by Chris Morris
Geothermal power stations are mature technology with proven performance, reliable operation and ideal for baseload generation. The units are synchronous, so they support the grid. The production from them is considered by most to be renewable. They do not use fossil fuels to provide the heat. It is not “carbon free”, but no generation truly is. It has a relatively small footprint, environment harm is low, and it can coexist with farming or industrial development. Most developments have a cheaper energy cost than onshore wind, using published accounts for analysis. For countries or areas where the resource is there, geothermal generation is very viable.
The resource
Geothermal power stations are very much a niche generation source (only about 15GW worldwide, from 673 units at 198 fields according to Google), totally dependent on locality. They are mainly associated with plate boundaries, particularly the Pacific Ring of Fire. Compare the plate boundaries and volcanic activity in Figure 1 with station locations in Figure 2
Associated with the plate boundaries and other weak points in the earth’s crust, the deep underlying heat in the mantle can find its way to the surface easier. “Bubbles” of magma can push up to relatively shallow depths. These may force their way to the actual surface as volcanoes with their lava. With the distortion and earth movement from this activity, the crust’s rock formations are deformed and cracked – earthquakes. Groundwater can enter all the fault cracking in the rocks. This will be heated up by the hot magma, even if that has solidified.
Geothermal resources exploited for power production are the plumes of hot water formed from the heating of this deep groundwater. In geologic terms, such convection systems are short lived – generally lasting between 200 and 450 thousand years. They end because the heat source has gone or the cracking has been filled by precipitated minerals from the circulating water as it cools. The world is full of solidified magma (granite) and prehistoric geothermal systems. Many of the latter are now mined for gold and other precious materials.
Fig 1 A simplified map of the Pacific mid-ocean spreading ridge, the plates, the subducting trenches and the volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. The named active volcanoes are the famous ones. In reality, and depending on how you define geologically active or what is part of the ring (Antarctica? Indonesia?), there are around 500
Fig 2 The localities of geothermal power stations around the world. There are sometimes many plant associated with one dot like New Zealand or Indonesia. They are a combination of conventional separated water steam turbines and binary plants
At a conceptual level, geothermal resources generally comprise four main components: a heat source, a fluid filled permeable rock structure (reservoir), a near impermeable cap, and surface features. The heat source comprises a localised body of molten or hot rock deep in the crust. This body heats deep circulating groundwater – in this context, deep is generally greater than 6 km. The resulting buoyancy causes the hot water to rise towards the surface through the cracked rock as a plume.
As the water is heated up, it dissolves rock. This enlarges the size of cracks, enhancing permeability (the interconnectedness of voids allowing fluid to flow through). At 300°C, gold is soluble. The water rises up cracks in hot rocks towards the shallow section of the crust, maybe less than 3 km deep. As the water is cooled nearer the surface (less than 500 m depth), the minerals in it precipitate and alter the structure of surface rocks. Sandstones and particularly mudstones can easily be turned to clay and have naturally low permeability. These actions form a cap on the reservoir. Inevitably, some of the geothermal reservoir fluid or heat leaks past the alteration cap to the surface, forming hot springs, geysers and the like.
Geoscientists locate conventional geothermal resources by mapping surface features and measuring the geophysical properties. The rock at the top of the reservoir has low earth resistance compared to the cold surrounding rock. The geothermal fields that exist are often shown by those boundaries (Figure 3). Wells drilled inside the boundary will be hot, but may not have permeability. Wells drilled outside it will be cold.
Fig 3 A map of the Wairakei Tauhara geothermal field with its limits defined by the earth resistance boundary. The map is out of date. There is an extra station at the Huka site and a new one about 2km east of there will more wells for both.
The dissolved mineral concentrations in the resource are dependent on the temperature and rocks the water flows through. Typically, the major component is salt, but there is also silica. There are dissolved gases, mainly CO2 but some hydrogen sulphide. There will also be environmental nasties like arsenic and mercury. At the boundaries of the plume where the fluid is cooled, the minerals will precipitate out. These effectively seal the hot region from the surrounding rock. The salty fluid gives that very distinctive low earth resistance helps define the size of the resource.
Extracting the resource
Into these prospects, wells are drilled using oil & gas rigs but modified for the hot conditions and pressurised water. The wells generally have larger diameter production casings (200mm or bigger) and are open hole below the casing shoe, which is set below the cap rock and at the top of the hot zone. When the valves on the wells are opened, they can discharge the geothermally heated water. (Figure 4)
Figure 4 A modern drilling rig capable of drilling a 3km deep deviated well, a schematic of the drilling operation and a vertical discharge of a new well to blow all the drill chips and debris out of the hole before the well can be hooked up to pipelines. The discharge from this well was about 50% boiling water
To understand how this fluid can be used, it is necessary to understand the thermodynamics, particularly enthalpy – the practical engineering side, not the theory. Enthalpy is the heat content of the fluid but it also relates to the phase (water/ steam), the temperatures and pressures. The temperature at which water boils changes with pressure; the saturation line. However, one has to add a lot of heat to get from just boiling water to dry steam (no water present) At sea level, this is about seven times as much as to get it from ice water up to boiling. If the heat content is between these two points at a given pressure, the fluid is a mixture- two phase. As the boiling pressure rises, the heat and density difference between the hot water and dry steam at that temperature decreases. Conversely, below atmospheric pressure, it diverges. If the temperature of steam is above the saturation line, it is superheated. When the temperature and pressures are high enough, there is no difference between the physical properties of steam and water – the critical point. Both of those conditions aren’t relevant for existing geothermal. Almost all the work is in the difficult two phase region. Note one can change water to steam and vice versa just by changing the pressure, without adding or taking away heat.
Most geothermal plants in the world run on separated steam as the deep fluid is hot water (>220°C) at very high pressure. As the fluid comes up the well bore, the pressure drops and steam flashes off so the two phase mixture at the surface is both steam and water. Steam mass fraction depends on enthalpy and wellhead pressure but is typically 20-30%. This steam has to be separated from the water in surface plant before it can be used. It is done in cyclone separators (Figure 5). The reason it needs separation is two phase fluid is very difficult to deal with. The flow regime is unpredictable. Pipelines carrying the steam water mix are subject to heavy shock loading, even in normal operation. It is easier to separate into its component parts and deal with each separately.
The steam out of separators is always just below saturation line as they are not 100% efficient. There is no energy available to superheat it. To remove the mineralised carryover water in the steam, the practice is to use the long pipelines from separators to station. This allows gravity separation or condensation, then removal of the water at special drains. Modern practice is to build separators closer to stations, spray in clean water to wash the steam, and dry the steam in a scrubber using centrifugal force to fling the water to the walls for drainage and discharge.
Fig 5 This is how the cyclone separators work for geothermal fluid and their actual physical size nowadays. Each of the vessels is rated for about 400t/h steam flow at 5bg.
To improve plant efficiency for high temperature resources, the separated water can be passed through a control valve to a lower pressure (Figure 6). The steam that is flashed off can be separated and fed into either another turbine, or a port part way through the main turbine (Figures 7 & 8)
Fig 6 A simplified process flow diagram for a cascading triple flash system feeding three pressures of steam into a turbine. This is what is at geothermal stations like Ngawapurua and Tauhara
Because of environmental concerns about the heavily mineralised separated water and to minimise the deep pressure decline of the resource, the hot (90-130°C) separated water is reinjected. This is done into dedicated wells located at the field margins. The ideal site is somewhere with a deep pressure communication with the resource but not close enough to quench the hot fluid. The industry rule of thumb is the water should stay underground for at least six months before being discharged. In that time, it should have been heated up enough by the rock it passes through not to affect the production enthalpy.
The water is generally supersaturated with minerals, particularly silica. That will precipitate in pipelines and wells, clogging them up. To stop this happening, the water is acidified.
At some fields, the pressure decline has allowed a steam pocket and two phase zone to form above the liquid and under the cap rock. Relatively shallow wells can be drilled into this, giving higher enthalpy, even dry steam discharges.
Steam Turbines
Most of the geothermal power stations use steam driven turbines. They are proven technology. There is only one moving part, the rotor. They are very reliable. A station I work at operates some turbines that have done over 450k running hours and much of their componentry is still original. However, because the steam is only saturated (not superheated) at the inlet, the design details are significantly different to those on conventional boiler plant.
A turbine is just a heat engine, where some of the enthalpy in pressurised steam is converted to velocity as it passes through a narrow nozzle to a region of lower pressure. This high velocity steam hits the blade of a rotor, forcing it to rotate. The heat energy has been converted to rotational energy. The slowed steam is expanded again (another enthalpy drop) for more energy extraction. The steam temperature drops with pressure but the enthalpy drop makes the steam wetter. Power output is proportional to mass flowrate and enthalpy change. If the turbine was running on compressed air rather than steam, the output would be significantly lower.
