Here’s an energy source you probably haven’t thought about: volcanoes. “Ormat Technologies (ORA) has tapped into the Pacaya volcano in Guatemala,” reports Stockerblog (citing a Reuters article). “The country’s goal is to have 60 percent of its energy generated from volcanoes, along with hydro power. Guatemala isn’t the only country tapping into this source of power. There are plenty of other Central American countries jumping on the bandwagon, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.” Volcanoes may also be useful on the global-warming front too. [%comments]
Harnessing the Volcano
TAGS: energy, SuperFreakonomics
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A comic book had this in the 1960s! A huge cap over an active volcano. The book was from DC, knowing me probably something with Superman.
@5, 6:
Yes, and they struggled long and hard to make it work. Jeeeze.
ps: Occasionally somebody decides to tap lightning as power source. Power volcanoes are heading in the lightning direction.
By the way…here’s a lightning-power volcano at work:
(Google) lightning volcano .
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somewhat risky, i think. These places with volcanos also are earthquake prone. Switzerland looked into doing geothermal once, but halted a new plant because the number of temblors dramatically increased. Same thing happened with a plant that was being built near the San Andreas fault; I think the plans on that one went ahead. We’ll find out whether there are problems when CA slides into the ocean, or the Mississippi runs backwards again, I guess.
Re #10: “@5, 6:
Yes, and they struggled long and hard to make it work. Jeeeze.”
Maybe so, just as e.g. the Wright Brothers struggled long & hard to get their plane off the ground. But these days, if you want to fly somewhere, you just buy a ticket, and if you want a geothermal plant (and have the resource), you just call Ormat or one of the other companies that build them. Jeeeze yourself
@12 …(>$%^&$@&*&^…!)
My point was that the engineering work on harnessing geothermal energy from volcanoes has not been done.
The geothermal peeps struggled for decades to make it work. Steam from geothermal areas is often poisonous and corrosive and ate the equipment. Hot spots often don’t stay hot. There are dry spots and wet spots and faults. . Sometimes (In CA) they pump treated municipal sewage water to get good steam to the top. There are only a limited number of places where the energy reserve is shallow and the heat flow is high (…cheap).
BTW a new survey says there is a bonanza of geothermal energy in WVA and other Appalachian Mountain areas.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m super in favor of geothermal energy power plants. But volcanoes are a different beast, and I’d bet against the plan to use them.