Talk:Geothermal energy/Archive 1

Vandalism?
Someone seems to have entered more vandalism--Lebanese warrior? on the page. Pbfiddler

Pbfiddler 11:49, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Would not it be just common courtesy to discuss the objections to an edit instead of just removing it, possibly without understanding why an addition is warranted?

Binary economics or interest-free loans is not original research. Both issues are covered in many published works fully referenced in the main article on binary economics.

Janosabel 21:26, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

nuclear energy
Shouldn't nuclear energy be omitted in the "Notes" Part? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy#Nuclear_power

nuclear energy is close. Fairymeimei 12:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Apology
Although I did not commit the vandalism, I apologise for my fellow users of this IP--169.244.70.146 18:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism
This seems to be a majorly vandalized article. Any idea why?--Shark Fin 101 21:58, 23 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Removed the vandalism. No idea why some people feel the need to do this.  Just today I've had to clean up two articles that contained similar types of crap.  Phrique 15:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

"crap" is not a suitable word to say on a site like this! If you are going to use such profaine language you must put a warning above it! I should hope that tou will apologize for your actions! User:chipmunk15 5:16 June 17 2006 (CAST)


 * Wow, I sincerely hope you're joking. I cleaned up a bunch of articles and I used the word "crap" in a single line and someone feels the need to respond about it?  If you're offended by such a silly word you need to get out more.  You'll get no apology for me for using it.  Phrique 19:02, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

PLEASE VANDALIZE NOT OUR SITE !

Some more rudeness has entered the page. Can someone fix it?--Markparker 14:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Get your vocabulary and spelling right. "Crap" isn't a profanity. A profanity is a vulgarity. What's so vulgar about it? It's just rude. Furthermore, it's "profane", not "profaine". --218.186.9.3 11:41, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

(From A in Australia): What is crap, shall be called crap - we must get away from softening language that blurs issues.

My observation is that vandalism is undertaken by people who cannot build up anything - they lack the feeling of success and importance from positive contributions so they destroy, getting a false feeling that they have done something. It is quite apparent when you look at the young males driving modified cars that roar and disturb people. That's graffiti for the ears and they feel noticed, marking territory like the doggie who lifts his leg at the lamppost. Vandalism is also territorial marking behaviour.

I looked at this article to find something about our, Australian, geothermal project. It is said to be the largest or maybe hottest, project in the world, could supply the whole of Australia with electricity, and has just been recognised by a federal minister as the only renewable energy source that can provide baseload.

Would be nice, if that could be mentioned in the artice, if it is true.

I just removed the "rudeness" I believe you where talking about. wun.

Use of geothermal in Canadian oil sands
I just thought I'd point out this article: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/180278; I have been unable to find on-line references to the "GeoPower consortium".

The article discusses rising interest in the use of Geothermal power in oil sands extraction. This is of note since current production methods use natural gas. I thought the article might reference this application, but unfortunately vandalism has crept in and made that difficult. Nextrelease 20:53, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

Southampton
Just a suggestion, and I'm no expert on the subject, but the Southampton Geothermal power station might provide an interesting case study for this article. See, etc. Cheers, DWaterson 22:18, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

renewable
"The heat of the earth is so vast that there is no way to remove more than a small fraction even if most of the world's energy needs came from geothermal sources."

I thought that the internal heat of the earth was caused by the crushing force of its gravity and thus inexuastible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.105.99.247 (talk) 10:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC).


 * For the causes, see Geothermal (geology). If heat is extracted faster than it is replaced, then the temperature will reduce at the extraction point until it is too cool to be economic. Gralo 14:20, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

My concern - if a mass scale of geothermal extraction takes hold could the internal convection currents of earth be drained to a point that magnetic flux is halted? I understand this would be very grave for deflecting solar radiation.Greg0658 16:21, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * No - despite the potentially large quantities usable geothermal heat available in terms of human usage, it is still a very tiny fraction of the heat within the earth's core. Gralo 18:40, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi, somebody with specific knowledge of the subject can correct me if I'm wrong, but geothermal energy is basically "catching" the waste heat escaping from the earth's core; since the heat is extracted from at most a few miles depth I don't think it could affect the core/mantle temperature, even if the entire crust could be converted into a giant geothermal system extracting all of the heat as it escapes. As long as the isotopes are still breaking down for below the crust, heat will always be escaping to the crust.--HarryHenryGebel 12:30, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * If you look at the map under Geothermal (geology), you will notice that a flow of heat greater than 1/10 watt/square meter is rare. This is about 1/10,000 of the amount of solar that hits the earth when the sun shines.  It is more like mining the heat than catching the flow, as it will not be renewed on a human timescale. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Pstudier (talk • contribs).