Each set of stationary blading then rotor blading is called a stage. Turbines typically have 5 to 12 stages, depending on the inlet and condenser pressure. them with their relatively low inlet pressures, most of the power is extracted in the last three or four stages using sub-atmospheric pressure steam. A big limitation is high strength steels can’t be used in a turbine as hydrogen sulphide makes them crack. That restricts maximum size of the rotor blades which limits their output to 60-150MW range, depending on inlet pressure. More powerful units than that need parallel steam path doubled turbines. On a boiler plant in a comparable sized turbine hall to the biggest geothermal units, but with the higher pressures and use of special steels, there are 4-700MW units which have 40-50 stages spread over two or three turbines in series.
Wet steam all through the geothermal unit makes it different to boiler plant where only last few stages are wet. However for both, by the last stage of blading about 10% of the steam has been condensed to water. No energy can be extracted from the water and the high velocity droplets are very damaging to componentry. This water lowers efficiency, increases maintenance costs and reduces plant life. The water needs removal so careful capture and drainage systems are designed and built into the rotor blades and casings for the wet steam region.
Fig 7 the rotor from a dual flow triple flash steam turbine plant – still new coming out of the box. The high pressure steam is fed into the middle. It passes through 4 stages of blading. More steam is added and it goes through 3 more stages. Then low pressure steam is added for another 4 stages before it exhaust into the condenser.
Fig 8 Showing how the steam supply as in fig 6 for the rotor is arranged – rotor at top of picture, casing at bottom. A central HP annulus, with IP either side and LP ones outboard of that again. The cavity on the far right is a casing drain to remove condensate from the steam.
The turbine generators running on separated water fields are base-loaded. This is because there is minimal cost for the “fuel” and stable operation reduces manning requirements. The turbine design is optimised to perform best at full load. If load reduction is needed, the steam has to be vented until wells can be shut in. Increasing the output from a throttled up well by opening the valves has to be done slowly to allow downhole conditions, surface two phase flow and the chemistry to stabilise.
At a few stations, Geysers in California is one, the fluid out of the ground is near dry steam that doesn’t need separators and can be supplied directly to the turbines. On these fields, plant can load follow, ramping up and down as dispatched. However, they are the exception.
Binary Plant
There is another type of conventional geothermal plant gaining in popularity, the binary ones. They are particularly good for lower enthalpy fields where conventional plant would be uneconomic. Their process uses a circulating/ working fluid like conventional boiler plant but rather than water, a lower boiling point organic fluid is used. This is often one of the pentanes. Instead of an actual boiler, there are a series of shell and tube heat exchangers through which the geothermal fluid is cascaded to boil the pressurised working fluid. It is even slightly superheated. This vapour is then expands through the turbine (similar to those on steam plant) and is converted back to liquid in the condenser before being pumped for recirculating through the process (Figure 9). These plants invariably have air cooled condensers.
Material properties of the vapour means turbines are half grid speed, so less inertia. It also limits their maximum size. The lower enthalpy available means higher mass flow rate needed when compared to a steam turbine. That is more pumping. They have a proportionally higher parasitic load with all the motor driven fans and pumps, lowering their nett output.. Because of their design and control systems, they are also baseload with no significant ability to load follow without wasting energy.
Fig 9 A simplified process flow diagram for a binary plant
For higher enthalpy resources, they are less efficient that steam turbines. However, they are cheaper and faster to build. In an era where lower capital cost and speed of installation dominates the economic modelling, these are significant benefits. They are also small (typically 5-25MW) and modular. This means the field can be initially developed with one or two units, then more added if the production shows it can take a higher energy extraction rate. Another advantage of these plants are they come as near complete packages from the manufacturer. They just need the wells and pipelines connected up. It is a significantly easier task to design and build steamfield surface facilities with separation plant and pipelines than it is to design and build a power station.
Why it has limited future expansion potential
As well as positives for geothermal development outlined above, there are the negatives. For many developments, the costs are hard to predict and over which an organisation can have little control. The regulatory environment, both national and local, can be challenging to navigate. There is a long lead time between field investigation beginning and electricity generation starting for the issues described below.
Most geothermal developments are small, 10-50MW. Countries are often looking for 500-2000MW stations like they can get from gas turbines or coal. Many of the remaining best sites for development are in 3rd world countries. Unless the country is prepare to have the development being proven, designed, built and run by expats (and pay for that privilege), they haven’t the educated professional workforce to do that. Iceland and New Zealand universities run geothermal training programmes for graduates from those developing countries, but many of them gravitate to better paying jobs in countries with existing plants.
Any new field has to be proven to have both permeability and sustainability before power station building starts. This needs an extensive well drilling and testing programme. Deep wells are expensive and permeability is elusive so even infill wells have a significant failure rate. The deep water temperatures need to generally be greater than 200°C otherwise the field is uneconomic, needing subsidies for development and exploitation.
Turbines and balance of plant are bespoke, needing the field output to be known before it can be sized. The industry history is of plant too big for the resource. One company in NZ operates a turbine purchased second-hand which had sat unused in a San Francisco warehouse for a decade, because it was for a field that couldn’t supply enough steam to the existing plant.
Once production starts, design failings and operational problems can occur. These often need extensive alterations and outages (lost generation income) to correct. Turbines and equipment working in a wet gassy steam environment where hard steels can’t be used is challenging with many lessons needing to be relearned. Big name plant manufacturers still get it wrong.
There is a continuing need for new well drilling and workovers as the field changes under exploitation. If the field enthalpy drops, the steam flow and wellhead pressure decreases, so turbines need to be derated to maximise output.. Finding suitable re-injection formations can be a very expensive exercise. The plants are often below rating because of steam shortfall, waiting for enough downhole work to accumulate to justify a drilling programme.
There are real localised environmental risks that mismanaged exploitation will damage natural geothermal features, even though these themselves are geologically speaking fleetingly transient. Excessive nett mass withdrawal can cause dewatering of cap rock formations. This may cause ground deformation, even significant subsidence. There was 15m! in a very localised area of Wairakei.
For efficiency of plant, it depends on what story you want to tell. Geothermal steam for electricity generation is a low value product. Depending on inlet and condenser pressures, it is 5-10t/h/MW. Contrast that with a boiler plant where it is about 2t/h/MW. Detractors of geothermal point to a very low 20-30% on First Law thermodynamics principles. Advocates prefer the Second Law (isentropic) efficiency which is generally over 80%. Binary plant is generally up to 10% lower than these figures but as they are often on lower temperature resources, that isn’t necessarily a true apples for apples comparison.
Like all energy production, society has to balance the costs with the benefits. For countries where the resource is there, they are a very good, albeit niche, electricity generation investment.
Proposed expansion
There are three developments that promoters push as the future for major expansion, making it mainstream. This alternative energy investigation has been supercharged by being funded by governments wanting to be seen to be doing something about climate change. They are low temperature resources, Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) also known as hot dry rock, and supercritical geothermal.
Note that the internet is full of PR and academic writings about major breakthroughs that will change the face of the geothermal power station industry. Yet just a few years later, those pronouncements haven’t come to pass and the promises have sunk without trace. Theory is just that. Reality is cruel. It needs something working and has been doing so reliably for five years. That is proof of successful technology which will then relatively quickly be adopted. Until then, it is invariably just something seeking government funding.
It will be interesting to follow what happens to geothermal development in the USA from the new government and its change in energy production direction. Where the US goes, the rest of the world will follow.
Low Temperature Resources
As well as the high temperature (>200°C) resources able to be used by existing conventional power stations, there has been a push to exploit the wider availability of elevated ground temperatures. This has been promoted by maps like the one shown in Figure 10. The map is a misleading guide to potential viability. First the fluid is deep so would need significant drilling capability. Second, the permeability is unknown. Third, the wells generally won’t sustain a discharge so they have to have downhole pumps to bring the hot fluid to the surface. Fourth, the Carnot cycle efficiency is an economics killer. As a practical example of this point: for a massflow rate of 3500t/h 280°C water, 170MW is supplied to the grid at one station. Another on a reinjection system takes 3000t/h of 130°C water and produces only 14MW.
With sufficient flow rate, a binary plant using a lower temperature geothermal fluid can run and generate more power than it consumes to operate. The working fluid used in the plant can be tailored to suit the actual temperatures. These are often various refrigerants. But invariably, the plants aren’t viable without subsidies or there are specific advantages, like it is for an isolated community and the station is replacing diesel engines.
