Al Gore on Conan

Steve Ackman · 2009-11-13T07:25:41+00:00

OwlGore's doing the talk show circuits to shill hislatest book. During his interview with Conan, less thanan hour ago, these exact words came straight from the horse's ass^H^H^H mouth: Two kilometers or so down in most places, there are these incredibly hot rocks because the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees, and the crust of the earth is hot and if you go down far enough you can get so much heat it can be used to generate steam and make electricity, and they say that here in the United States we have a 35,000 year supply of energy just from geothermal and they've figured out how to do the drilling with the new drill bits that don't melt in that heat in order to get access to that elec... source of electricity. Several MILLION degrees!!! He may not have inventedthe internet, but surely he's invented a new temperaturescale. (A quick google finds estimates for the earth's core ranging from 5000K to 7000K, or ~8500F to 12,000F.) What new drilling method and bit material have beendeveloped that the bits don't melt "in that heat?"

Nov 13, 2009 64 Replies

Rate this thread:

Richard the Dreaded Libertaria 16 years ago

Almost as much as I spend reading the Bible and other religious tracts. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Vote

Ed Huntress 16 years ago

Well, it's a good thing you spend your time studying climatology then, or we'd think that maybe you were talking through your hat. d8-)

Vote

dcaster 16 years ago

The NYT's article today says that the Basel project has been permanently shut down because a study shows that millions of dollars of damage were likely from earthquakes generated by the project.

The US Energy Department is preparing a review of a similar project north of San Francisco.

Dan

Vote

dcaster 16 years ago

=A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0Dan

And todays NYT's says the AltaRock ( North of San Francisco ) Project has also been canceled. Part of the reasons seems to be that the advances in drilling technology were more hype than real.

Dan

Vote