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Could Earth's Heat Solve Our Energy Problems?

May 31, 2021
This real engineering episode is brought to you by a brilliant problem-solving website that teaches you how to think like an engineer. One of the biggest challenges facing humanity today is our quest to transition to renewable

energy

. Overhauling our entire electrical network requires drastic changes to be made. In the way we produce, transport and store electricity, we have explored in previous videos that with the cost of solar and wind power falling we are starting to reach a point of grid imbalance where places like California are wasting huge amounts of

energy

in the summer. months when solar energy is at its peak and does not produce enough in winter to address this problem.
could earth s heat solve our energy problems
California is now installing gigantic battery storage facilities in places like Moss Landing to store that excess for later use, but the amount of battery storage they will need as our percentage increase in renewables will cost the state billions. , if not billions. We

could

dramatically decrease this dependence on batteries if we

could

find a good, stable energy source that doesn't harm our planet. Some want to turn to nuclear energy, but what if I told them? This solution may be directly beneath our feet. Imagine an ancient energy source hidden deep within every square meter of our planet's surface.
could earth s heat solve our energy problems

More Interesting Facts About,

could earth s heat solve our energy problems...

It is clean, flexible, virtually unlimited, completely renewable, never shuts down, and virtually carbon-free. Geothermal energy is produced by the inherent

heat

of the Earth, the center of the

earth

is as hot as the surface of the sun through convection, that

heat

warms the outer layers of the planet, but where does that heat come from? Much of it comes from gravitational forces when the planet first formed four billion years ago. Friction as denser elements make their way to Earth's core, Earth's other source of internal heat occurs in the upper mantle and crust, where the decay of radioactive isotopes such as potassium-40 creates energy. and, in turn, heat, if we could find a way to profitably access that heat our energy

problems

would be

solve

d in the year that the rocks surface in some easily accessible places at temperatures of 700 degrees or more they partially melt becoming magma causing a variety of geothermal phenomena if magma flowing underground is heated by gases or water it can create bubbling hot springs and geysers underwater hot vents and natural steam vents these features can provide water over 200 degrees, more than enough to run a steam turbine geothermal hot spots like this are found near tectonic plate boundaries like Iceland in active volcanic Li areas like Turkey or in some places where the Earth's crust is thin like Yellowstone National Park in In the United States, these places provide low hanging fruit for harvesting the Earth's heat for our energy needs.
could earth s heat solve our energy problems
Every year enough heat flows to the planet's surface to meet our needs. Total global energy consumption doubles and the geothermal reservoir is unlimited heat within 10 kilometers of the Earth's surface contains approximately 50,000 times more energy than all fossil fuel resources worldwide. Yes, geothermal energy represents less than 1% of global installed electrical capacity. This is not even a technological question of the global geothermal energy potential using commercially available technology, only 7% has been harnessed, so in the fight to transform our global energy system, why have we not adopted this energy source? seriously? Our low-hanging fruit that is not being used to its full potential Natural hydrothermal reservoirs feature hot water that seeps near the surface through porous or cracked layers of rock.
could earth s heat solve our energy problems
This is the easiest way to harvest geothermal energy and can be harnessed in several ways. We've been doing it for centuries Human societies have used the heat of low-temperature geothermal energy for millennia, among the most famous examples are the hot springs of Bath, England, established by Roman engineers in the year 60. Here it seeps 1 million liters of water to Bath city center every day at a temperature of approximately 45 degrees heating recreational baths and heating some buildings this hot water is replenished as rain falling on the nearby hills filters into through porous limestone deep underground where it heats up and rises back to the surface, but it is convenient Places like this where the right combination of a water cycle with underground porous rocks and a heat source close enough to the surface to heat it are rare and those that can provide water with enough heat and pressure to run a steam turbine are even rarer in this particular.
The source is not suitable since 45 degrees is very far from the lowest temperature that we can use. There are three basic types of geothermal power generators. All three share the same basic idea: taking hot water or steam from a geothermal reservoir and passing it through a steam turbine where energy is lost and condensed before being pumped back underground to keep the cycle going. Dry steam generators take steam directly from the source to drive the turbine. A flash steam power plant takes extremely hot water at a pressure greater than 100 degrees and expands it rapidly to reduce its boiling point. aim and convert it into steam to run the steam turbine.
Both require higher temperature sources that are rare but relatively common in geothermally active regions such as Iceland, Italy, Austria and around the Pacific Ring of Fire, and in these places geothermal energy is common and expected. It will grow up to 28% in the next four years and Southeast Asian countries are expected to experience the highest growth, such as Indonesia and the Philippines, but we want to exploit geothermal energy outside of these regions, no matter how much energy we extract, we cannot. transport it just before energy losses due to resistance in the cables exhaust it the third type of generator provides the greatest potential for expanding geothermal energy since it can utilize the lowest temperature sources this system is called a binary cycle system in a binary cycle power plant Warm water from a geothermal source passes through a heat exchanger where, as heat with a closed loop containing a low boiling point fluid such as pentane, which has a Boiling at 36 degrees, the lower boiling point allows it to transition to gas at a much faster rate. lower temperature allowing you to run a turbine at a lower temperature, this system has allowed countries like Germany, which lacks shallow geothermal resources, to grow their geothermal energy market in recent years, where temperatures are used as low as 100 degrees Celsius, that number is important because the higher the temperature, the deeper we have to drill.
Different areas have different geothermal gradients, which is a measure of how quickly temperatures rise as we go deeper. This map shows a rough estimate of the geothermal gradient in the US, with the highest gradients found in Oregon. and Idaho reaching temperatures of up to 70 degrees per kilometer, this is important as to access this heat in areas where it does not naturally come to the surface in an accessible way, we must drill and the more we need to drill, the more expensive. Typically, only We have used geothermal resources where the natural permeability of rocks allows a convective heat cycle, but a new technology called enhanced geothermal systems or EGS may open the door to geothermal energy in more regions.
This is how it works, the first step. is drilling an injection well into a hot rock formation, then engineers inject pressurized fluid to form cracks or enlarge existing ones. This increases the area over which heat exchange with the rocks can occur to increase this area even further. It is a non-toxic and degradable system. The material is pumped down to fill these cracks and allow the pressure to form new cracks as we drill further down, once we have opened an adequate number of conduits for water to fill we can drill additional holes that can act as an outlet for our hot water.
As we pump more underground, a 2006 MIT report found that EGS could provide electricity at a cost as low as three point nine cents per kilowatt-hour, about the equivalent of a coal-fired power plant. The United States government claims it is that new geothermal energy. The plants could produce 60 gigawatts of electrical power on US soil by 2050, primarily through EGS systems. Now I know what you're thinking. This is very similar to the controversial practice of fracking, but it does not use toxic fluid that can leach into our water cycle. It uses water and some safe additives, but it's not all simple for this to work, we need to create large volumes of fractures and cracks and this can have some disastrous consequences in 2017.
Drilling at a proposed EGS site in Pohang, Korea is believed to be from the south. have caused a 5.4 magnitude

