Deep drilling. A form of renewable geothermal energy
Petroleum, coal, oil and charcoal are all sources of energy which will deplete one day or the other in the future. This is the reason there is a continuous and constant search for new and different forms of renewable energy. And in connection with this, researchers from UC Davis, Stanford University, UC Riverside and the University of Oregan have found a renewable energy in deep drilling.
With the Iceland Deep Drilling Project, these researchers intend to sink a deep borehole in places where deep and hot rock is circulated by seawater. The reason they intend to do this is that these sites on land, usually have fresh water circulating them with different chemistry.
In other words, it can be said that this is a dry land version of a deep sea hydrothermal vent which provides researchers with an opportunity at looking at rocks and fluid together in situ. The specialty of the deep ocean hydrothermal vents is that they all support unique communities of living beings.
This may not seem that special; it’s the fact that unlike other ecosystems found on earth, the communities here don’t draw any energy from the sun.
In addition to this, the vents also generate unusual and usually valuable deposits of copper, zinc and other minerals. The researchers claim that it is technically difficult to drill into rocks placed under pressure, and in corrosive fluids at 450 degrees Celsius.
However this is easier when compared to drilling below the sea floor, in the deepest parts of the ocean.
Not only are the researchers concentrating on drilling these stones, they also intend to understand more about the process of transference of heat with the reaction of water with hot volcanic rocks.
They also aim at finding out how the chemistry of fluids circulating at depth tend to change as they don’t have much information or knowledge about all this.
The U.S. government agencies and Icelandic power industry and government both support the Iceland Deep Drilling Project.
This project aims at drilling deep boreholes so that they learn more about the different processes that take place in deep, hot rocks so that the energy that is liberated here is much more than the energy that is liberated from a single geothermal well.
At present, more than half of Iceland’s electrical power and its need for space heating and hot water from geothermal energy. Geothermal heating is used in a community level in Iceland where hot water is pumped up from the station and circulated around a neighborhood or town. In addition to this, this hot water and steam from boreholes is used for running turbines for the sake of producing electricity and for heating homes and businesses.
The rest of the electricity needs of Iceland is met by hydroelectric power while fossil fuels are imported only for transportation needs. Now this bid of drilling these vents are scheduled to start in the summer of 2008 as an alternative and renewable source of energy.
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Think Solar Energy
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Question: question 12 in “Thinking Physics” – page 259
Inside a warm damp cave completely sealed off from the outside world could life flourish indefinitely?
Answer: No life forms could flourish indefinitely. In an isolated system, entropy always increases. Life tries to push entropy in the opposite direction. When life is created, entropy decreases in the cave but nature demands a greater entropy increase offset. The cave, being sealed, would mean that entropy would reach its max, thus energy necessary to sustain and generate new life would be unavailable. Maybe we should learn a lesson from this. Available energy is mandatory. Wealth may equate to available energy. If you want to live in a nation that is prospering make sure that its available energy supply is abundant.
Entropy ie one of “Physics Foibles”