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MIT spin-off Quaise says it's going to use hijacked fusion technology to drill the deepest holes in history, unlocking clean, virtually limitless, supercritical geothermal energy that can re-power fossil-fuelled power plants all over the world. The heat beneath our feet Everyone knows the Earth's core is hot, but maybe the scale of it still has the power to surprise. Temperatures in the iron center of the core are estimated to be around 5,200 °C (9,392 °F), generated by heat from radioactive elements decaying combining with heat that still remains from the very formation of the planet – an event of...

The Tel Aviv municipality on Saturday informed dozens of residents of two apartment buildings in the center of the city that they may return to their homes, days after they were evacuated when the ground suddenly began heating up and emitted steam. Experts who were called in did not detect any dangerous substances at the site or any risk to the buildings’ stability, and the source of the heat was said by the municipality to be "trapped energy" from an unknown source. . . . On Thursday, residents of an apartment building on the northern end of Ibn Gabirol Street...

Lava from Hawaii’s erupting Kilauea volcano has reached the Puna Geothermal Venture plant, covering a well and threatening another. At the same time, fast-moving lava flows are now threatening nearby communities, prompting new evacuations. “Lava flow from Fissures 7 and 21 crossed into PGV [Puna Geothermal Venture] property overnight and has now covered one well that was successfully plugged,” declared the Hawaii Civil Defense Agency in a statement released on Sunday, May 27 at 6:00 pm local time. “That well, along with a second well 100 feet [30 meters] away, are stable and secured, and are being monitored. Also due...

The quake hit at 8:41 AM local time, less than a mile from the surface. A second smaller quake hit five minutes later. "The earthquake was the largest in the Geysers area in the past 30 years. This magnitude 5.0 earthquake is only marginally larger than previous earthquakes at the Geysers," USGS Research geophysicist J. Ole Kaven wrote to SFGATE. "This earthquake occurred on the western margin of where previous seismicity has been located." ... "The historical record of earthquakes in this area suggests that earthquakes as large as today's are likely to be near the upper magnitude limit," wrote...

The ongoing California Valley fire sweeping across communities has destroyed or badly damaged five of Calpine’s power plants that part of the company’s large geothermal complex. The wildfire has taken out several of the 14 geothermal power plants in the complex known as The Geysers, said Calpine Corp. spokesman Brett Kerr, but some of the remaining plants are still contributing electricity to the northern California region. The cooling towers at five of the plants are damaged or destroyed, Kerr said, but the steam turbines are unharmed, which should allow for quicker repairs and replacements. “We are confident we will have...

So it IS global warming melting it – just not the way they meanGeothermal heating - from within the Earth's core, not the possibly warming air or sea - beneath the much-studied West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been measured for the first time ever, and been found to be "surprisingly high".The West Antarctic sheet is the part of the Antarctic ice cap thought to be easiest to melt and thus worries over global warming and sea-level rise lead to it being investigated much more than other parts of the frozen austral continent. Some parts of it, for instance the Pine...

Well done Costa Rica, well done. The Cental American country has achieved a major clean energy milestone, meeting 100 percent of its power demand with renewable energy for 75 straight days. “The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the state-owned power supplier Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a press release. The ICE says the country's zero-emission milestone was enabled thanks to heavy rainfalls at four hydroelectric power facilities in the first quarter of 2015. These downpours have meant that, for the months of January, February and so far March,...

NN.COM › Earth Matters › Energy Now is the time to invest in real geothermal energy Thousands of drilling rigs are idle. Why not put laid-off roustabouts to work drilling for renewable energy? By: Lloyd Alter Sun, Feb 22, 2015 at 12:17 PM 13Facebook 52Twitter 0Pinterest 0Google+   Hey, if we can drill for oil, we can drill for heat. (Photo: Getty Images, Roustabouts at Spindletop) In a recent post on ground source heat pumps, I purposely used a photo of a geothermal installation in Iceland to make the point that geothermal energy was a very different thing. Many complained...

Why isn't there more use of geothermal energy for power plants? Here's another use for fracking: expanding access to hot rocks deep beneath Earth’s surface for energy production. In April Ormat Technologies hooked up the first such project—known in the lingo as an enhanced geothermal system, or EGS—to the nation's electric grid near Reno, Nev. "The big prize is EGS," enthuses Douglas Hollett, director of the Geothermal Technologies Office at the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE). "The key is learning how to do it in a reliable way, in a responsible way." By some estimates, the U.S. could tap as...

I just wrote a check this morning for my monthly power bill, made payable to American Electric Power (NYSE: AEP) in the amount of $260.02.  I'm not alone. AEP serves five million residential and business customers in 11 states.  Rain or shine, that's five million checks that pour in each month. They add up fast. AEP's utility segment collected $14 billion in revenue in 2011. But on closer inspection, the company only retained $2.8 billion in operating profits. Where did the other $11 billion go? Well, nearly half ($4.4 billion) was spent on fuel needed to run the firm's power...

