Hot Rocks

Geothermal energy from hot rocks underground. Detailed look at the Geysers geothermal power plant in Northern California and it history and output. Use of such installations for district heating such as in Reykjavik Iceland.

[novantha]

As I understand it the soviets dug the deepest hole in the world, but there was a problem: It was 200+ degrees and their equipment couldn't handle it. Is there a reason we can't just dig to a point like that, where we're likely never to surpass the heat from the mantle, and use that as a very long term source of power? Granted, it's kind of an expensive project to get probably a quite small payoff, and the hole might not be stable, but it seems to me that'd be quite a long term investment if handled correctly. Even a milllion dollars for ten watts of power would be worth it over an extremely long period of time, I feel.

[jacklynch]

If everything was explained like this, then energy conversations would not be political and divided.