 * Paul, I wasn't trying to suggest that capturing 100% of the heat escaping would be a practical, just that even if you could it wouldn't affect the core or mantle temperature, which was the concern of the question I was responding to. I'm sorry if my poor word choice made my reply unclear. Thanks for the map reference, and all of your energy related contributions, which is one of my favorite subjects.--HarryHenryGebel 03:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Geothermal (Geology) also reminds us that "45 to 85 percent of the heat escaping from the Earth originates from radioactive decay of elements concentrated in the crust." (emphasis added) This is the source of most energy recovered by geothermal energy plants. As for "mining" versus "catching the flow", we "mine" the hydrogen in the Sun, too. Rt3368 00:16, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

The last note that Geothermal power is, without qualification, a renewable resource is inconsistent with earlier statements that it should not be considered a renewable power source in the same way that solar, wind, and hydroelectric are. While I definitely see the merits of geothermal power, I'm inclined to agree that it's not "renewable until the sun explodes" like wind, solar, and hydroelectric.128.2.184.59 21:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Adding some links
I added links to the existing text under "Distribution". I don't know if I did it the best way, though. I added the internal links for "City of Santa Clara" and "Silicon Valley Power" and I think those are okay. The other two links are external, one to Santa Clara's Electric Utility web page and the other to the home page of the Northern California Power Agency, which is a California public agency. I think these two links probably should be referenced through the External Links section instead of in-line, though the way I've added them so far is simpler. If someone agrees that changing them is better, I'll do that.Rt3368 00:36, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Abandoned Oil Wells
I read somewhere that 70% of abandoned oil wells in the United States have a temperature at depth of over 80 Celsius.

Got the wrong Conti
Prince Piero Ginori Conti tested the first geothermal power plant in 1904, at the Larderello dry steam field in Italy. Giovanni Conti was a Republican party Senator. I normally wouldn't mess with science stuff, but someone read this and altered a stub I created on the senator (You got YOUR geothermal energy in MY Italian radical politics... Joke, sorry).T L Miles 06:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Inappropriate template
The template:renewable energy sources has been vandalized to change it to say "Energy development" instead of "Renewable energy" which is what it should say. Nuclear power also needs to be deleted. Very few people think that nuclear power is "renewable energy". Template has been restored and protected for one week.199.125.109.108 07:28, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Iceland's energy production
The article at one point says Iceland gets 26% of its electricity from geothermal power, and later that it gets about 50%....Which one is correct? I suspect the former figure is closer to the truth, since there is a great deal of hydroelectric power generation in Iceland. -- Palthrow 22:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)


 * You're right. According to [|this source], most of the electricity in Iceland is generated by water. However, Iceland uses Geothermal heating for a majority of their heating purposes. That's probably what the 50% figure is referring to.


 * Hmm, the Geothermal heating article is very short, I wonder whether it would be prudent to merge it with this one...


 * I guess for now, this article will be about geothermal electricity generation only. Meanwhile I'll remove that statement about 50% so as to not confuse anyone else. - Tea and crumpets 16:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

0.416%
That's a little too precise, I think... — Omegatron 01:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

German Translation Request
Geothermie is a featured article. I requested a translation. Information from that article could be used to greatly expand this one. If you know German, please help! --Tea and crumpets 04:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Merging
I'm thinking about merging some country-specific articles about geothermal energy into this article, as listed in the "Development around the world" section. Some of those articles are to short to stand on their own. Others, I'm not so sure about. If you have any objections or thoughts, please let me know. - Tea and crumpets 04:44, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Quoted in article
FYI: An article in the Union Leader of Manchester, New Hampshire quotes information from this wiki-article. The Union Leader's article is located here. Zue Jay (talk)  22:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Trying to source quote
This quote:


 * The government of Iceland states: "It should be stressed that the geothermal resource is not strictly renewable in the same sense as the hydro resource." It estimates that Iceland's geothermal energy could provide 1700 MW for over 100 years, compared to the current production of 140 MW.[13]

is being attributed to this source: RESPONSE OF WAIRAKEI GEOTHERMAL RESERVOIR TO 40 YEARS OF PRODUCTION

But I can't locate it in the source document. Could someone else check please and let me know which page the quote is on. Thanks... Johnfos 22:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Hmm, I couldn't find it in that source either, but I did a google search and found the quote at this link. Probably someone messed up with their editing (could have been me) (It wasn't me, it's been there awhile). I'll fix it. -Tea and Crumpets (Talk - contribs) 00:19, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that... Johnfos 06:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Renewable
"Although geothermal sites are capable of providing heat for many decades, eventually specific locations may cool down. It is likely that in these locations, the system was designed too large for the site, since there is only so much energy that can be stored and replenished in a given volume of earth."

