Geothermal Energy is Abundant

Geothermal Energy is heat energy created by the molten rock beneath our Earth's crust. It is turned into electricity by the same method as a coal, natural gas, or nuclear energy--namely heated steam turning a turbine to induce a current in wire.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient

Above is an image dissecting the different layers of the Earth. The crust layer is what protects us from the geothermal energies deep beneath. The crust is only 5 km to 30 km thick. Temperatures in the crust range between 392 °F to 752 °F.¹ No drilling project has ever gone very far below 20 km, but if we were able to drill to the upper mantle, we would have access to geothermal temperatures between 932° and 1,652 °F.²

The temperature in the crust reliably increases by 25° C every 1 km we drill downwards.³ Geothermal power plants only need temperatures ranging from 57° C to 180° C, to operate, although temperatures above 180° will increase efficiency. Nevertheless, following the 25° C every 1 km model, we would only need to drill 2-3 km down to get operating geothermal range.

Temperature gradient increasing as the depth increases.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient

There's enough heat energy stored under all of us, at any point in the world, for everyone to theoretically have their own backyard geothermal power plant. Even the most impoverished countries have access to this resource, immediately under them, if someone were to drill deep enough.

Granted, with present technology it would be more expensive to do all the drilling than using our already available solar, wind, and coal resources, but the most important point is the energy exists. Though it would be more expensive to utilize with current technologies than other energy alternatives, the energy is nevertheless accessible to us with present technologies.

It should be reassuring that if the sun were to disappear overnight, and the oil rigs and coal mines stopped working, we would still have near-limitless energy right underneath us.

- Notes - 

All sources were derived from the corresponding Wikipedia articles which follow: Mantle (geology), Crust (geology), and Geothermal Gradient. Copyright Wikimedia Foundation, 2014.

Crude Oil - The Universal Resource

Have you ever started to eat a delicious seven-layer dip, only to look down minutes later and see that half the tray of dip is already gone, and you're fuller than a pig? 

This is sort of what's going on with crude oil. We don't know how big our tray is yet, or when we will run out, but it's a delicious seven-layer dip--one that's succulent and outstanding, and keeps us coming back for more.

One of the major fears that inspires the energy crisis mentality revolves around exactly that--crude oil supplies. And that's the point of disagreement. Some people say we are close to running out, others say there's more than enough for years to come. One thing is clear; regardless of how much oil we have left, we are not near to running out of energy (see previous post). But today in particular, I want to specifically attack the problem of crude oil reserves. How much indeed do we have left?

There were self-proclaimed experts in 2008 saying that the world oil supply was getting so low as to warrant a world crisis in the near future. No one expected that four years later, fracking would become so popular and so economical as to leave any near-term oil concerns far behind us. This article, written in October of 2013, contends that this oil boom will be short-lived. But I'm here in June of 2014 in Colorado, and hydraulic fracturing is bigger than ever, with new wells going up every day.

Can the past be an indicator of how accurate our oil estimates will be? People have been predicting oil shortages every year for the past several decades, but these purported shortages never happen. We keep finding new and better ways to get the same results and make our oil mining more efficient. 

Will we ever actually run out of oil, or will we be converted to more efficient forms of energy before that happens? I think that there's enough crude oil for our societies to make it the next 50 or so years, at our current rate of consumption, as we adjust to more efficient technologies. The amount of shale oil still to be mined is astounding. One thing's for certain -- there's no threat of an oil shortage any time soon. In the far future, let us hope, and work to be converted to more efficient forms of energy before our society starts asking this question again.

This delicious seven-layer dip will hopefully be moving us on toward a ten-layer dip in the future, a more efficient energy source, and a cleaner energy source. How big the tray is, and how much remains left, is a question for the coming days. It's just so important, it can't be overstated, that we do indeed have enough oil energy for right now.

Hope From Above

The solar revolution is upon us, my friends.

The total amount of solar energy hitting the surface of the Earth from year-to-year accounts for 3,850,000 exajoules of energy every year. In 2002, this was more energy in one hour, than the world used in one year!¹

Energy runs our society, our very way of life. Unfortunately, raw energy alone isn't enough. Merely expending raw energy results only in destruction. In order for raw energy to be used effectively, it must create productive motion. Productive motion occurs when you take an energy source like coal, oil, or sunlight, and create motion to be used for a specific purpose. Electricity as a concept is so valuable because it can travel over long distances with relatively little loss, and power so many different devices, and do it so quickly and so effectively. Without electricity, our motors would simply be used to create brute force, transferable only through the longest feasible piston or directly connected system of energy transfer.

Even with a highly advanced mechanical system of motion, involving gears, cranks, shafts, and levers stretching for miles on end, you could not move energy as efficiently as with electricity, and it would be a lot clunkier. Electricity has the advantage, however, of creating mechanical energy, turning it into electrical energy, and then the electrical energy can be turned back into mechanical energy with an electric motor.

Electricity can be used for running almost everything that powers our society today -- so the question is what WOULD cause an energy crisis? A real energy crisis would definitively ensue if our society was only able to create electricity off of fossil fuels. However, we are very fortunate that electricity can be created a multitude of ways. Mechanical energy can also be created a multitude of ways.

This is another line of thinking as to why there is no energy crisis. If more energy hits the Earth in an hour than the entire planet uses in a year, and if solar panels can turn that light into electricity, and if we can create electrical motors to do mechanical work from electrical energy, we subsequently have more than enough energy hitting the earth in a single day to establish all of our mechanical tasks, including driving a car, running any kind of computer or electronic device, even running heavy equipment. Even if the conversion factor on solar was only 1% efficient (it's not, it's much higher) we would still have far, far more than enough energy than we would need to cover all our energy needs.

In addition to mechanical energy, electricity can also be used to create heat energy. Electricity is the most versatile type of energy that way. Heat energy can be used to heat up water and run a steam engine. People think steam engines are just old Victorian technology. They aren't! We just found more efficient engines that can run off gas. But the point here isn't efficiency, the point is that there's enough net energy to create mechanical, electrical, and heat energy to accomplish any task that we need, or will need. In other words, if we really were running out of oil and fossil fuels, prices for energy might increase as industries adjust to relying more and more on electrical, but there would only be a PRICE increase, and at that, temporarily!

If you've taken some college-level economics, you can prove that it would only be a price increase in terms of supply and demand. Here's how: Energy is probably one of the few commodities with a supply thousands and thousands of times above the demand. And that's just in solar alone! I would defy anyone to find any other industry, from shoelaces, to T-Shirts, or even cheap, imported Chinese novelty items where the supply is so far in excess of the actual demand.

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1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy#cite_note-Smil_2006.2C_p._12-8