Fig 10 Map showing the deeper (>3km) rock temperatures for continental USA. The colouration makes one think that there is a lot more potential than there really is. Red appears to be temperatures >90° though the legend does not put temperatures directly on it. If the rock fracturing could be controlled, wells in those areas could be used for direct heating but not economically for electricity production.
However, if there are subsidies available like those in the USA, particularly for Californian electricity supply, plants can operate. There are about 1GW of pumped well power projects mostly in the western US states. With all the pumps and their reliability issues, the load factor is lower than what conventional plant do. As the resource is lower temperature, the output in summer markedly declines – that pesky Carnot cycle again. On the map shown in Figure 2, there are two power stations shown in Central Australia. These are micro stations on low temperature resources and they don’t work.
NREL in the 2023 report as well as reporting on economics of stations also sees a major use of the lower temperature fluid as district or process heating. Most agree this direct heating is is a lot more efficient use of the resource. Ground source heat exchangers are more effective if in the water table. In Taupo NZ, the shallow heat is directly used for domestic and public facilities including several large open air year-round swimming facilities. Geothermal heat is used for drying timber and wood pellets. The heat from a reinjection water line is used to grow tropical prawns (Figure 11). At a nearby geothermal resource, it is used to provide process heat for a dairy factory and greenhouses. The author’s home uses the hot underlying ground water to heat up town supply water through a U- bend heat exchanger in a shallow well to provide hot water for his household.
Fig 11 Ponds growing tropical prawns heated by water from a re-injection line. Behind the vent steam plumes is a 14MW binary plant running on 130°C water. The water is from the discharge of steam separators.
EGS
The theory of EGS is simple. It was designed for places where the rock is hot but there is poor permeability. Two wells are drilled side by side 1-200m apart. The rock between them in the reservoir formation is hydraulically fractured to give the permeability. Cold fluid pumped down one well is heated up by the rock and discharges out the other well where it can be used, then disposed of down the cold well. Figure 12 is a schematic.
The problem is the desired controlled rock fracturing can’t be done. In most cases, there is no significant increase in permeability. Where the wells have been close enough to get communication, there has been thermal breakthrough and the cold fluid has rapidly quenched the rock. There have been no successes with the world littered by failed projects, but promoters are undeterred, wanting to continue.
Figure 12 The type of schematic used by promoters of Hot Dry Rock proposals. Simple in theory. It hasn’t worked yet in practice.
Supercritical Geothermal
Underneath geothermal fields at depths greater than 3km (about the limit of current geothermal well drilling technology in hot volcanic rock) the science says the fluid will be a lot hotter, maybe above the critical point ~400°C, The theory is if one is to drill into this supercritical fluid, there will be a very high temperature resource to exploit. The sticking point is the technology. Talk is the casings would be ceramic as all standard ones or even specials like high chromium steel or titanium won’t work. The current equipment has failed. A whole new drilling equipment system with exotic materials would be needed to drill and complete the wells. Even a conventional well in a standard geothermal field to the depths discussed would be very expensive.
Some wells have intercepted this deep fluid at a relatively shallow depth. It was found to be heavily mineralised and very acidic. One well in Mexico even discharged hydrogen chloride gas. The linked article also details other major problems that have occurred. There are no commonly used (and not prohibitively expensive) materials that could contain this fluid for power station use. At the predicted temperature, the water will dissolve gold.
It is yet another example of where the theoretical value is there but the materials to handle it haven’t been invented.
Acknowledgements JC for providing the impetus and challenge to do this article. Planning Engineer for forcing me to distil and simplify my writing. Rutherford’s barmaid dictum should be a guiding principle for all. Most of all, I thank my work colleagues present and past for taking the time to explain the intricacies of their specialities. Things are the way they are because that is the way they have been proven to work best within the real-world physical and economic limits.
Afterword Note that when describing the general geothermal power production industry, terminology and phrases, efforts at simplification may in some cases result in statements that are not 100% accurate in all situations. There can also be new developments that haven’t yet made the trade papers or even smoko discussions. The article’s broad scope and length limitations mean that all minor exceptions can’t be covered. For this overview, speaking generally is preferable to littering the post with distracting mealy-mouthed qualifiers. Please accept that the article is overwhelmingly correct as to the operation of geothermal plants at this time.
Thanks, Chris. Enjoyed it!
The problem with geothermal is not geothermal. It’s the claim that all you have to do is drill deep enough and every place on earth can find enough heat to generate electricity. Here in Hawaii, we have been generating geothermal electricity on the Big Island for a long time, right next to an active volcano! That has led to people assuming it’s something that can be done on other islands. Professionals have assessed the depths to that kind of heat on other islands as “infeasible”, but that hasn’t stopped politicians continuing to include it in the Energy Office’s forecast of “renewable portfolios”.
I live 2 miles from the geothermal in Puna Hawaii. This plant is a nightmare. Toxic gas has been released into the environment, sickening people and animals. The noise is audible for miles around and there is a small possibility that this plant increased the damage from the 2018 eruption. The first fissure broke out several blocks from the first experimental wells.
The Ormat plant at Puna uses pentane as the working fluid. That is not considered toxic
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9840750/
It has got health, environmental and flammability effects comparable to gasoline. The noise of the plant from the condenser fans is comparable to many industrial installations. Their sound travels less than wind turbines do. The eruption fissures would have followed ground faulting and weaknesses in the geological structure. The well would not have had any effect on these.
As I wrote, there are costs as well as benefits to electricity production (and distribution). Too many people today want all the latter and aren’t prepared to accept any of the former. NIMBYism writ large. Google Earth tells me I live 3.25km from the nearest Ormat binary plant. I am not aware of any fan noise, especially today when there is a big V8 car race 6km away.
Thank you Dr. Curry. You have expertise, integrity and courage, a value to America. I am a retired engineer, a handful of degrees and PE licenses, 24 nukes and 48 fossil generating power plants and studied advanced technologies for decades. This article is superb. Geothermal will contribute more.
I would add a few thoughts. Within the last ~ two decades, they have found vulcanism in Antartica, particularly of possible interest under the Thwaites “doomsday” glacier. Experts, smarter than moi, should consider robotics and AI to this technology. Robots excel in dull, dangerous and dusty conditions.
I’m no scientist, but I think it’s pretty much a fact that there is geothermal heat at some depth under every square foot of land and water on the planet. In obvious spots, it’s accessible, physically and economically. But there are two aspects of geothermal becoming a material worldwide renewable that bugger that misdirection. First, is the obvious depth of the heat. This is not oil or water drilling, it’s tens of thousands of feet into a geologically unfriendly environment, requiring exploration and production tech that don’t yet exist. But even if we were able to tap into that, the deeper you access it, the more heat that you lose on the way up. The depth at which the recovered heat is unable to do much other than provide hot water can’t be confidently known until you drill. You need more than pre-heated water to make geothermal power viable. Second, many of the places where geothermal heat is physically and economically accessible are remote. That means huge investments in transmission infrastructure (including undersea cables (with a whole other host of problems and risks), and the line losses in transmission, which can reduce net deliveries of electricity drastically. That’s why we won’t have a cable from Puna to Oahu, IMHO, ever. That’s why Iceland doesn’t export geothermal power to the UK or EU.
yes plenty of heat almost everywhere 10k-20k feet below the earth surface. Though one problem that I havent seen addessed is how to make the system a closed loop system. Open loop systems are going to have Running water through the formations which at those depths are going to pick up a lot of toxic minerals or pick up the saltwater in the formations. Toxic minerals and saltwater that is vastly more toxic than the evil fracking fluids.
Joe K,
How many people a year go to hospital for treatment because of toxic chemicals?
Just one of them, Pb, Lead, has been demonised to the max. US death certificates from Pb poisoning are about 20 per year, many from solder in joints of stills making moonshine. The number of people treated in US hospitals for non-lethal Pb poisoning is about 35% admissions from about 200 cases examined each year. Business has been so poor that the blood level of Pb to trigger action was lowered in 2025 to 3.5 units from 5 units previously. This is because measurable harm from Pb, like clinical symptoms of ill health, is rarely observed.
All of this is readily available from internet searches.
The demonization is largely a giant advertising effort, financed to show control by power over ordinary folk who forever have to be kept in line to remember their place in society does not count.
What a sham! Care to compare medical effects of Pb ingestion to Fentanyl?
Joe K, should you be more careful about using the word “toxic”?
Geoff S
GS – sorry if I wasnt clear with my comment.