Isn't this really a matter of drawing a certain amount of energy from the Earth per unit time, and that energy needing to be replenished from the core? If you draw too much power and the replenishment rate is lower, it cools down. — Omegatron 22:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Earthquakes
doesn't show much inddication of credible opinion of causaulity. All that is provided is a link to an earthquake map that shows lots of earthquakes near a geothermal plant. Correlation does not prove causaulity or the direction of causality, if it exists. But does geothermal water injection cause earthquakes or are earthquake zones prefered sites for geothermal plants (seismic activity is considered benificial for geothermal plants as it cracks the rock). Injecting water might conceivably influence siesmic activity but the effect might be benificial rather than harmful. Assume that earthquakes induced by geothermal activity are due to lubrication of seismic plates and that the energy comes from the motion of the seismic plates not from the steam itself. If we imagine the steam/water lubricating the plates so they can slide freely, the result could be more frequent but less severe earthquakes - which is exactly what you want. Reduce the stored energy in the system and you reduce the potential for catastrophic damage. In the short term, you might stimulate the early release of the "big one" - though that earthquake is inevitable and the severity would be lessened slightly by premature release. Whitis 27 August 2005


 * I did some searching, and, as far as I can tell, the earthquakes are more of a concern with Enhanced Geothermal Systems, because they involve drilling deeper holes in the earth than the other types of plants, sometimes in areas that are not as earthquake-prone as areas that are ideal for other types of geothermal plants. and they also involve injecting water into the earth that wasn't there in the first place. I haven't found anything that says specifically that drilling wells into geothermal reservoirs causes earthquakes, and anyway, as you said, such areas have frequent earthquakes anyway.


 * I will try to edit the article accordingly. - Tea and crumpets 18:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There still is not any mention of earthquakes in the disadantages section. The problem with earthquakes has to do with the amount of water pumped underground (or so says the Discovery Channel). I believe this is relevent with the new geothermal plants in nevada and the quakes in Reno (Discovery has yet to back me up on that one). The whole planet is prone to earthquakes, the importance to the article is that there is a measureable difference when they build a new plant or run heavy loads. Any adverse effect should be included in the text. Thanks. LD 5/20/08 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.104.204.212 (talk) 22:07, 20 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Still needed, as well as subsidence, as of April 2009.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Geothermic Energy - Should there be a total separate page for it
From:  A new renewable energy technology could truly revolutionize the way energy is produced around the world for a fraction of the cost of what we all pay for electricity now. There are zero emissions, zero heat loss to atmosphere, and this energy can last indefinitely into the future with no damage to local or larger ecosystems. It is called "GEOthermic Energy" (as opposed to Geothermal) and it uses the deep crust (lithosphere) heat. As far as I understand it refers to totally different approach of obtaining energy ... YordanGeorgiev (talk) 14:44, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * The project as described in the reference is daft in two ways. Firstly, the technology to produce a hole twelve miles deep is unclear and sounds unlikely (a mining engineer might have stronger words) and secondly, even if the hole is made, the thermal conductivity of rock is low, and the heat content not all that great, so extracting large amounts of energy (2,000 megawatts for years on end?) means contact with a vast volume of rock. This is why proponents of ordinary geothermal systems talk about shattering or fracturing the rock at depth so that the heat-absorbing fluid can contact large areas. In natural geothermal systems, the rock is already fractured and fissured (allowing water circulation) due to volcanic eruptions. And just to be petty, hoisting the rock out of a ten-feet diameter hole from twelve miles down takes rather a lot of energy. NickyMcLean (talk) 20:13, 11 January 2009 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter if the idea is feasible or not; that's not up to us to judge. The issue is Notability. We need to find significant coverage of the idea in reliable sources before we can include it.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

This article needs work
The article mainly contains statistics and does not include very much simply-explained, basic information for the casual reader. The sections aren't arranged very nicely, and it might benefit from some sort of map or diagram. A glance at the layout of the Hydroelectricity article makes me think we should arrange this article in a similar fashion. If anyone wants to assist me in doing this, feel free to do so. --Tea and crumpets 16:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, here's what I think is a better outline for this article:


 * 1) Electricity Generation (How geothermal heat is used to generate electricity)
 * 2) Advantages
 * 3) Disadvantages
 * 4) Comparison with other methods of power generation
 * 5) Potential (including map of geothermal “hot spots”)
 * 6) Power plants (including table listing power plants)
 * 7) History of development
 * 8) (any other interesting information)
 * 9) See also
 * 10) References
 * 11) External links

Got any feedback? --Tea and crumpets 22:11, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I rearranged the page, but it still needs work. No one else seems to care much about this article, so I guess I'm taking the helm. --Tea and crumpets 20:51, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Most of the article seems to be about near surface geothermal systems, but the 'Potential' section is mostly about hot dry rock geothermal energy. Perhaps we could reorganise by technology or by the temperate of the source they exploit. Rod57 (talk) 02:08, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there a link that someone can post here as to why we are not doing this everywhere and all of the time. I am so confused.