Scientists Identify Massive Geothermal Hotspot In UtahConsumer Energy ReportOctober 3,2012 Following two full years of study, scientists have confirmed that they have identified a huge geothermal hotspot in Utah, presenting the possibilities of exploitation of the find for cheap energy production purposes. The area in question, covering an area of about 100 square miles, lies in Utah’s Black Rock Desert basin, south of Delta. During the two-year study, researchers drilled nine deep wells in the basin in an effort to confirm that water at very high temperatures was close enough to the surface to be manipulated, potentially allowing it to...

A geothermal energy company with a $98.5 million loan guarantee from the Obama administration for an alternative energy project in Nevada - which received hearty endorsements from Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - faces financial problems, and the company’s auditors have questioned whether it can stay in business. Much like Solyndra LLC, a California solar-panel manufacturer with a $535 million federal loan guarantee that went bankrupt, Nevada Geothermal Power (NGP) has incurred $98 million in net losses over the past several years, has substantial debts and does not generate enough cash from its current operations...

Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise. They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn’t dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes — without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents. Renewable energy has been held back by cheap natural gas, weak demand for...

Here we go again: another gigantic taxpayer-funded loser, courtesy of President Obama's administration -- and this one seems to have helped friends of Harry Reid. Eric Lipton and Clifford Kraus of the New York Times cover the tale: In a remote desert spot in northern Nevada, there is a geothermal plant run by a politically connected clean energy start-up that has relied heavily on an Obama administration loan guarantee and is now facing financial turmoil. The company is Nevada Geothermal Power, which like Solyndra, the now-famous California solar company, is struggling with debt after encountering problems at its only operating...

Engineers have started drilling a hole deep below Newcastle in the search for a renewable energy source.The Newcastle and Durham Universities team plans to sink a hole 2,000m (6,562ft) below the planned Science Central site, in the city centre. Scientists hope the £900,000 project will result in water at a temperature of about 80C (176F) being pumped out. The plan is the water could be used to heat the site and surrounding city centre buildings. The project, which started on Wednesday, is expected to last six months with the team hoping to pump out the first hot water in June....

, Markus Häring caused some 30 earthquakes -- the largest registering 3.4 on the Richter scale -- in Basel, Switzerland. Häring is not a supervillain. He's a geologist, and he had nothing but good intentions when he injected high-pressure water into rocks three miles below the surface, attempting to generate electricity through a process called enhanced geothermal. But he produced earthquakes instead, and when seismic analysis confirmed that the quakes were centered near the drilling site, city officials charged him with $9 million worth of damage to buildings. The geothermal drill in Switzerland was shut down after it caused 100...

I’ve received a copy of a new regulation framework for geothermal energy in Europe. Handed to me by a colleague last week, whose associate led the drafting of the document. Geothermal is still an infant industry. In many countries, governments lack even a basic mechanism for granting licenses on geothermal projects. There just isn't any legal-work around giving a company rights to hot groundwater. The new framework attempts to address this and several other issues for European governments. Giving them suggestions on how to administer and foster geothermal projects within their borders. Much of the document is straight-forward. The licensing...

Markus Haering, who designed the geothermal project, rejected allegations that he deliberately damaged properties and said local people knew the risks. The deep drilling underground caused a series of earthquakes in 2006, including one of 3.4 magnitude, rattling residents of the north-western city of Basel. Geopower Basel, the project leader, has already paid around 9 million Swiss francs (£5.3 million) in compensation for cracked walls and other damage on properties near the experiment. The project was suspended at the time and shut down last week after a risk analysis concluded that more quakes could follow if the drilling continued.

December 17, 2009 Head of Geopower Basel faces jail for causing earthquakes David Charter A geologist searching for cheap, clean energy is facing up to five years in jail for causing a series of earthquakes after drilling 3 miles (5km) down in an effort to generate electricity from hot rocks. Markus Häring, the head of Geopower Basel, a thermal energy company, was testing pioneering technology to blast cold water deep underground and create steam to drive electric turbines. Mr Häring’s company had to stop when it recorded an earthquake measuring 3.4 on the Richter scale and a series of smaller...

A $60 million project to extract renewable energy from the hot bedrock deep beneath Basel, Switzerland, was shut down permanently on Thursday after a government study determined that earthquakes generated by the project were likely to do millions of dollars in damage each year. The project, led by Markus O. Häring, a former oilman, was suspended in late 2006 after it generated earthquakes that did no bodily harm but caused about $9 million in mostly minor damage to homes and other structures. Mr. Häring is to go to trial next week on criminal charges stemming from the project. [...] The...