I was using the term “toxic” in the generic sense. fwiw – lots of hydrocarbon reserviors have high levels of salt water in the formations. Salt water that has salt and other chemical concentrations that are 5x -20x higher concentrations than ocean water which will kill plant and animal life pretty quickly when poured on the surface or into ground water. Thus my use of the term toxic. The only method of disposal is salt water disposal wells to put the saltwater back into the formations.
One of several ideas put forth to generate electricity is the geothermal wells that I mentioned above. Unless the system is closed looped, then the circulating water is going to pick up the same chemicals found in the salt water.
My reference to the toxicity of fracking fluid was that for all practical purposes, its not toxic at all which is contrary to the hype coming from the activists. It also shows how the activists have virtually no knowledge of oil and gas operations since they focus on something that is not a problem while being ignorant of the salt water that is an extreme problem yet has been solved with proper management.
GS – fwiw – I think we are on the same page with the activists hyping trivial issues while being ignorant of real problems
Bob, I’m wondering where the geothermal that MIGHT be generated in hostile Antarctica might go. Not a lot of demand at Tierra del Fuego, assuming you could get a high voltage cable across the most dangerous ocean passage on the planet. What would transmission look like from Antarctica to, say, Brazil?
Brian. The other comments address your questions and point to geothermal characteristics. It is small, limited to local grids and may provide useable water for service needs at fairly high first cost. It is a candidate to serve year round remote scientific communities, hence permitting unconsidered possibilities. Today’s drilling was a first use of robotics, the drilling string is intelligent, detecting and moving toward desirable locations, initially hydrocarbon pools, now heat, pressurized, mobile liquids, etc. And material science has produced harden drills which are permitting deeper and longer holes with no discernible wear. These change the economics, what is doable at a cost.
It is a nascent concept to use technology to minimize natural disasters, worthy of study. Imagine a defense against the doomsday glacier which is accelerating down into the ocean due to recently discovered thermal plumes beneath a mountain range ice sheet as large as England. What is the cost savings to prevent sea level rise to 50 – 100 ft worldwide? Massive robotic earthmovers powered by geothermal, may help, another Panama canal or Aswan dam? We have ice and heat; how can we use this?
This will require people as smart as Dr. Curry.
Yeah, great but… what happens when the heat in the Earth’s core runs out in a few billion years?
The Medicine Lake geothermal project, involved in unending litigation dating back to the Bush Administration, has been an Impossible Dream. The railroad across the nation would never have been built if abuse of the laws that exist today, existed back then.
In many instances, it’s an anti-global warming/anti-modernity belief that is very much like a belief that vaccines cause autism.
Geothermal actually uses solar energy that can move up the temperature gradient by “heat creep” which is a process that, by definition, can only happen in a force field like gravity. The following summarizes the lead up to this major discovery:
⦁ Greenhouse gases can absorb and radiate at temperatures in the lower layer of the atmosphere called the troposphere, whereas oxygen, nitrogen and argon can’t.
⦁ Note that we are only going to be talking about the global mean average surface temperature, not weather events that may or may not be related to such temperatures. So all data relating to weather events is not relevant.
⦁ There is a law in physics called the Stefan-Boltzmann Law that tells us the maximum amount of radiation that can be emitted by an object (or surface) at any given temperature and, in reverse, the maximum temperature that a certain flux of radiation from a warmer source can produce in a target. Based on this law, the maximum global mean surface temperature that solar radiation reaching the surface can achieve is less than minus forty degrees Celsius.
⦁ Thus, there is far more radiation coming out of the surface than that from the Sun. So this presents a dilemma which climatologists, rarely qualified in physics, could not solve, and never have to this day. They guessed that extra radiation from greenhouse gases must be supplying the missing energy. They could not actually get anywhere near enough in measurements of such radiation, so they merely calculated how much of this so-called back radiation was necessary.
⦁ The problem is that they had to assume that molecules of greenhouse gases somehow “know” that they must radiate more downwards than upwards. So they needed about twice as much radiation from greenhouse gases that, on average, comprise only about 0.3% of the atmosphere, water vapour being 0.25%, carbon dioxide about 0.04% and methane and others negligible.
⦁ Obviously this is wrong and hundreds of scientists (mostly physicists) have seen that it is wrong. The problem has been that they had no other explanation until in 2013 Douglas Cotton published a paper Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures in which he explained his discovery of the non-radiative downward “heat creep” process that can only occur in a force field such as gravity. This process provides the missing energy on Earth and virtually all the required energy needed to explain the warming on the sunlit side of other planets such as Venus.
⦁ Variations in the global mean surface temperature (I won’t use the term “climate change”) are most likely caused by variations in the intensity of cosmic rays coming from interstellar Space and assisting to form clouds. This intensity varies with sun spot activity as the latter expands the heliosphere which then reduces cosmic ray intensity. The magnetic fields of planets also alter the paths of cosmic rays and thus lead to superimposed natural cycles, the most notable being about 60 years. This is most likely due to the so-called “Great Conjunction” when Jupiter and Saturn align with the Sun about every 60 years, the last being in December 2020.
⦁ Sunspot activity appears to follow a natural cycle of about 1,000 years, it being at a minimum during the “Maunder Minimum” between 1645 and 1715. The Little Ice Age spanned this period. The implication is that at least by next century, if not sooner, global cooling will commence and last for about 500 years. In the shorter term we can explain the fact that there has been little change in temperatures from 1998 until 2021 when the 60 year cycle appears to be now starting to rise again after the Great Conjunction at the end of 2020.
⦁ Cotton’s 2013 paper (and subsequent book Why It’s Not Carbon Dioxide After All) contain the only explanation for observed temperature on Earth, Venus and indeed throughout the Solar System. The “heat creep” process explains, for example, why the base of the troposphere of Uranus is hotter that Earth.
⦁ And so, as about 1,600 scientists have signed, there is no climate emergency. Furthermore, humans cannot expect to be able to control the global mean surface temperature since it has nothing to do with carbon dioxide, the vital gas needed for all vegetation and, indeed, for life.
Missed this post. Important.
However there are questions. The “natural cycle of about 1,000 years, it being at a minimum during the “Maunder Minimum” between 1645 and 1715.”; this is the Eddy cycle with effect traceable for the last 8000 yrs.
Earlier is this ” most likely due to the so-called “Great Conjunction” when Jupiter and Saturn align with the Sun about every 60 years”. Since it is the effect on earth that is the crux of the matter, gravitationally the moon has the greatest effect, followed by Jupiter, and then Venus not Saturn. Saturn is next.
[ from this formula Fgrav = ( G • M-earth • M-other ) / d^2 ]
What may be new (to my mind at least) is that the conjunction ‘string’ effect is/seems greater than the sum of the individual bodies.
Still have to read/study properly; but I note the rotation effect, and the orientation effect, are not considered. (thermal dynamics of rotating heat exchangers).
Geothermal works for the same reason that the core of the Moon is about 1,300 degrees. It is actually supported by new energy from the Sun that goes up the temperature gradient beneath the surface by a process recently discovered that can only happen in a force field like gravity. For details and proof based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics see the paper “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.”
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Chris,
Many thanks for your authoritative, engineering and science based article that tells it as it is presently known, also thanks to Dr Curry for the forum.
I spent 20 years in mineral exploration geochemistry with a boss and friend named John Elliston, who also wrote scientific articles including a long book about the colloidal phase in petrogenesis and orogenesis, including 10 reasons why granites cannot be molten. Given my exposure, I tend to ask if colloids can help explain processes such as heat generation and transport in rocks at depth.
Geoff S
GS & Chris
Your thoughts on geothermal where drilling is in anytown usa down to 15k-20k feet and using heat at that depth to heat water for electric generation
There is possibly hot rock there but without permeability you have effectively a blind hole. A tiny amount of heat could be extracted by a U bend heat exchanger. Pump down cold surface water and it comes back up hotter. No economic potential in that. Even if there is hot water there and permeability, if the temperature profile is significantly below Boiling Point for Depth, the well won’t self-start or sustain a discharge if air lifted. That means you need pumping. The costs of that mean the economics aren’t there unless subsidised.
I do note there are binary plants in Europe and Western US that do this but the electricity price they receive is not the true market price.
Joe K,
My reply matches the one from Chris.
Magic heat that exists beneath all our feet is like magic wind that is free and everywhere, therefore a beneficial source of energy – until it is tried. Geoff S
Sherro01 & chris
I am slow to responding, though your responses are similar to my original thoughts.