 * I've tried to clean up a lot of this confusion with a major rewrite. See what you think.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Dry Steam
What the heck is dry steam?? This needs to be explained in the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shniken1 (talk • contribs) 12:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I didn't know what it was, either. I just figured it meant they used steam as opposed to water. I looked it up, and I was only partially right. I added the explanation to the article. The source I found it at explains it a little more thoroughly. -Tea and crumpets (t c) 05:57, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Dry steam is single phase steam without liquid droplets. Wet stem is a mixture of steam and liquid water. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jochum (talk • contribs) 14:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

what r the 3 types of geothermal energy
Yes if you know the 3 types of geothermal enery u r so lucky because iv been looking and cant find anything so if u know please i need your help.... thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.215.28.181 (talk) 00:51, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Advertising?
One of the sentences in the article seemed a little odd to me for some reason: "Since the activities of one geothermal plant affects those nearby, the consolidation plant ownership at The Geysers has been beneficial because the plants operate cooperatively instead of in their own short-term interest." At the least, it seems like it ought to be either supported or reworded, as its current form doesn't seem to add much to the article and appears very biased in favor of the company owning the majority of the plants. For now, I've put a fact tag on it, but I'm not really sure what, if anything, ought to be done with that text.Ricree101 (talk) 07:03, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Passage removed as of April 2009. (Not by me.)--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

disadvantages
The following sentence from the article is not logical; the previous sentence refers to mercury, arsenic, antimony, etc, while the second half of this sentence refers to carbon emissions. These are not the same.

"However, geothermal plants can be built with emissions-controlling systems that can inject these substances back into the earth, thereby reducing carbon emissions to less than 0.1% of those from fossil fuel power plants."

These ideas need to be separated for clarity. Ngoshn (talk) 18:59, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, whoever supplied the "0.1% of fossil fuel" is correct in saying that all emissions can be re-injected, because obviously, they can. Operators of actual plants do not make such comprehensive boasts. At Wairakei, only some of the waster water is re-injected, and none of the "non-condensing" gases are. Etc. It is not even clear that the comparison is with a fossil fuel plant of equivalent electrical production. Rather loose, then. NickyMcLean (talk) 21:37, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a note saying "citation needed" at the statement that renewability is sometimes questioned. This paper [http://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAstandard/SGW/2002/Rybach.pdf Rybach et. al, 2002] discusses rates of heat recharge and how long it can take some installations to recover after heat extraction. It does not make a direct statement asserting renewability or otherwise, but does bear on the question, so it may be worth including instead of "citation needed." Quixote9 (talk) 23:38, 1 February 2009 (UTC)


 * The article concerns itself with shallow boreholes or near-surface heat reservoirs and is not in the scale of a 50+ megawatt power station. It defines "renewability" as being capable of operating at undiminished output for at least a century or more, because the rate of heat extraction/injection does not strain the capacity of the interacting volume. All fair enough. But it does not attend to large geothermal systems where groundwater is circulating through a large volume (miles in extent) and some is extracted and possibly pumped back, with putative replenishment of heat at some unknown rate from the vast heat source at greater depth. These notions strike me as obvious given the generalised model of the earth's crust, but someone wants a citation of the obvious, and I have yet to chance across such a statement of the obvious, though quantitative figures for an actual example location would be good. NickyMcLean (talk) 20:29, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

"Geothermal and biomass are the only two renewable resources which must be carefully managed in order to avoid local depletion." I know this is sited but should the word "only" really be in here? I would think that stating these two forms of renewable energy need to me monitored is enough. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Thestalkingwolf (talk • contribs) 15:19, 11 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The latest rewrite should provide a more neutral point of view, although this is a complicated topic that could deserve its own article.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

light bulbs
This article states that four light bulbs were originally powered by the Italian geothermal project in 1904. But another Wikipedia article focusing specifically on the region states there were originally five light bulbs. Anyone know which it is? []
 * Depends on the source used. Some say 4, some say 5.--Yannick (talk) 00:31, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Corrosion
The corrosion of the equipment is caused the minerals and salts that is laced with the hot spring water. A leading statement into the disadvantage section is to say that geothermal pratices may not always be truly sustainable. (Jcoleman.39 (talk) 00:00, 6 November 2008 (UTC))

Jay Withgott and Scott Brennan. Essential Environment (The Science Behind the Stories). Copyright 2007. Pages 344-345.


 * Equipment breakdown is not considered in evaluations of sustainability. If it were, then the word would be meaningless, since everything always breaks down eventually.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

(edit semi-protected)
The last sentence under the "Potential" subheading, has the word Favorable spelled wrong.

