EGS, Electricity and Energy Policy

Electricity is arguably the most direct, simple, clean and sustainable source of power for practically all human-driven applications beyond the campfire.

Rooftop solar, solar thermal and geothermal with a policy that requires self sufficiency for all new residential construction would be a huge contribution toward reduction of atmospheric carbon.

At the same time, geothermal heat is arguably the most direct, simple, economic and sustainable means of generating electricity for base-load and grid-connected use. MIT's 2006 study makes a definitive case. Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) utilize advanced engineering refinements to reach and use the Earth's heat, directly from beneath each site, practically anywhere on earth. EGS plants produce no green house gas (GHG) emissions and are thus ideal candidates for replacing fossil fuel and nuclear plants and the Commodities Industrial Complex directly.

I am promoting a project to research, develop and model EGS for use in New York. This project would demonstrate how to exploit EGS to replace all fossil fuel, wind and solar for base-load electrical generation in our region and virtually anywhere within 30 or 40 years. Location of a research site and funding are priorities.

I have received encouraging response from local environmentalists, NYS legislators, Congressmembers, NYSERDA and DOE. See http://thnktnk.net/drill.html for further explication and references. See The New, New Deal for further explication and references.

Renewables?

Often overheard in "green" messages, the generic "renewables" is used to mean bio-fuels, solar, wind, Geo and hydro! "Renewable" only works with library books.

Geothermal power generation (Geo) is seldom recognized as the most cost-effective, least polluting, least resource-intensive AND most endurable alternative to nuclear, coal, gas, petroleum, wind and solar for base/regional power generation. Hydro is the only close competitor to Geothermal -- except for the negative environmental impacts of artificial reservoirs and its dependence on a continuous water resource.*

That probably sounds like a baseless proposition if one were to base judgment on the truly baseless and dismissive assertion, "... the hot temperatures required for power generation are found primarily in the West". The President, the Administration, Congress and most of the rest of us ignore or are innocently ignorant of the enormous potential of Geothermal power generation (25% of Northern California's power comes from Geo; Nevada is the fastest growing developer!) and the enormous long-term environmental and economic burden of the "commodities industrial complex".

Misleading and sometimes absurd coal, gas and oil commercials don't help: "America's Fuel: Clean Coal" or "Clean Gas" or "fulfilling the promise of energy independence" or "energy for the next 80 years". Unfortunately there are no commercials for "unlimited power less than ten miles from everywhere on Earth" or "no GHGs, particulate free!" or "energy for the next billion years".

Once a Geo plant is established, everything except the wires are on-site. All generating equipment and processes are conventional and virtually identical with any other plant that boils water and turns a turbine, except that the "fuel" is directly underfoot. Ownership can be private or public, self-supported authorities -- like water and sewage plants, toll roads, bridges or the Hoover Dam. Production of Geo is not based on direct or services-oriented income and profits from mining, drilling, refining, storage, transportation, re-storage, processing, burning, and trading commodities simply to boil water. The cost of the electricity produced through Geo is not based on commodities markets.

Energy Independence? Geo has the proven capacity to supply all future base-load electricity for the US -- no kidding. Every airport and every domestic military base could produce its own power and power its neighbors. Plants situated on public lands (even Interstate rights-of-way) could provide most of our needs. And don't let Halliburton, Exxon, BP or any of the others to tell you, "It's too deep" ... they drill to the required depths regularly. Can't the drilling cause earthquakes? Think about highway and subway tunnels, aqueducts and ... oil and gas wells all over the world. There is no one alternative for our energy needs, but for regional/base electrical power supply, there is
none better than Geo.

For more, see http://thnktnk.net/drill.html (for references) and/or
http://thnktnk.net/RachelMaddow.html (policy).
*http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf (seminal research)

Against the tide ...

To my mind, the most convincing "competitive" analyses for policy change have been sponsored by NREL and the DOE. Though often against the growing tide of $ from the Market to politicians & policymakers, their tools and studies consistently show the clear strategic environmental and financial benefit (for investors, developers AND the lungs of the 99%!) of choosing EGS for base-load electricity generation. http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/lcoe_documentation.html

Some of their $tudieS, though, consistently focus on the benefits of slowly dragging out the transition (coal > oil > gas > nuclear > solar > wind) for the 1% and commodities profiteers.
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/55538.pdf
Take a look at the corporate sponsors.

James Hanson, re: GalileoFirefly

Thank you for your newsletter (last, http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130107_GalileoFireflies.pdf.) The story about WakaWaka is inspiring.  It wouldn't hurt if we gave a WakaWaka to every school-child in the world and turned off all the lights! Meanwhile, I am ramping up a marketing effort to get EGS on the federal policy agenda. Switching to WakaWaka from the kerosene lantern is a great metaphor for switching to EGS from commodity burning to generate base-load regional electricity!

To give us light, those kerosene lanterns required a whole GHG-spewing, addictive supply chain that grandpa tended to forget about or ignore -- drill, refine, store, transport, store, divide, retail, deliver -- because it seemed the most productive solution to his need. Every time it ran out of kerosene, grandpa paid real money embedded with profit to a capitalist for some more. Remember the smell and smoke (GHGs)? The Commodities Industrial Complex was already in place to serve and profit from him as it does much more insidiously and profitably from us, here in the office electrified with commodities & their GHGs, all warm and cozy, lit up while we drive our computer and internet.

EGS, like WakaWaka, once manufactured, installed and "connected" to an unlimited, GHG-free energy supply (within 10 miles of everywhere on earth), could light the night forever.

