Oil barons really know how to dig holes in the ground. And they need a better place to put their money than trying to confuse the public about how serious global fever has become. I think they are missing a old-fashioned business opportunity, and a giant one at that.
Drilling wells is exactly what deep geothermal energy is all about: drill down 5 km, pressure-fracture the rock down there, then drill another well into the fracture zone.
At that, they are the experts. The other use of this technique, invented at Los Alamos in 1972, is what the oil barons ought to be embracing: Aim for a deep rock layer (say, granite) that is dry but hot. Push water down one well, harvest the steam up the other. Then run an old-fashioned steam turbine to generate electricity for the plug-in hybrids.
Works anywhere on earth, though some places will require fewer or shallower wells. Hot Fractured Rock goes under various names such as heat mining; it's nothing like the traditional geothermal plants situated at hot springs.
How extensive a resource is deep geothermal? For the U.S., the experts said it could yield a thousand times more than our present overall energy use. How polluting? Close to zero.
Geothermal energy from EGS (enhanced geothermal systems = Hot Rock Energy with engineered fracturing) represents a large,indigenous resource that can provide base‐load electric power andheat at a level that can have a major impact on the United States,while incurring minimal environmental impacts. With areasonable investment in R&D, EGS could provide 100 GWe ormore of cost‐competitive generating capacity in the next fiftyyears. Further, EGS provides a secure source of power for the longterm that would help protect America against economicinstabilities resulting from fuel price fluctuations or supplydisruptions. Most of the key technical requirements to make EGSwork economically over a wide area of the country are in effect,with remaining goals easily within reach.
—The MIT panel’s 2006 report, entitled "The Future of Geothermal Energy: Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century."
(See chapter 19in my GLOBAL FEVER: How to Treat Climate Change for more.)]
So as the oil barons start to see themselves as in the energy business instead of the petroleum biz, one would think that expanding deep geothermal would be a logical direction for their capital. After all, it’s their deep drilling and stimulation technology that is making heat mining possible.
It's perfect for the Oil Barons. They see themselves in the business of drilling wells and fueling cars. And that's exactly the business they would still be in, except for mining heat to make the electricity that fuels the plug-in hybrid cars and trucks.
But there's a big difference. No pollution. And no additions to the insulating blanket of CO2 that is destroying our climate. The ex-oil energy company could become as clean as hydro and nuclear.
http://global-fever.org/...