cases will be possible to model accurately as more data is accumulated.

At this stage, at least based on the information contained in the study, it appears that induced seismic events are not a reason to ignore this source of energy.

It certainly seems that, at this time, it presents probably the best long term energy source available.

( after reading what I wrote I see that it is riddled with ambiguous words - probably, it appears, etc. Perhaps I can find a second career writing Government Reports :-)

Cheers,

John B. (johnbslocomatgmaildotcom)

I appreciate your passing that on. It saves me from reading it -- at least for this weekend.

But what you've concluded is exactly in line with what I've read from other, less-systematic sources, and it's exactly what my take is on it, without studying it very systematically myself.

I don't often get enthusiastic about alternative energy sources. I have a calculator. Even if the percentage of national electrical production from geothermal never turns out to be more than 10% or so overall, it will be concentrated enough in the West that it can be very significant to a substantial part of our population. And, being a steady, 24-hour-a-day source, it should ease some of the levelling problems encountered with wind and solar, simplifying the grids and making higher percentages of their use -- that of the unsteady producers -- more practical.

None of this diminishes my enthusiasm for nuclear power but I'm in favor of having multiple sources. And geothermal can be implemented a lot faster than nuclear, at vastly lower costs, if everything works out as hoped.

You should try medical editing. There's a whole formal structure of weasel words, which you have to know by heart. d8-)

You are talking shallow well geology now. Domes and anticlines.

The EGS wells are drilled deep into cellar rock. They were injecting liquid, probably water with some additives, at some pretty high pressure, probably high enough that it remains a liquid in the ~200 degrees C. bottom hole temperature.

Cheers,

John B. (johnbslocomatgmaildotcom)

And you're perfectly happy with breathing the crap those hydrocarbons put in the air? Why not ask the Chinese how they enjoy breathing the result of using the cheapest energy source? Remember the weeks before the Olympics when they shut down manufacturing plants just so the air would be breathable?

Point is, there's more to this than just dollars.