Alternative Energy / Geothermal Energy

• Geothermal Energy: More Exciting than Media Thinks

  Geothermal energy is hands down THE best renewable energy avenue out there: The Earth is always generating heat, and there won’t be any “peak heat”, nor could we ever extract this energy at the same pace with which the Earth generates it. The process has a carbon footprint that is negligible compared to other fossil fuel and renewable energy processes. Yet geothermal power gets decidedly little press.  The idea of geothermal power has been around for ages: Italy built the world’s first power plant that generated electricity from the Earth’s heat over a hundred years ago. In 1957, New Zealand…

• France In Tight Spot over Geothermal ‘Fracking’

  France finds itself in an interesting conundrum that the oil industry is hoping to take advantage of: The country has banned fracking but is now planning to tap into geothermal energy which requires a process similar to fracking. In 2011, France banned shale fracking. In February, France’s Environment Ministry awarded two exploration licenses for geothermal energy, which involves drilling deep into the Earth’s crust. The media has described the oil industry as up in arms over France’s geothermal plans. It’s not fair. Fracking is, after all, fracking. But more to the point, the oil industry likely sees an opportunity here…

• U.S. Game Changing Renewable - Geothermal Power

  The biggest weakness of renewable power advocates is the fact that the sun doesn’t always shine, nor the wind blow.Geothermal power, which does not suffer from down time, is slowly gaining ground in the United States.According to the U.S. government’s Energy Information Administration, “Geothermal is one of the main renewable energy sources used to generate U.S. electricity, even though its growth has not been as strong as wind and solar over the last three years during a big push to increase generation from renewables. Geothermal energy's greatest growth potential is in the western states.”According to the EIA, in the period…

• Will Japan Embrace Geothermal Power to Move Away from Nuclear?

  Despite the recent victory of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, which is pro-nuclear and won a nationwide parliamentary vote on 16 December, issues surrounding the country’s nuclear energy policies will not go away.In the aftermath of the 11 March 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis, the then ruling Japanese government Democratic Party of Japan took the country's 54 nuclear reactors offline and subsequently restarted two reactors at the Oi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture.An additional element for broadening the country’s energy options has now come from a country half a world away – Iceland.During a 5 December speech at the United…

• Geothermal Energy Could Provide 20% of the UK's Electricity Needs

  A recent study by the engineering industry consultants Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) has concluded that by spending just £11 million a year to raise geothermal energy subsidies the UK could help to develop an industry that has the potential to supply 20 percent of its electricity needs. They found that geothermal sources could provide 9.5GW of electricity and over 100GW of heat.Water can be pumped into boreholes deep underground where the Earth’s natural heat warms the water and converts it into steam. The steam then returns to the surface where it can used as a direct source of heat, or…

• New Drill Bits to Make Geothermal Cheaper

  About 30 years ago Sandia Labs developed polycrystalline diamond compact (PDC) bits for geothermal drilling.  Today nearly two-thirds of the oil we use comes from wells drilled using the (PDC) bits.  That’s technology gone astray, valuable – and still missing the original point.  Now Sandia and the U.S. Navy recently brought the technology back full circle, showing how geothermal drillers might use the original PDC technology with added decades of improvements by the oil and gas industry. Polycrystalline diamond compact cutters on the cutting faces of bits allow more aggressive drilling than bits traditionally used for geothermal drilling. PDCs are…

• Rwanda Seeks $1 Billion Geothermal Energy Investment

  Among African nations, foreign observers can only cheer on Rwanda’s progress as it recovers from Africa’s most brutal civil conflict after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DROC). A vicious civil war erupted in 1990, led by the Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic front (RPF), which led in turn to a murderous genocidal 1994 conflict, in which Hutu extremists killed an estimated 500,000 to one million Tutsi and moderate Hutus before the RPF ended the killings with a military victory. Now, time to recover, and one of the population’s pressing needs is reliable energy. And there seems to be good news on the…

• Geothermal's Potential as a Serious Energy Source

  The Earth started its existence as a red-hot rock, and has been cooling ever since. It’s still quite toasty in the core, and will remain so for billions of years, yet. Cooling implies a flow of heat, and where heat flows, the possibility exists of capturing useful energy. Geysers and volcanoes are obvious manifestations of geothermal energy, but what role can it play toward satisfying our current global demand? Following the recent theme of Do the Math, we will put geothermal in one of three boxes labeled abundant, potent, or niche (puny). Have any guesses? The Physics of Heat Thermal…

• Kenya to Investigate Potential of Geothermal Power

  Kenya, plagued by electricity shortages like many of its East African neighbors, has awarded Japan’s Toyota Tsusho Corp. and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering Co. contracts to build $420 million in new geothermal plants. The contracts for the Olkaria I and Olkaria IV geothermal power plants represent Kenya's largest ever geothermal plant project and are Toshiba's first African contracts for supplying geothermal power equipment. The contracts further strengthen Japan's role in developing Kenya's geothermal power generation capacity. Toshiba was selected by Hyundai Engineering to supply the turbines and generators for the project. The two Asian nations will build a new 140…

• Indonesia’s Geothermal Potential Being Hamstrung by Regional Politics

  Indonesia has the potential to become the world's biggest geothermal energy leader, so long as investment is pursued. Indonesia's geothermal energy is literally bursting from the ground, with the world's highest number of volcanic hot spots. Unfortunately, Southeast Asian politics and a lack of foreign investment is bogging down the great potential of the country's clean energy market. With plans to add as much as 9,000 MW of installed capacity by 2025, the industry will need to attract investors. "The tenders are out there, they just need the investors to come in," says Paul Brophy, president and chief executive of…