Austinclark (talk) 15:54, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

- Adding Links:

Can someone add our link to the External Links. We are Geothermal Resources Council located in Sacramento, CA. Our website is www.geothermal.org we would appreciate it if our website get added to your links. We have valuable information and upcoming conferences that are related geothermal power and energy. Thank You.GRCLib (talk) 17:43, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the suggestion, but Wikipedia's purpose is not to include a comprehensive list of external links related to each topic. You may be looking for the Open Directory Project.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Electric vs heat plants and Denmark..
Shouldn't it be better specified whenever its just heating plants or electric power plants for certain countries? And maybe add/change/correct the part about Denmark? Denmark has 2 currently active geothermal plants, and two more planned to be built this year (2009). These are all exclusively for heating homes, not for producing electricity. Additionally they are not self powered and require external power to the pumps, meaning they need electricity elsewhere (primary powered by coal). (90.185.57.189 (talk) 03:16, 25 January 2009 (UTC))
 * Comment moved to Talk:Geothermal power in Denmark--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

emissions free ?
with the geothermal steam we get gases which could be classified as emission. I would rather talk about low emission than emission free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jochum (talk • contribs) 14:39, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed and corrected.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Geothermal energy is not limited to the edges of tectonic plates.
Geothermal energy is not limited to the edges of tectonic plates.

A lot of the heat pumps used for space heating uses heat out of the ground, and could be used widely. The hot rocks in Australia are not near to an edge. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jochum (talk • contribs) 14:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It's hard to talk about both electric production and direct use in the same article without confusing people, but I believe the latest rewrite addresses your concern.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Binary cycle power plant
The article tells that Binary cycle power plant are the most used in geothermal for eletricity.Well, this site: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/powerplants.html claims that Flash steam plants are the most used type of geothermal power generation plants, in operation today.Agre22 (talk) 23:45, 15 March 2009 (UTC)agre22
 * Fixed. Binary are the most common for new construction, but flash are still the most common in existence.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Cool down the earth
Is anyone know whether use of such energy can eventually cool down the earth and whether the earth will become inhabitable ? Photnart (talk) 21:52, 24 March 2009 (UTC).


 * Long before that happened, geothermal stations would be abandoned for not producing any net power.
 * —WWoods (talk) 06:22, 8 April 2009 (UTC)


 * And long before that, the sun will burn out and we will have colonized other star systems. There are 1031 Joules of heat inside the earth, or ten billion times more than the annual global energy consumption, which is a thousand times more than the annual geothermal energy use.--Yannick (talk) 22:19, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

history of development update
Currently the Geysers are owned and operated by 4 companies. In addition to NCPA (Northern California Power Agency) and Calpine there is Bottlerock Power (with 1 power plant) and Western GeoPower (with several wells and plans for a power plant). I am currently working in the geysers geothermal field, but I don't have a registered account at wikipedia and can't edit the geothermal power page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.16.183.175 (talk) 22:00, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Article updated.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Good source to incorporate and cite
I just found a technical paper that gives a really wonderful overview of this whole topic with lots of numbers about current global status: I don't have time to deal with it right away, but there's a lot of useful information here that could be incorporated into this article. So if anyone is looking for something to do... --Yannick (talk) 02:28, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've incorporated some of the key statistics, but there's still lots more information that could be mined out of this one.--Yannick (talk) 16:50, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

how many people use it —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.185.67.176 (talk) 15:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Replace horrendously large OR template at top with Renewable energy sources 199.125.109.81 (talk) 13:20, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Rate of Global Heat Flow
The established rate of Earth's global heat loss within the geophysical community is still 44.2 terawatts, from the compilation by Pollack, H. N., S. J. Hurter, and J. R. Johnson (1993), Heat Flow from the Earth's Interior: Analysis of the Global Data Set, Rev. Geophys., 31(3), 267–280. Please change the value of "40" given here to "44.2" and cite this reference. Thanks, Michael Wysession Professor of Geophysics Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Washington University St. Louis, MO 63130 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mwysession (talk • contribs) 18:54, 30 July 2009

Done Welcome and thanks for improving the accuracy of this article. Celestra (talk) 15:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

Update tag
An "update needed" template has been added to this article as a part of the ongoing peer review. I dispute the need for this tag for reasons explained there.--Yannick (talk) 16:31, 24 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Seeing no further debate, either here, or on the peer review discussion, I am removing the tag. This does not diminish my commitment to update the article when fresh data becomes available, and I encourage other editors to do the same.--Yannick (talk) 01:28, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

References needed
There is several statements in this article that do not cite their references, like: "Worldwide, geothermal plants have the capacity to generate about 10 gigawatts of electricity as of 2007, and in practice supply 0.3% of global electricity demand. An additional 28 gigawatts of direct...." Citation needed —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tauiris (talk • contribs) 22:27, 6 December 2009 (UTC)
 * This quote is taken from the lead section, where footnotes are usually avoided for stylistic reasons. (See LEAD) The information is repeated in the first two sections, and that is where footnotes are given supporting these statistics.--Yannick (talk) 04:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Links
"Binary cycle power plant" could link to the Wikipedia page on the topic.

