Sounds great, now dr. evil will actually get his plan of "Liquid Hot MAGMA" to work for him, also good for the enviorment and people also.

I wonder if "money" will cause the civilization to collapse? It's just a concept and isn't a physical reality.

If the US hired a firm to do this the tax dollars would be pay to the firm, they would pay their employees, both would pay taxes and would spend on consumer goods. So, there would be zero money lost, unless a massive amount of that was dumped into another country's economy, which is unlikely.

What I'm saying is that almost no project costs money, if the money comes from the feds.

The one thing that concerns me with geoThermal is long term impact of heavy use. The core heat is a vast supply, but each exchange cools it a tiny amount. The molten core is responsible for our magnetic field that protects us from solar & other radiation and who knows how much it needs to cool down to change that.

Thing, i was thinking about that too. the good thing in relation to that is that, if it's true, we might only need 1% to deliver substantial energy. BUT i still think we need NASA grade testing and research to address the cooling factor concern. is it so small of a cooling effect that the earth easily compensates? or is it going to upset the delicate balance and destroy the planet from the inside? that second one is too big to ignore. so a definite enormous research effort for that. also, even if one plant in austrailia in negligible in cooling the mantle, imagine hundreds of plants around the world. and no, i dont want to poo-poo on this clean energy either. but i think these are some big implications we need to be careful of.

and another thing, something like this would be wat someplace like califoria has been begging for, but it rests on a fault line (the friggin ring of fire, no less). unexpected and possibly huge earthquakes cant be good for two or three miles of pipe.

Google the Deep Heat Mining Project that was based in Basel Switzerland.

The project was stopped because their activities caused localized earthquakes that damaged a nearby town.

TANSTAAFL!

yeah, i can't see how this can be considered "green"?

This is definately the least green energy possible. Geothermal energy is horribly corrosive. Sulfur and dozens of other toxic gasses leak into the air and corrode the piping material, so the only way to prevent that is to plate the pipes in platinum or gold, which probably adds another billion, and sides the pressure that the crust exerts on the magma would push a very large amount up and onto the surface, so essentially we would end up making our own volcano, deadly and useless for 10billion dollars

Well, I don't know much about the details, but for a substantial heat exchange using a closed system, you wouldn't need to go all the way to the magma. Think of it this way, if you were to warm your hands by a fireplace, you don't have to thrust them into the fire. However, the issue about the effect of this small amount of cooling of the core is still something to be worried about.

I'm extremely happy to read that I wasn't the only one thinking: "What about the planet?"

OK, case in point, I'm probably not going to know in 26000 years time what the effects will be, however it's important in this day and age to think long term and consider the ramifications of performing such an action. While it's certainly a great idea, the problem is can the effect be reversed if it were to cause harm to the planet?

I'd imagine, the answer would be: "Not easily."

While it's a great idea and infrastructure compared with benefits would certainly not be an issue, I can't help thinking that this would be like turning every square inch of the Earths deserts into furtile land. (I used to think about this as a kid, dreaming up ideas to steer clouds and water the desert to create more land, I learnt years later and much to my surprise that the Earth needs a certain percentage of desert in order to draw salt out and a whole host of other reasons).

To conclude, great idea, but requires a lot more thought and input (also isn't the Earth's core temperatures somewhere around 3000 to 5000 degrees celcius? There would be an enormous engineering component to this project beyond the idea that would surely create a lot of challenges to say the least).

Sean A. Curtin
(Spaceresearcher)

true, the atmosphere, we know more about. it's easily observable. but under the crust, when something goes wrong, we can only either guess really hard or wait for the effects to happen. come to think of this, this *might* be a really dangerous energy design. and i hate saying that. but i think we can measure global warming easier then mantle cooling. we know that there juuuuuuuust *might* be a way for nature to fix the atmosphere. but can we be sure that the earth can compensate for this cooling? and dont like this either.

i like potato chips... i bet they'd taste awesome if cooked with the planet's own furnace.