The Left’s intransigence in accepting the need for common sense home-based energy production, even to weaponizing the legal system against clean alternatives, such as geothermal, has not only undermined confidence in Western academia but in the end, has been counterproductive. US energy policy for years has raised the cost of energy in the West, funneled wealth to despotic regimes and quixotically, energy policy in the US is now looking forward to 4 years of a liberalization of coal energy production policies in response to the years of insanity of the anti-energy global warming alarmist politics.
“The climate change movement faces big trouble ahead. Its principal propositions contain two major fallacies that can only become more glaring with time. First, in stark contrast to popular belief and to the public statements of government officials and many scientists, the science on which the dire predictions of manmade climate change is based is nowhere near the level of understanding or certainty that popular discourse commonly ascribes to it. Second, and relatedly, the movement’s embrace of an absolute form of the precautionary principle distorts rational cost-benefit analysis, or throws it out the window altogether.” ~Mario Loyola
Absolutely, Wagathon. The sad truth is, we’re never going to get “there”, and climate scientists are beginning to admit it. The ONLY hope of getting to materially lower greenhouse gases is nuclear. Not fusion, just good old, but new, fission. People all over the world delude themselves that “tech and science” will fix it; we just have to hang on. But the numbers on renewables belie that. Solar, the supposed darling of our renewable, carbon-free, future, is slowly having its limits realized. There are very, very, few scalable, reliable renewables, solar and wind have been (finally) exposed as intermittent, therefore unreliable. But wait! In walks the White Knight, Sir Battery to save the day. No, he doesn’t. The common wisdom is that batteries will stabilize a solar/wind grid. Yet, EVERY electric utility has said, “Batteries are for grid management, not storage to fill in for intermittent sources”. Anyone who has looked at the most rudimentary numbers for batteries knows this is true. On top of that, the penetration of solar and wind in even ideal environments has been glacially slow, many projects even in those areas abandoned because the economics didn’t work. So, how is solar and wind going to work out, materially and at scale on the rest of the planet. It’s not.
We need to get after fission fast. In the meantime, instead of dumping hundreds of billions into a renewable dead end, how about applying “tech and science” to cleaning up coal and petroleum, the only interim options?
My best friend in Oklahoma built a new house a few years ago and opted for a shallow geothermal system that handles his heating and AC needs. I believe this system is based on circulating water underground to cool it to 50 degrees or so. I believe this kind of system would work almost anywhere and save a lot of electricity.
An idea that’s more practical than building a home out of Adobe…
This is the same tech that is behind OTEC. In some areas, it can work for the two things you describe. It’s also similar physics as the refrigeration cycle. It’s all about the differential, and is geothermal upside down. There are places where the surface temp (aided by solar collectors) are high, and the cold water isn’t too deep. Those places are few, and the systems are complex and require maintenance. You still need pumps and a computer to manage it. I also know of someone in NoCal with a similar system, using cold river water and an array of black pipes to get hot water. It works, but not in winter. He has a diesel genset to run the pump, which comes on intermittently. A marginal tech, at best, which doesn’t meet scalability, reliability, or materiality goals. Great for off grid mountain people, like my buddy!
Or hunting your dinner with a bow and arrow.
Forget it.
“Franz Schwanitz in “The Origin of Cultivated Plants” says that the importance of agriculture to the human race and to civilisation in particular, can be seen by the fact that a hunter or forager needs in general around twenty square kilometres to sustain him. That same land under organized cultivation can support a society of six thousand persons working together.”
Missing the woods for the trees is a sign of social decadence.
Brian. A correction or rather agreement on geothermal electric generation as commonly called and a heat pump. Both use latent heat within the earth but achieve different goals, hence off topic here.
Heat pumps pump heat in or out of a structure for heating and cooling; the earliest ones were called air conditioners. As electricity got more expensive, a reversing valve and controls took outside heat inside during the winter at a pumping cost, measured by the COP, Coefficient of Performance, one unit of heat per dollar spent. Due to material improvements and imitations, the initial air rejection piping went underground. Both have economic limits, roughly mid America; Santa cannot economically use one. He should insulate every thing which does not walk, keep the heat where he wants it. He, and all of humanity, will use combustion of carbon or not survive. Fission might have helped in the US but we let our experts die off and we never solved the problem of a cemetery for the fuel and its cost.
Bob, there are many interesting ways we can displaced fossil-fueled electricity. My concern is that there is little differentiation between immaterial and marginally useful techs like the ones described here, and major technologies that can actually make a difference. Heat pumps using low grade temperature differences? Wonderful! But how much of that could there ever be, and why aren’t there legions of installers and government incentives? While I applaud those who go the extra mile to take advantage of such marginal (in a global context) technologies, they become strategically dysfunctional when they become disincentives to face the really big issue of greenhouse gases.
That is why I land on fission, and I’m certainly not alone. Concerns of the past have been carefully addressed, and new nuke tech is incredibly safe, short and long term. But politicians, knowing better, are afraid to be associated with the pejorative word “nuclear”. In my state, efforts to pass a bill to simply understand nuclear power have been defeated before even a hearing. Little by little, as CO2 in the atmosphere continues up, despite COP, extreme weather, and public calls to “do something, that will have to change.
Brian. I stay in my lane, engineering of a score of nukes, two score fossil (carbon) plants, pieces of the grid, decades assessing advanced technologies and managing thousands of engineers. I have had the honor of listening to the smartest people I ever knew. This is where I am. I know nothing about civilian fission power plants except that they do not exist. I led the engineering team to engineer and license the largest nuke in America, a prototype and first US ISFSI, “away from the power plant” spent fuel storage, from lab work to an on- line facility. It works fine but the next step, the responsibility of DoE has been an historic national failure, money and time spent, nothing accomplished. I fired people for that.
I do not think climate change is an important problem; it is a soup of weak science IMHO. Dr. Curry knows more than I. but its goal, no fire, is impossible to achieve.
Man must use fire, the combustion of carbon in air, or we will all perish. There is no other cheap alternate fueled energy for the masses. Fission and later fusion may help in technically advanced societies but we have learned at TMI, Chernobyl and Fukushima that dummies must never be in charge. Geothermal, pumped storage (I did engineering on the largest US unit) work in isolated locations. Our grid is creaky, Korean war or pre WWII plants (I worked on one, which supports a city) will die. Puerto Rico, Texas forced outages show examples except consider Manhattan without juice for a year or the New England grid collapsing in a zero degree blizzard.
My house has used an air rejection heat pump for thirty years until it wore out. I have R 48 in my ceilings, R 36 in the exterior walls, and a self designed evaporative cooling system in my roof, a 6 – 20 ton unit depending on the sun shine. It cost fifty cents per day. My house uses 1/3 the BTUs of a normal house. Technology, money and schedule is the essence of engineering. Hang on to all three.
We digress.
We may digress, but it’s a great digression! I’m impressed with your background and conclusions. You and I are 100% on everything you mention. My background is in petroleum, so I’m the “fire guy” (I prefer “thermal”). Because we have so thoroughly demonized petroleum, it gets no consideration as to its probable role in a renewable future. We have spent $trillions chasing renewable technologies, but not a cent on how to clean up and better use petroleum.
For years, I have written about the volumetric math of a barrel of crude oil, trying to shine a light on the results of the artificial imbalance renewables will cause. If you could draw down the assayed products of that barrel pro rata, all would work out just fine. But that is functionally and temporally impossible. Just a material replacement of gasoline will start the chaos. But at the end of the road (a place we’ll never get to) the modern world relies on petrochemicals that cannot be replaced with lab concoctions. Even though they are a small part of the barrel, if you still need them, you’ll have to process an entire barrel. What do you do with the resulting billions of barrels a day, if society decides it doesn’t want them making CO2?
Yup. You are correct. We must be clear. If society decides not to use fire, we all will die, starting with the poor and weak. Fire and its reactant, CO2, keeps us alive and will for the foreseeable future.
We must be frugal, particularly with energy. We are not.
We must teach the young that technology is not evil, per se. It benefits mankind. The evil is in the both the wrong application of technology and the theft of the resultant benefits to the few, not the many. We must hurriedly produce STEM graduates in professions which we destroyed by regulation and/or government action. Fission and fusion will be in the mix, with geothermal, hydro etc. Trump is correct, we must bring back heavy industry to the US and deeply consider robotics and AI in a free society.
Or be conquered by others.
AGW True Believer propaganda still refuses to acknowledge that there have been many instances in geological history that Earthly temperatures were much hotter than today. Even though climate variability is the rule not the exception, Climatists do not believe in natural variation. History tells us there will someday be another ice age because we know they have come and gone many times.