Gcc1 (talk) 18:08, 2 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The article is semiprotected with a comment of "Excessive vandalism: Did Lebron James mention this?". If you want to request unprotection, go to WP:RFUP or ask Hiberniantears, the protecting admin, directly. If you want to make ather edits, use the editsemiprotected template to get attention. The first occurance of "Binary cycle power plant" was already linked, but I linked the first use under "History" per the exception that they are far apart. Regards, Celestra (talk) 19:30, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Copy-edits
Slight reduction in copy, with more conversions and links. Comments appreciated. Lfstevens (talk) 02:45, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from José Anderson Batista, 15 July 2010
External links

Geothermal Education Office

José Anderson Batista (talk) 18:35, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Not done: Too many external links in article already. Please explain what this link would add to the article. Spigot Map  20:10, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved to Geothermal energy. Beagel (talk) 17:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Geothermal power → — Power usually means electrical power/electricity. This article deals with both:geothermal heating and geothermal electricity. To avoid confusion, geothermal energy seems to be more precise title for this article. In other wikis the articles is named just Geothermal (de; fr) or geothermal energy (es; it; ce; da). Beagel (talk) 17:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Edit request from 75.13.128.177, 8 January 2011
In the section on Resources, please change "(77-86 degF)" to "(45-55 degF)." In this case, you are using the 25-30 degC in a relative sense, and not an absolute sense. This source of confusion is why we always prefer to give absolute temperatures in Kelvin and not Celsius. For example, we define a calorie as the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 mL of water 1 degC. Do we mean that the water always has to be one degree above freezing (1 degC)? Absolutely not; we are using it in a relative sense only. In this case, the 25-30 degC/km is using the temperature in a relative sense, so you find the equivalent rate in Fahrenheit by just multiplying by 1.8. Thanks! Michael Wysession Professor of Geophysics Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences Washington University St. Louis, MO 63130 http://epsc.wustl.edu/seismology/michael/web/index.html

Mwysession (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Done, thanks for the keen observation. Someone used the wrong parameter for automatic conversion to F. Kbrose (talk) 00:13, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Merge of articles
I think the article Geothermal electricity goes well to be merged into this article. Both share the same subject. Regards. Rehman(+) 07:11, 19 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree. Geothermal power is a summary of two major topics, geothermal heating and geothermal electricity, both of which are major summary topics in themselves. This article has to exclude a lot of detail in order to keep the size and complexity manageable. Keeping separate subarticles allows us to include more detail there.--Yannick (talk) 18:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I disagree also. Geothermal heating and geothermal electricity are comparable industries in their size (order magnitude), yet completely different in terms of economic behavior and players, which supports the idea of having two separate subarticles. Also, I frequently find people confused and mixing up the two, so an article explaining the difference and linking to the two sub articles would be a great idea. If there is overlap between geothermal power and geothermal electricity (per Materialscientist's point), all information specific to the electricity should be removed from this article.  GNOJED3891 (talk) 00:29, 27 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Support - both articles share same set of images and many paragraphs are exactly same. For example, "history" of geothermal electricity is already entirely present in geothermal power, word by word. Because of similarity in many parts, this merge won't swell the article that much. Materialscientist (talk) 07:47, 24 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason the two articles are so similar is because I've largely written both, especially the history section. I've focused on this combined power article, and then extracted the portions that were applicable to electricity and copied them there. My intention was then to diverge the electricity and heating article, making them more specific to those subfields. There are already a number of details in the electricity article that I really do not want to merge back into the power article because they are specific to electricity and would obscure the heating part of the industry.--Yannick (talk) 18:07, 3 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Support: No offence, but eventhough each article is about heating and generating, largely it is the same subject, geothermal energy. If it is an extra large article, we could leave it split it up. But these two are small enough to go together... Separate headers within the article will go well. Regards. Rehman(+) 02:08, 5 January 2010 (UTC)
 * No offense taken, I just disagree, and I have some effort invested in splitting them. Note that this article already has separate headers for Electricity and Direct application. This article is currently 36 kB long, versus a guideline of 30-50 kB. I have tried to explain the advantages that I see in keeping the articles split. Could you explain the advantages you see in merging them? So far all I've read above is that it could be done easily and wouldn't do much harm, but what would be the benefits? I would also point out that wind power has an analogous split between wind power, wind turbines and wind mills.--Yannick (talk) 05:04, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