Hi everyone! I'm a geologist, and hold a geothermal diploma specialisation - although I don't currently work in this field - but I feel I need to comment on a few things here. When things like "least green energy possible", "horribly corrosive", and "end up making our own volcano".

First of all - as for magma being squeezed, volcanoes popping up, and the death of the Earth's core - if anyone ever had the money to drill deep enough into magma, they'd be wasting it, as their bits and drill-string melted long before they got to it. Geothermal wells are drilled into ROCK - solid rock. I don't like to say "never", but it's one of those "so unlikely it'd have to be a Hollywood scare-movie plot" scenarios.

The reasons geothermal energy isn't used more often, and in more places, are availability and cost. Availability is limited by the heat of the rocks underneath you, and how deep you have to drill in order to get to an economically viable temperature. Cost is related, in that drilling and pipes cost a lot of money, and the amount of electricity generated needs to be greater than the running costs of course, which is tied back into that heat differential.

The cool spot problem is significant - but only locally. What's being extracted in geothermal energy generation is hot water. This water may take tens of thousands of years to migrate from its source, through the hot rocks, and back toward the near-surface, so that when it is extracted, the water level will tend to fall, as will the temperature of it. This can lead to areas of natural geothermal activity (like Yellowstone), becoming less active, and possibly dangerous as more naturally corrosive elements are dissolved into the groundwater, and acid lakes form that can leach the rocks above them, and make them unstable. That's why all those pretty green and yellow hot pools have warning signs around them.

Of course, re-injecting the water back into the ground after it's been used makes sense, but by now it's cold, and putting it back into the system will sap heat from it as it warms the water up again. Also, as it takes a long time for the water to naturally circulate through the rocks, this also means that whereas once the production wells were at the right depth, over time they will lose their water and production will slow down. These issues are only related to local surface features and energy production - I'd be very surprised if they had any effect whatsoever on the Earth's core - or even the mantle - as the rocks we live on (averaging 30km thick), are such a tiny, insignificant part of the Earth's total volume.

So it's not the be-all-and-end-all of energy production. It's actually quite tricky. And most countries don't have the natural resources to make it work. My country - New Zealand - is lucky in that it does, as does the USA, Italy, Iceland etc - anyone with volcanic activity. Australia? Not so much. They'll be counting on the Deep Hot Rocks model, which involves tapping the heat that the deep rocks hold just by virtue of them being deep: insulated and closer to the Earth's mantle. Which means deeper wells, and a lot more money for drilling (and drilling success in this kind of exploration is never guaranteed...).

One thing to think about related to this is the latest plan favoured by the UK govt in the disposal of the nuclear waste from their proposed new nuclear power scheme. "Deep Geological Burial", and it's by far and away a more frightening prospect for humankind and the environment than geothermal extraction. It seems that the underground is a black hole to some, a place where anything can be thrown and forgotten about - the perfect "Out of sight, out of mind" solution. This scheme assumes that we can drill far enough down to block errant radiation, and that we can seal the rock perfectly and for a long time against earthquakes, eruptions, corrosion, compression and - most of all - human error in designs, workmanship and maintenance. However, these are just my views and as the Royal Society - the UK's national academy of science - has stated that it's the best option for nuclear waste disposal, I must be wrong. I just should've thought that creating less waste would be preferable...Caithness power station in Scotland began decommissioning in 1988, and is scheduled for completion in 2015 - 27 years - at a cost of US$9.0Bn...

Thanks,
Bazco101

P.S. CC Fan: I don't think it's common practice to "plate the pipes in platinum or gold" - HDPE (plastic), and coated steel pipes are most commonly used. Sulphur and dozens of others gases aren't leaked into the atmosphere - the well-heads at the tops of the pipes control these issues, or SHOULD do. The worst you usually get is some localised sulphur dioxide, hazardous only to the workers at the plant (which isn't perfect, sure). CC Fan: do you work for a petroleum company, by any chance?