Interestingly, having somewhat evolved and achieved a relative suprahuman understanding of the past and nature of things going back thousands of years, we see evidence of some of the earliest of humanity who lived before and without fire, who lived to about age 30, and who died leaving nothing behind more tangible than their footprints.
Quote: ” having somewhat evolved and achieved a relative suprahuman understanding of the past and nature of things going back thousands of years–”
No. On the contrary, we are stuck in a ‘make believe’ situation.
Example Q: “History tells us there will someday be another ice age”. We are at the tail-end of the past ice age; and near the end of its interglacial. Or, if you like, near the end of the interglacial of a coming ice-age.
The question is ‘when will it flip?’
And then, to keep to subject matter, how prepared are we (or our grandchildren, plugged permanently to a grid) to survive an abrupt change. Previous advanced civilisations perished over-night.
This present is a mechanised civilisation; that is turning its back on STEM qualities in preference for (to borrow an old phrase) ‘gas and gaiters’.
‘This present is a mechanised civilisation; that is turning its back on STEM qualities…’
Suggesting we should abandon technological advancement and/or… the use of machinery?
No; make sure we preserve it. And preserve it fully functional.
Big changes come abruptly, without slightest notice [one reason being because no one seems to want to look beyond the academic tether; and ‘peer review’ which seems to amount to stagnation]. In past discussions here those were referred to as Dragon King visitations.
Covid showed no one is prepared. It is the food chain that is prone to collapse first. Next the grid. Wind and solar as deployed are next to useless. The greater the automation, the higher the risk factor.
[speaking from -thankfully- rare experience here; you won’t see it coming; most don’t even had conceived the fact].
Exactly, Chris. Between subsidies, tax credits, and cheap (fossil-fueled) electricity, one can find examples where geothermal heat at some level, contributes something to a thermal cycle. To my knowledge, no one is predicting that geothermal will be a significant contributor to a renewable portfolio. The inconvenient fact is that no renewable will. Unfortunately, climate activists and politicians have turned this into a positive, using the oft-repeated claim that, “No one renewable is going to do the job. It will be a portfolio of technologies, some producing more than others.” That sounds so elegant and logical that it results in the world wasting a lot of time and huge resources “chasing windmills” (pun unintended). IF the planet is threatened over the next 100 years, the thing to do is adapt. The measure of how seriously lawmakers are taking these dire predictions is that no one I know of is taking it seriously, changing building codes, building walls and dikes, moving cities, or even making plans, should these climate forecasts be confirmed. In the meantime, we ignore and try to exterminate Evil Oil at our peril.
True, true…
“Our changing climate is already making it more difficult to produce food,” ~President @BarackObama, 2017
The tools of the Left are all political.
Haber yazınız çok harika.
bu tarz haberler bizim çok ilgimizi çekiyor.
Türkiyede en çok tercih edilen haber sayfalar arasındayız.
teknoloji haberleri bizde takip edilir.
Bir olay olarah haberleri takip etmek için bizi tercih edin.
Haber yazılımı en çok tercih edilen bir yazılıma sahibiz profesyonel haber yazılımı arayanların tercihi biz olmaktan mutluluk duymaktayız.
Meb haberler anlık son dakika olarak bizlerden okuyun.
Solar power is a risk to the electricity supply. From the article:
Solar is set to flood the region’s grid and send power prices plunging in the coming months, forcing atomic plants to dial back. France, which has the continent’s largest fleet, cut output at some reactors in recent days, adding to a debate about whether renewables generation needs to be curbed to safeguard the viability of other critical energy sources.
Nuclear plants were built to be the work horses of the power system, always on, providing a big chunk of stable capacity. For decades they’ve done that, but with so much green power sloshing around they’re not able to sell electricity during as many hours as they used to. That makes them less profitable to run and risks them shutting, despite being strategic assets in most countries that are needed for net zero goals.
Here is the source:bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-16/europe-s-nuclear-plants-are-being-sidelined-by-green-power-surge
The unmanageability of solar and wind, long predicted and discussed by skeptics of “green” energy, is coming to pass now.
The #1 danger from nuclear power plants – humans, especially malevolent humans that want to cause the maximum amount of death and destruction. It’s why every nuclear power plant has a small army of armed security personnel on guard 24hrs a day, 365 days a year ($$).
#2 They can’t be insured. If anything goes wrong, it’s the taxpayer that covers the losses and is left with the cleanup.
#3 Radioactive waste.
#4 Carnot cycle – Nukes need lots of cool water.
Aug 5, 2024
(https://www.ans.org/news/article-6268/french-nuclear-plant-lowers-output-due-to-hot-river-water/)
Back to the topic of geothermal, I did not see any mention of millimeter wave drilling. Quaise plans to drill holes up to 20 km (12.4 miles) deep.
https://www.quaise.energy/
“Using gyrotron-powered drilling platform vaporizes boreholes through rock and provides access to deep geothermal heat without complex downhole equipment.”
How deep a hole have they actually drilled? What did it cost.?Or is this just yet another dreamland scheme?
As I wrote, if it works and is economically viable, it will be be quickly adopted. Until then, forget counting on it.
Chris,
I first heard about their project about a year ago. Bloomberg covered them with a video segment yesterday. It’s a big reach no doubt but the prize is priceless.
Jack so it is still just a pipedream like a lot of stuff you post with breathless excitement. For better or worse, I operate in the real world where things have to work. Maybe for a change. you should try it some time.
Chris, I thought you essay on geothermal was quite interesting. I said millimeter wave drilling was a longshot but I would much rather see effort put into geothermal energy than sending humans to Mars. Anyway, here is a webinar with Quaise engineers explaining the various challenges they are working on. (March 2025)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1Br0u0jzKk
Their first pilot well might be here:
https://www.powerengineeringint.com/renewables/quaise-energy-pilots-deep-geothermal-to-decarbonise-gold-mine/
jim2, regarding your renewables point,
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/windmills-zero-gain.png
Pingback: SCIENCE, CLIMATE, ENERGY AND POLITICAL NEWS ROUNDUP 2025 APRIL | wryheat
“ Spain and Portugal power outage: what caused it, and was there a cyber-attack?
Several countries in Europe have been scrambling to restore electricity after a huge power cut caused blackouts”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/apr/28/spain-and-portugal-power-outage-cause-cyber-attack-electricity
A possible cause…
Induced atmospheric vibration was the cause of the Spanish power outage
Induced Atmospheric Vibration (IAV) in high-voltage power lines refers to low-frequency oscillations (typically 0.1–10 Hz) caused by corona discharge effects near the conductors.
Cause:
When high-voltage lines operate near their corona inception threshold, ionization of surrounding air molecules occurs, creating space charges (ions and electrons).
Under certain conditions (e.g., high humidity, rough conductor surfaces), these charges interact with the electric field, generating periodic electrohydrodynamic (EHD) forces.
Mechanism:
The EHD forces induce pressure waves in the air, causing vibrations in the conductor or nearby objects (e.g., insulators).
Unlike aeolian vibration (caused by wind) or galloping (large-amplitude motion), IAV is driven purely by electrical-atmospheric coupling.
Effects:
Usually low amplitude but can contribute to fatigue over time.
May exacerbate other vibration modes or cause audible hum.
Mitigation:
Smooth conductor surfaces (e.g., polished or coated wires).
Optimized voltage gradients to minimize corona.
https://www.forexlive.com/news/induced-atmospheric-vibration-was-the-cause-of-the-spanish-power-outage-20250428/
—
Another good reason to migrate to microgrids.
Almost all transmission lines nowadays have stock bridge dampers.
And No, microgrids are a solution to a problem only in your own mind
Or
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/alerts-watches-and-warnings
https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-news-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/
And
https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2025/04/23/solar-storms-are-driving-farmers-crazy/
Curse spellcheck. It stuffs things up if you don’t watch. I am certain Mr Stockbridge, inventor of one of the designs of damper, would not like the way his name gets changed.
With regards microgrids, what technology has vastly improved them that makes them different to what PE wrote a decade ago? https://judithcurry.com/2015/07/28/microgrids-and-clean-energy/
Chris,
If you follow the trends in technology, it’s the next logical step. Look at the history of communications network technology. It’s in tech’s DNA, decentralized networks avoiding single-point-of-failure architectures. You remind me of those old folks that could never figure out how cell phones work, much less what a ‘smart phone’ is.
Do you think nothing has changed in 10 years? Most microgrids are actually grid agnostic and can also function as an on-demand auxiliary power source for the grid. If you check into how these gigawatt scale AI/data centers are being built most are using the microgrid model with several alternative power sources (gas, fuel cells & renewables+batteries) plus the grid. All the new big data centers are being designed as grid-tied microgrids, even those who are betting on small modular reactors (SMR).