earth

quake that injured 135 people. A previous incident occurred at an EGS plant in Basel, Switzerland in 2006, when drilling may have caused the magnitude 3.4 earthquake and several buildings were damaged. Both projects were canceled as a result, bureaucracy is a major obstacle to geothermal energy in the United States, for example, there is less environmental paperwork and fewer approvals required to drill for oil than to drill a geothermal well. Tax credits for wind and solar energy projects are 30 percent, while the tax credit for geothermal energy is only 10 percent.
In addition to everything, this drilling is very expensive and, as we have seen, does not guarantee the success of a geothermal plant. You could waste months of your time digging a two-kilometer hole in the ground, and the productivity of the hole could be too small to achieve the goal. worthwhile project this makes it difficult to find investors willing to put their money on it it simply makes more sense to invest in solar and wind energy despite the challenges there are real hopes of expanding geothermal energy the industry can take advantage of recent improvements in drilling technology engineers are developing new types of drills for geothermal wells and better techniques for cementing wells drilled in hot rock the earthquake risk is real but engineers have protocols for monitoring with seismometers to ensure that seismic risk can be assessed early in the case of the Bassel accident The EGS facility was located on a seismic fault due to the proximity of hot rocks to the surface once the tremor began the fluid injection was stopped immediately until now geothermal projects have not attracted a strong Strong opposition suggests that relaxing permitting rules for this technology may not be as challenging as commercial interest in this clean energy source.
The strength of political support should continue, especially if some smart politician realizes that it may be a call for mobilization to get out of work. Back to work, sometimes the fight to convert the global energy system to renewables can seem out of reach and hopeless, but in the case of geothermal energy there is an interesting source of electricity and heat that could power our future and it is right under our feet, as I believe. As said at the beginning of the video, much of the energy present within the Earth is formed as a result of gravitational forces.
You can learn everything gravity is capable of by taking this brilliant course. This course will take you from the basics of what gravity is. and develop your knowledge to the point where you can apply Kepler's laws of planetary motion and understand orbital mechanics, such as using the slingshot effect where spacecraft use a planet's gravity to increase their speed. It is a fascinating course that I cannot recommend enough. You could complete one of the daily brain challenges, each bright day presents you with interesting scientific and mathematical

problems

to test your brain, each daily challenge gives you the context and framework you will need to approach it so you can learn the concepts by applying them if you like. like the problem and want to learn more there is a course quiz that explores the same concept in more detail if you are confused and needMore Guidance There is a community of thousands of students who discuss problems and write solutions The Daily Challenges are thought-provoking challenges that will take you from curiosity to mastery one day at a time.
If I have inspired you and you want to educate yourself then go to the brilliant Ford Slash Real Engineering organization and sign up for free and the first 500 people to hit that link get 20% off the annual premium subscription so you can get full access to all of your courses as well as the entire daily challenge archive, as always, thanks for watching and thanks to all my patreon followers if you want to see more from me. Links to my Instagram Twitter subreddit and Discord server are below.

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