No consensus? So far we have 2 in favour and 2 against, and I think the discussion has been inadequate. I'm willing to discuss this, but you need to present some arguments and participate in consensus building.--Yannick (talk) 13:51, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Support--mostly Vertical Integration Nothing New Edison Heats New York With "Left over" Steam Desalinization is also a utilization of geothermal heating and generation; though, would it go too far to include rendering of fresh water from the ocean? The See Also section provides a compromise for merging of related articles. Sorry, I waffle. The market will determine how disparate the topics are. Thanks for doing the legwork to write the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.50.73.234 (talk) 13:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Intro reads like a sales pitch. Better to keep Wiki references to factual material or references to cited opinions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.19.250.22 (talk) 22:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from Radzimir, 8 July 2011
Hi,

Please see my comment about "Sun as Source" on discussion page.

I'm sure this should be corrected.

Radzimir (talk) 16:50, 8 July 2011 (UTC)
 * My request to have the page unprotected has gone through, I'm not comfortable enough with your edit request to do it on your behalf, as the current version of the article is not entirely wrong, but could better explain the situation. I don't have enough knowledge of the subject to do that justice. So as you are now able to edit the article, I will leave it to you to make the change. Monty  845  01:38, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

October 26, 2011 WSJ resource, focus Indonesia
97.87.29.188 (talk) 23:25, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
 * http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203791904576608384138650542.html A Power Struggle Boils in Indonesia; Foreign Investment in Geothermal Sector Gets Bogged Down; A Nod to the Gods. by ERIC BELLMAN
 * http://online.wsj.com/video/indonesias-underground-power-supply/B2685D0E-D9BF-49DF-A8E7-09D46E294218.html (video) Indonesia's Underground Power Supply; Throughout its jungle-capped mountains, Indonesia is literally bursting with clean, geothermal energy. But many problems are stalling investment. 10/25/2011 5:20:51 PM by Eric Bellman reports from Jakarta.

Source and transport
The introduction contains the sentence:

"Earth's geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet, from radioactive decay of minerals, from volcanic activity, and from solar energy absorbed at the surface."

I think, it would match the facts better to say:

"Earth's geothermal energy originates from the original formation of the planet, from radioactive decay of minerals and from solar energy absorbed at the surface. It is transported by heat conduction and heat transport by volcanic activity meaning transportation of molten lava, hot water and hot gas." Klamser (talk) 21:29, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Sun as Source
The sentence refers to the sun as source of energy. But this surface energy is not used by any geothermal heating applications and should not be called geothermal. It's simply solar energy stored temporary in the surface, useless for any application. What we use is an energy coming from the earth inner layers. This is also stated in next sentence: "...a continuous conduction of thermal energy in the form of heat from the core to the surface." It is true, that energy from the sun is slowing the geothermal energy transfer and in this way conserving it in some way, but it is definitely not the source of energy understood widely as geothermal. That's why I will remove reference to sun as source of geothermal energy. Radzimir (talk) 16:46, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

It is true to say that the sun is not a source of geothermal energy (which comes from the centre of the earth). However, the sun is the primary source of heat energy in the top 200 metres of soil - this low level energy can be extracted by ground source heat pumps for space heating. Confusion arises when ground source heat pumps are referred to as "geothermal heat pumps".
 * Err, you should not emphasize "the centre of the earth" as the escape of deep internal heat is slow (by convection); much of the surface heat flow is supplied from the radioactive disintegration of various nuclei, such as potassium, not just the famous uranium. In places where rock flow from depth to the surface is strong (as at spreading ridges between plates) then the heat is from hot rock rising from the depths. But at the surface of continents floating atop rock flow regions, the surface heat escape is supplied mostly by radioactive decay in the continental rock. Thermal transfer through a thickness of kilometres of motionless rock is slow. Heat supplied to the surface from above by the sun, offsetting heat lost by radiation and evaporation cause temperature changes that propagate downwards, with all sorts of patterns such as the effects of the end of the ice ages being measurable. All such patterns are obliterated by the movement of water (carrying its own temperature) should the studied volume be at all permeable and there be water movement through it. Thus, under a lake, saturated ground atop impermeable bedrock is suitable for measurement, but the same ground above the lake is hopeless because water drains through it. NickyMcLean (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Indonesia content
The source does not say the resource is easily tapped along the ring of fire and it quotes some politician who says that Indonesia has 40% of the resource, which seems unlikely. We need a better source to say this as a fact. You could say, as the source does, that the politician said such things. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 14:19, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Century misprint?
In the last paragraph of "Renewability and Sustainability" while speaking of Wairakei power station (first unit commissioned 1958) it says "Around the start of the 20th century...". I understan it means either "the end of the 20th century" or "the start of the 21st century".