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/microgrids-grid-resilience-cybersecurity-ameresco/745287/
The last post on the link from Chris Morris says a lot
“Microgrids go way back. Edison’s little electric generating plant did it!” I agree and it happens to be my experience.
It was then said ‘the grid it too big to fail’. Fail it did, disastrously, because there was no thought of how to get back on line. So we created a micro-grid within the grid (my job, 50yrs ago) with a black-start diesel gen, with hand started air comp. Over the next 50 yrs islanding with black-start possibility was always a prime consideration.
Secondly, collateral black-outs, where one system pulls down all around with it had to be avoided. Hospital, airport, and one data centre were prime island systems that had to survive.
Problem: in my experience few engineers think of such situations. As per jacksmith4tx link, people moving into power systems from outside may rarely think of that matter; only of the benefits, but, I suspect, not of the security. In fact, after a bad experience, islanding for insurance against total blackout became the norm, such as in storms.
One other issue. The code for a black-start gen required no electronics had to be involved in the setup. Governors had to be fully mechanical. Question: are such factors considered today? I suspect things are not so, from what I see, near and far.
melita. There is a big difference between having a backup generation capability, even with equipment that can self synchronise, and having a microgrid. Frequency control, especially starting big motors, is the big problem.
Like you acknowledge, many critical facilities have the facilities to have stand-alone generation. All thermal plant does. So do hospitals. And the more critical the power supply needs to be, the more layers of protection there are. And have a DC emergency system separate from the AC one. More than a few plants have another generator just to maintain the batteries. Another layer.
However, the big elephant in the room though is the economics. As someone on a previous post pointed out, the difference between a scientist and an engineer is the latter can do CBAs. What may be justified for the cooling water system on a nuke is not for commercial facilities let alone domestic ones.
The grid blackstart capability systems I am aware of all use hydros. For them, the electronics is supplied by their emergency batteries. They seem to be pelton wheels to reduce complexity. But they still need battery power to operate their flow control devices. Once the unit is up, then it can charge up the batteries. But yes, most use mechanical or hydraulic governors. Voltage control isn’t the best either. They are really only to get the bigger hydro units at the station away.
The real trouble is they aren’t maintained and regularly tested. Spain was rumoured to have three of its five units unavailable – why they took so long to come back. Unfortunately to add to that, the design of the systems is too prone to single point of failure – invariably from things people hadn’t considered or didn’t think feasible. Fukushima & Callide proved that.
Chris: perhaps my idea of a micro grid (a proper micro grid) is somewhat different.
Two points: 1 they -some or many – have no hydro anywhere. 2 they absolutely do not want to be at the mercy of the ‘general or civil’ grid.
Yes ” the big elephant in the room though is the economics. ” I had something like this in mind. Link: https://www.veolia.com/en/solutions/pooling-resources-industrial-parks-whats-involved
An hour of blackout for many industrial works may mean days of tool resetting especially with plastics manufacture. Things have changed from a couple of decades ago – more pressure- but i think the basic considerations are still the same.
The problem seems to be a definition of a grid. PE may have a different view, but I would define a grid as : Generation, transmission, distribution and load system having full autonomy over frequency and voltage control functions within defined limits without the need for any interconnection. If there are interconnections, then they need autosynchronising capability. When interconnected, they no longer function as a grid but as part of a larger one. What is your definition?
Chris; I tend to agree with your definition, but it is a generalisation. Perhaps an example – from experience – may help.
Three interconnected grids (as per your definition, ie separate gen trans dist and load) , interconnected via reactors. One civil with freq control, one civil but no freq control, just set load; the third ex military, small but with critical infrastructure (micro-grid?).
Plus the fact that a disturbance can start from anywhere.
One needs to have a strategy for any eventuality.
Spain apparantly had 100% electric generation from renewables on april 16th, about 10 days before the blackout.
Worth noting that the spring (and fall) are the times of the year which have the lowest demand due to weather and have some of the highest electric generation from wind due to the weather. Just the opposite during the winter and summer, lower levels of electric generation from wind while having higher demand.
Anyone with good information on cause of Spain grid failure.
This is the best I can find.
https://www.ft.com/content/e6e1fe13-36f7-4fe5-84ba-77717dca68a8
Google search yields very little informative detail of value.
It is fairly easy to deduce the cause. All the advocacy press for the unreliables are out saying how good they are. Trying to get in first with deflecting the blame.
From all I have read about info put out by their grid organisation, a grid disturbance caused some big solar farms to trip out. This then caused a frequency disturbance which rippled through their grid, tripping others off. The load on the interconnectors importing went up, sucking down the whole of Europe. Then they disconnected as overload. And everything else collapsed as no inertia to allow load shedding and stabilisation.
A combination of both Odessa and South Australia. But the fundamental problem was not enough inertia.
Chris – Thanks –
Joe
I have no doubt that the Spanish grid company has already commissioned a top engineer to fully investigate the event. There will also be a French and Portuguese representative on the Investigation. There will be a significant number of specialists and experts also involved in the team and other would be co-opted if something unexpected is found.
There will be very keen interest from grid and generation companies around the world on the findings. Everyone will be checking to see that their systems aren’t susceptible to a similar type of event.
The investigation team will get all the information from all the substations and generating stations that will give millisecond or better event timing and status on all relevant equipment. There will also be info from all the dataloggers throughout their system. From that, they will be able to determine the exact sequence of events. I have also no doubt they will pull the settings on the protection devices and their last calibration info. There will also be testing done to see if the equipment identified as the causes were set correctly. Of particular interest would be the low voltage ride-through setting on the circuitbreaker tripping of their solar plant. That has caused grief in similar events elsewhere so would be an obvious candidate.
In a relatively short time, a preliminary report will be issued. Maybe a year later, the full report will come out. That will give a lot more detailed information and analysis. They will be written in very dry language. It is unlikely that there will be any “blame” but the findings will include policy and operational changes, many of which will have been enacted before publication. It is likely that some of them have already been done. No-one wants to be caught out twice. Use the reports of the events mentioned previously as the guide as to what they will find.
Having said that, my feeling is the reports will be able to be summed up in three sentences that many have already said: “We told you it would happen. It will get a lot worse unless you are prepared to spend bucketloads of money. Even then, it is unlikely to be as good as the system it replaces.” But that bluntness is why people like me would ever be invited to participate.
Chris,
There are indeed reports in the media (e.g. Wall Street Journal) that, while inconslusive, point to the lack of inertia in a grid dominated by renewables as you do. But renewables are the future, and technology advances. I don’t know if flywheels or batteries or something else will prove to be the more cost-effective solution. Your cost estimate of “bucketloads” is a little on the rough side.
David
No-one knows if they can develop new technology to properly replace the high speed generators driven by steam turbines synchronised to the grid. Even if it can be done, it will be years before it is proven to work under all conditions. Note how the chatter by advocacy groups isn’t there about grid forming batteries – the last next great thing that would solve all the problems? In events in Oz, like the testing done before Broken Hill event, There were failings that may be surmountable but at what cost?.
All of this means that without a technology, the end is just a utopian dream. The rainbow unicorn fart solution. And without a real solution, no-one can even guess the price. All we can say is it will cost a lot more than the current system which has already had massively escalated costs over last 25 years from the penetration of renewables. True comparison should be total grid cost over a 50 year period of the “solution” against HELE plant and Korean nukes. Those have known costs, proven performance and outstanding reliability.
In the 100 year window, why are the wind solar and batteries (the unreliables) the future? And is the cost to get there worth it?
Chris,
I respect your detailed knowledge of grid vulnerability issues. But as Yogi Berra, a famous American baseball player, said “It is hard to make predictions, especially about the future.” Your prediction of renewable doom is in sharp contrast to some others. The Economist predicts that the exponential growth of solar will change the world. (Google “Economist solar power” or find the June 22, 2024 issue.) Solar panels are made from plentiful sand. Enormous manufaturing economies of scale lie ahead. The Chinese are well on the way. Think cheap renewable energy, with perhaps some surcharges for grid stability add-ons.
Your mention and support of HELE and nuclear suggests that you recognize that today’s fossil fuel plants come with not-so-hidden costs associated with carbon emissions and Anthropogenic Global Warming. How many bucketloads of money did AGW cost us last year? What about ten years from now? You chose a 100-year window to evaluate new technology. How much about 2025 technology do you suppose was predictable in 1925? Sticking with the technology of the last 100 years is not an option.
