Self Sufficient Energy Pods

There are hundreds of well bore holes going down over 10,000 feet which could generate geothermal electricity to power biodiesel production facilities, and windmills could supplement the power needs for these biodiesel production facilities, "Self Sufficient Energy Pods," the scrub cedar of central Texas, which grows like weeds, could become a biodiesel cash crop for the ranchers, and we would put all that good geothermal and wind power potential to good use, to produce ethanol to run our machines.

As Kinky Friedman says, "why the hell not?"

 

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It takes a helluva powerful pump to push water throught 10,000 feet of pipe!

And do you know about heat loss when the steam comes up through 10,000 feet of pipe in the ground?

We tried using a similar system for heating apartment building in Arkansas once and it failed miserably for a number of reasons ...the main one of which was the cost of the installation. But another one was that would have been cheaper to used gas-fired boilers and a hot-water heating system.

As long as gas/oil-fired heating systems are as cheap as they are, nothing that I've ever heard of is going to take their place.

Baron Max

 

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Generate the electricity at the bottom of the hole, then transmit it up, no water circulation needed.

And windmills to help power the SSEP's makes sense too.

 

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Do you have even the foggiest idea of the size of steam generator that would be required? ....and the size of the hole that would have to be drilled/dug 10,000 feet into the Earth?????

Do you know how ugly those windmills are? Do you know how many birds are killed by windmills each year? Do you know how much it costs to make and erect one lousy windmill? Do you know how much it costs to maintain those damned ugly windmills?

Why are you so seemingly against the best, cheapest, easiest, most reliable source of electricity ......nuclear power plants?

Baron Max

 

How much does it cost to construct nuclear power plants?

 

Are nuclear power plants quite safe? What happens to them if there's an earthquake?

I think a down-hole geothermal generator, long and the width of the borehole, could be engineered, good project, and I agree the windmills are an eyesore, but out on the flatlands, they would look little different than a bunch of water-well windmills.

 

I'm no expert, but I think there has been a lot of propaganda about the problems of nuclear power.

I think we should be looking into making a lot of pebble bed reactors

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From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor#Criticisms_of_the_reactor_design

The biggest detractor for nuclear power, imo, is the hazardous waste it creates. AFAIK there is no solution but to stuff it somewhere and if you're unlucky it can get loose. Even without the cases of accidents with the waste, it doesn't feel like a good long term plan to keep burying this stuff.

 

Kinky Friedman usually has good ideas. I don't see anything wrong with this idea. I wonder how practical it is, but it's a good idea. I think solar however will in the end be what we end up using. Solar and Ethanol.

 

Actually it's my idea, but Kinky was talking about trying to implement it, however, he didn't bring it up in the campaign.

 

I think they take tiny things like the possibility of an earthquake into account when building nuclear power plants. I'd assume (I seriously hope) they don't build them anywhere near fault lines.

I couldn't remember the figure (which is fairly bad considering I have an exam tomorrow AM), but this is in feet and fahrenheit, so even better.

10,000/60= 166~ deg Fahrenheit/ 74~ deg Celsius.

That isn't very hot really. Wouldn't it be cheaper to use heat on the surface of the Earth, in deserts and the like? You'd use a lot less cable and servicing would be a lot easier.

 

That doesn't really sound right. I guess I got some dodgy figures. What have you come up with?

 

In some areas, like under northeast Texas, the Texas Gulf Coast, and around Crawford, there are plutons below which put well-hole temps at between 300 and 500 F.

Perhaps it would be best suited to Texas and to some other Gulf Coast states, as we have the well-bore holes, the shallow geothermal power, and wind. California, I think, could be another candidate, and perhaps Arkansas.

 

Why don't you do some more indepth study of this, then come back and tell us? I mean, all we're all doing is nothing but foolish, silly, wasteful speculation without any damned evidence or data or figures or even guess-timates!

Is that what this thread is all about ......just each person speculating on something of which they know almost nothing???

Baron Max

 

Whatever you say B.M.

 

Well, isn't that exactly what this is? ...and exercise in speculation about something of which most of us know little or nothing???

Baron Max

 

Most of what's discussed at this board is stuff about which many of us know little or nothing, and who knows, maybe an expert is reading in and will comment soon, just chill out Baron.

 

Given even 500 degrees F, simple Carnot efficiency calculation will tell you the best you can do is about 45% efficiency. That is MAXIMUM allowable efficiency of any generator. Most likely you would do much less. This also assumes no losses anywhere else.

 

Thanks for that AntonK, how much down-hole electricity at 45% could be generated from, say, a three foot wide bore hole?

 

Conversations like these make me more and more anxious for the development of a fusion power plant, even though it's supposed to be at least a couple decades before such a plant is operational.

 

The first kind of nuclear waste produced by a reactor can be reprocessed into more nuclear fuel, and after the reprocessed fuel is used it comes out as a much shorter lived waste product. So, you can either store the original waste for thousands of years, or you can reprocess it for more fuel and then only have to store the waste for a hundred years.