190.151.147.35 (talk) 12:12, 4 May 2013 (UTC)

Edit request
Please change "The laws of thermodynamics limits the efficiency of heat engines in extracting useful energy." to "The laws of thermodynamics limit the efficiency of heat engines in extracting useful energy." Thanks -Marek — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrozkiewicz (talk • contribs) 05:01, 28 July 2013 (UTC)

Potential mistake in Environmental Effects section
The statement(s) with source no. 32 seem to be applicable to ground source heat pump (GSHP) solutions only, which are not the same as geothermal energy as referred to in the rest of the article. GSHP utilizes low depth (say 0.5 to 5m) heat by circulating a water/glycol solution in e.g. plastic piping buried underground. Alternatively GSHP can utilize low/medium depth heat (say 50-250m) by either forcing plastic tubing vertically into the ground (as an heat exchanger) or, more commonly, circulating groundwater from an aquifer. The source of the statement in the article specifically discusses low depth GSHP application, which is not comparable to geothermal solutions as discussed in this article. In short GSHP = 0.5-5m depth and roughly 10-12degC heat source, Geothermal energy as in the article is 1000-4000m depth and roughly 80-200degC (or more). Taking the environmental concerns, based on energy production and pump loads, from GSHP applications and applying them to geothermal energy as described in the article is therefore nonsense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.111.116.73 (talk) 06:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Issues with description of sources and nature of Earth's internal heating
I made some edits to correct the above issue, and added an additional reference. As it was, the previous information was emphasizing magma as the vehicle for heat flow within the Earth, and this is an understandably popular misconception. The mantle is mostly solid but it behaves plastically, and with heating from below, the result is mantle convection. Although magma delivers heat to Earth's surface this is a relatively small component compared to mantle convection, which in turn does generate magma, hydrothermal sources, and conduction within the crust. Also, the reference "How Geothermal energy works. Ucsusa.org. Retrieved on 2013-04-24." is not the best resource for the mechanisms of Earth heating. Bkilli1 (talk) 15:33, 16 November 2013 (UTC)

Typo
Directly under "Types": "Laredllo" should be "Larderello"
 * Fixed - thanks, Vsmith (talk) 12:27, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Edit request, include helpful graph please
I found this graph very helpful, and believe it would help readers a lot. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.198.102.141 (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Reference 39 and Chevron corporation
The reference for Chevron Corporation is the world's largest private geothermal electricity producer does not support this claim. It is a New York Times article written in 2008 about the expansion of geothermal in the Phillipines. This error has been seen in both the Chevron wiki page and the Geothermal electricity page. This is a bold claim and should be well supported and further clairified with some sort of numerical data as in what does 'largest' mean in this scope. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.198.102.141 (talk) 18:51, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Removed. Vsmith (talk) 21:34, 19 February 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 March 2014
The External Links are out of alphabetical order. I was going to fix it and add a link to the list:


 * NREL - Interactive Data Map - Geothermal Prospector Tool

Jleyshon (talk) 23:23, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

✅ - The problem with A>Z is that some entries are listed author/institute first, and others title first. - Arjayay (talk) 09:03, 20 March 2014 (UTC)

Currency
Can someone edit this so that all of the currency units are in either Dollars or Euros? Right now, part of the article uses cents and part uses euros. 68.47.56.58 (talk) 16:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Update needed
The data in the geothermal electricity is updated up to 2010, while new data is now available (for example here). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lorenzolade (talk • contribs) 13:03, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified
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Semi-protected edit request on 24 May 2016
"Earth's internal heat is thermal energy generated from radioactive decay and continual heat loss from Earth's formation.[3] Temperatures at the core–mantle boundary may reach over 4000 °C (7,200 °F).[4] The high temperature and pressure in Earth's interior cause some rockS to melt and solid mantle to behave plastically, resulting in portions of mantle convecting upward since it is lighter than the surrounding rock. Rock and water is heated in the crust, sometimes up to 370 °C (700 °F).[5]"

Notice I added an S to rocks ^^^^^^^^^^^^^

46.226.49.234 (talk) 15:24, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Small pieces of the rock core are called rocks (plural), as they are countable - so in this usage rock is correct.
 * ❌ the Earth's interior is made of rock (without an s) as it is an "uncountable noun", "A noun that cannot be used freely with numbers or the indefinite article, and which therefore takes no plural form."


 * For a fuller explanation of this, please see the first usage of rock as a noun here and an explanation of uncountable nouns here - Thanks - Arjayay (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 19 April 2017
In the 3rd paragraph, change "in 2010" to "as of 2010" to be consistent with the rest of the sentence. Jjjhfam (talk) 16:20, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done, with minor cleanup. CubeSats  4U  09:28, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

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