As someone who worries about the status quo, I have sometimes been falsely accused on this blog of predicting an apocalypse. AGW is plain to see, but I do not see it as an “existential threat”. I see it as a challenge to find the best way forward, using technology to avoid the worst disruption. I don’t think we are being very smart at ths particular moment.
see comment
From the Shoddy Climate Studies department … Sabine Hossenfelder shreds a wild fire attribution paper.
In the video I took offense with a study from the World Weather Attribution centre about the LA wildfires from January. They put out a press release which says that quote
“we find that human-induced warming from burning fossil fuels made the peak January [fire weather index…] 35% more probable” end quote. And they also write that they have quote “high confidence that human-induced climate change, primarily driven by the burning of fossil fuels, increased the likelihood of the devastating LA wildfires” end quote.I pointed out that their own analysis does not support this claim because their result
is statistically insignificant. It’s compatible with climate change not having had any effect on the LA wildfires from January this year. Welcome to Science
LINK:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDsjeKo3u3o&t=728s
Well, we are burning a lot of stuff…
“Let us start by stating the obvious. After two centuries of ‘energy transitions’, humanity has never burned so much oil and gas, so much coal and so much wood. Today, around 2 billion cubic meters of wood are felled each year to be burned, three times more than a century ago.” – Jean-Baptiste Fressoz
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2025-04-28/energy-transition-the-end-of-an-idea/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/208904716-more-and-more-and-more
Actually, destruction of forests by fire is minimal. Most was destroyed by our need to eat. One third of forest was felled for agriculture.
https://ourworldindata.org/forest-area
And then there’s this:
The UN FAO measures deforestation based on how land is used. It measures the permanent conversion of forested land to another use, such as pasture, croplands, or urbanization. Temporary changes in forest cover, such as losses through wildfire or small-scale shifting agriculture, are not included in deforestation figures because it is assumed that they will regrow. If the use of land has not changed, it is not considered deforestation.
https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation
jim2,
I think you are missing my point. Try imagining how the ‘Arrow of Time’ hypothesis amplifies the effects of Jevon’s paradox.
We are there.
None of these ruminations on “burning” will save climate science from its shoddy practices.
Jim2,
Shoddy? Like Ms. Hossenfelder (and those who would quote her), who attacked a press release as a “study” because it didn’t include statistical uncertainties on the central value. Here is the actual work: (87 page scientific report, with statistical analysis).
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/WWA-scientific-report-LA-wildfires-1.pdf
Enjoy.
At about 5:33 minutes in her video she is discussing the table on page 18 of the paper you linked. This table:
Table 3.2: Synthesised reanalysis and model results for changes in FWI1X associated with increasing GMST, as
presented in Figures 3.3 and 3.4. Statistically significant increases (decreases) in probability and
intensity are highlighted in dark blue (orange), while non-significant increases are highlighted in light
blue (orange).
This isn’t the press release.
Yeah, did you notice the statistically significant ones that you just referenced (and that Sabine said don’t exist)?
That’s not what she said. Maybe you should actually watch the video???
BA scores own goal
Jim2,
Dr. Hossenfelder: “I pointed out that their own analysis does not support this claim because their result is statistically insignificant. It’s compatible with climate change not having any effect on the LA wildfires. Welcome to Science”
I am not surprised that Jim2 doesn’t understand the meaning of statistical significance (probability), a bit of a shock that a theoretical physicist doesn’t either. Don’t you wonder why she had to delete her last attempt on this subject? Sorry, YouTube is not science.
Rob. F U, yeah, and with a hockey stick.
Her last attempt was the same as the second one. She thought she made a mistake, but later saw she was right the first time about the uncertainty interval.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1500796112
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4669
Lots of studies noting comparable level of fires during the MWP.
Bushaw provides : Here is the actual work: (87 page scientific report, with statistical analysis).
https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/wp-content/uploads/WWA-scientific-report-LA-wildfires-1.pdf
Note that it is only a 59 page report, dated 1/28/2025, (the fires ended Jan 31, 2025) which is pretty fast to reach scientific conclusions.
Also worth noting the most of the statitiscal analysis only goes back to 1940 and few go back to 1900. None of the statistical analysis oes back prior to 1900. Why? Another case cherrypick dates? Truncating inconvenient Data?
David Andrews:
You make the assumption that rising levels of CO2 in our atmosphere is responsible for “AGW”
It is a hoax! CO2 actually has ZERO climatic effect.
The actual cause of our warming is decreasing levels of atmospheric SO2 aerosol pollution, primarily due to Clean Air legislation, and Net-Zero activities, although 2-3 years between VEI4 and higher volcanic eruptions will also cause temperatures to rise.
EVERY increase in anomalous global temperatures can be associated with a decrease in SO2 aerosol pollution, and EVERY decrease can be associated with increased levels of SO2 aerosol pollution.
We are wasting trillions of dollars in trying to control the amount of the trace gas of CO2 in our atmosphere!
burlhenry,
“We are wasting trillions of dollars in trying to control the amount of the trace gas of CO2 in our atmosphere!”
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Sad, but true.
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
2025 continues to be colder than 2024. From UAH sat data:
2024 Jan 0.80
2024 Feb 0.88
2024 Mar 0.88
2024 Apr 0.94
2024 Avg 0.87
2025 Jan +0.45
2025 Feb +0.50
2025 Mar +0.58
2025 Apr +0.61
2025 Avg +0.53
I am relieved – at those rates, we should be back to preindustrial temperatures in 5 years or so.
It was predicted that the Springtime phenomenon of May Gray and June Gloom (No-Sky July) in Southern California would disappear a decade ago as a result of AGW but… still happening!
…panelists at a May 1 discussion on nuclear energy expansion. Few Paris Climate Accord nations are meeting decarbonization goals, but with 31—including the United States—signing onto a $300 billion pledge to triple nuclear energy generation by 2050, those aims remain viable…“This shift has been long overdue”.
William Magwood, director-general of the Nuclear Energy Agency, a Paris-based liaison of government organizations that coordinates practices and policies related to advanced nuclear technology:
During COP29, “countries were expected to bring plans to show how they’ve already reached their targets,” Magwood said, “and many of them discovered they were not able to present plans that were going to reach the targets….behind-the-scenes, when I visit with energy ministers and other officials in different capitals, they would admit to me they had no idea how these targets were going to be met.”
100 Years Of Certitude
Advanced reactor designs, including portable small nuclear reactors, are completing demonstrations and prototype deployments and are on the cusp of being commercially available.
These new reactors can be mass-produced and “have internalized the current state of knowledge” to bring greater efficiency at lower costs, Holgate said.
“That’s different than the past,” Magwood said. “Nuclear has always been kind of a one-off. You build one here, and you go away for 10 years. You build one there, you go away for 20 years. That’s always kept them very expensive.”
But with mass reactor production with standard features, costs will significantly decline and nuclear energy will grow quickly, he said.
“If you really want to see cost come down, have a big market, continuous manufacturing, and then you’re really in business,” Magwood said.
The Nuclear Energy Agency he leads is a component of the 38-nation Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the successor to the Organization for European Economic Co-operation established in 1948 by European recipients of United States’ assistance under the Marshall Plan after World War II.
Magwood said virtually all utility-scale nuclear power plants built in the next 20 years will use contemporary technologies, noting his agency is tracking more than 90 emerging nuclear technologies.
He doubts more than a few will advance to demonstration stages. “We’re going to see Darwin kick into effect here. There will not be 90 technologies when the smoke clears,” he said, not venturing a guess at what “a relatively manageable number” of feasible technologies would be.
More here:
https://thepatriotlight.com/560775/small-reactor-innovations-spur-global-interest-in-nuclear-energy/
Fossil fuels have chemical energy, when burned the energy is released and it is transformed into electricity on electric plants.
When burned, there is a need for a new supply.
Batteries accumulate chemical energy and then they release electricity.
When emptied they need charging.
So a million tons of coal vs a million tons of batteries.
Which one is cheaper?
Because there is not any problem with CO2 emissions. CO2 is the food for plants.
Just imagine Earth without CO2 – a lifeless dead planet !!!
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https://www.cristos-vournas.com
I worry about large increases in nuclear fission plants built everywhere and the fragility of constant external electricity needed to keep them safe. There was the Carrington event less than 200 years ago. There would be a catastrophic disruption to the world if it happened again. Just recently Pakistan and India came close to escalating to nuclear exchanges. The world geopolitical climate feels like pre WW 1 to me. Who can predict how WW3 would work out if it happened? Israel with its hundreds of nuclear weapons and its disregard for restraint of civilians is a real danger if it felt existentially threatened. Now if commercially viable thorium plants were available I would feel a lot better about substantially increased nuclear generating plants.