Below is a copy of a recent email regarding EGS I wrote last evening to a former neighbor, recently appointed District Leader for Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney. With the help of Congress, NY and the DOE, I believe we could start Project Hades sooner rather than later. Maybe within the length of time we replaced steam with diesel, we could generate all our electricity GHG-free.

[see below ]

Congratulations, Ed /Poughkeepsie Journal

Ed Brancati, District Director, Office of Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney

Dear Ed,
Congratulations and best wishes for continuing your exceptional devotion to public service from an old Goldens Bridge neighbor! I hope you and your family are well. I want you to know about a special devotion of mine that I've shared with, among many others, Congressman Maloney and others on your staff -- Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

I've begun recruiting support and exploring how to proceed with a "marketing effort" (can you tell?) for a project I've come to believe not only is possible but should be at the top of our national economic, energy and environmental priorities. Its product and results can't and won't happen overnight. The sooner we begin, though, we can accelerate a sensible and economically sound transformation in our method of generation of base-load electricity and replacement of our suicidal burning of commodities. EGS, along with conventional geothermal, is an obvious, working alternative with literally unlimited, pollution-free potential. The MIT report mentioned below was sponsored by the DOE in 2006, its results recently confirmed by another study.

Here's a brief description from a Poughkeepsie Journal article promoting my presentation at the first of this year's environmental evenings at the Beacon Sloop Club (Friday, January 18 at 7 pm)

"Vane Lashua, a member of the Geothermal Energy Association, will speak on direct electricity generation from deep geothermal energy. A team from MIT [in collaboration with a number of government, business and academic institutions] has estimated that such systems could supply more than 2,000 times the total annual energy use of the United States. Existing geothermal and enhanced geothermal systems generate no greenhouse gases, use only the heat of the earth from directly beneath the facilities to generate electricity, use conventional turbine generation above ground and feed the existing electrical grid. Technical and economic challenges still exist for this emerging technology. Lashua will discuss the need for a national effort similar to the Apollo program to refine and develop new techniques to reach the unlimited and pollution-free resource within 10 miles of everywhere on Earth — straight down."
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20130113/NEWS04/301130023

I look forward to seeing you in the office and discussing how best to move ahead.

Sincerely,
Vane

EGS Promo for Beacon Sloop Club, Jan. 18, 7pm

The coal, oil, gas and nuclear commodities industry -- the Commodities Industrial Complex -- has so successfully manipulated its vast public relations, political and infrastructure network that we and our government simply ignore its enormous environmental impact. Finding, mining/drilling, refining, storing, transporting, and locally storing a commodity results in enormous GHG emissions*. All that goes on just to create even more disastrous quantities of GHGs and waste while burning them -- simply to boil water or spin a turbine with its deadly exhaust!


Using the heat of the Earth in place provides a spectacular alternative. Expediting its development could actually change our focus from production of commodities -- and the concomitant destruction of our environment -- to the wise use of energy itself.

It is my contention that we need a focused, federally sponsored effort -- similar to the Apollo program or the interstate highway system -- to promote, refine and develop Enhanced  Geothermal Systems (EGS) to tap the unlimited and pollution-free resource within 10 miles of everywhere on Earth -- straight down. Within several decades of such an effort we could supply practically all base-load electricity with virtually no greenhouse gas emissions -- and dramatically reduce humanity's energy "footprint"! Not only could we generate electricity, but could also provide heat directly -- to a military base or airport, for instance.
 

Existing geothermal and EGSs generate no greenhouse gases; use only the heat of the earth from directly beneath the facility; use conventional generation technology above ground; feed the existing electrical grid; and cost-effectively, competitively generate electricity.

Employed 40 years in information technology, primarily in the publishing industry, I have served as programmer, analyst, project manager and director of publishing, editorial and operations systems. Independently since 2007, I have studied and written about the benefits and economics of geothermal systems. Most recently, I have focused specifically on direct electricity generation called Enhanced (or Engineered) Geothermal Systems (EGSs). I have attended geothermal conferences, gathered information from academic, industry and power generation companies, visited geothermal generation facilities and spoken directly with international financial, engineering, construction and political resources. 

[*for some perspective on GHG in production operations alone, see http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9036527&contentId=7067444]

An Inconvenient Truth:No matter what and everything we do is Natural.

Written in response to published comments on the Newtown shootings asserting that our world is falling apart  and that we have lost our way regardless of the fact that we are "the highest part of Nature".

No matter what and everything we do is Natural. Yes, we humans are social. We form groups to help us survive and succeed. Our world is not falling apart. Meanwhile, we are not the highest part of Nature. No matter what and everything we do is Natural.

Our success at reproducing and survival as a species has depended on humanity's ever more creative, cooperative and exploitive consumption of Nature's resources to satisfy our ever-evolving definition of our "basic" needs  -- to the detriment of ourselves and many species who surround us. Meanwhile, that's Natural. Many other species have preceded us to success, collapse or extinction because of these same natural processes.

The success and demise of civilizations is Natural as well. We celebrate the achievements and monuments of Egypt and Syria, of Persia, Greece and Rome, of "the Church" or "the One", of Spain and France and Empires galore. We seldom reflect on their consumption, waste and selfish cruelty  suffered on other groups and their environment that led to their success and "evolution", naturally.

Our tribal nature has helped in our success because we can, and tend to, blame other groups and/or external forces -- Nature -- for our woes and selfish failures. Focusing on differences between our group and others has led us to excuse our mass-killing of millions of "others" every couple of decades, to ignore or exploit the suffering of other groups and/or to defend against other groups' -- and Nature's -- real or perceived attempts to succeed in stealing the resources of our group. And here we are, Successful, forgetful and ... Natural.