Below is a comment I left on the Kirk Murphy, M.D. thread that selise linked to above.

Seconded.

Everything I’m reading is that Enhanced Geothermal is here right now. Drill baby drill three, four five kilometers down ALL OVER THE US, not just where there are hot springs.

Shoot unheated water down. Let it flow over the hot rocks. Suck it up another pipe It doesn’t have to be boiling, because you’re using a binary turbine. The liquid inside the turbine has a lower boiling point than water. Are coal plants using this technology on their turbines?

The hot rocks only last for ten or twenty years. Then you have to give that well a rest, but it will come back, because the earth’s heat is a constant. All that drilling is a lot of VERY SUSTAINABLE work for the United Mine Workers Geo Thermal Drillers.

It’s not perfect, because you can bring up some nasty gasses from underground, but unlike wind, it’s a stand alone replacement for coal right now. It carries only a fraction of the environmental impace that coal has. GeoThermal spread out over enough wells is very reproducible.

In the summer you can run the turbine faster, by adding some solar heat in spring, summer, and fall. Enhanced GeoThermal runs better in the winter (especially in northern states), because the air is cooler.

The bulk of your costs up front are in the drilling and mud logging.

I’m not against wind or solar, but until the battery technologies improves, they are not stand-alone replacements for coal in much of the US.

Just as the GOP has become the old Confederacy, I think STATE-run third parties MIGHT be viable in some of the old abolitionist states.

LMAO.

“A third party just might be a viable option in 2010. The 2 wings of the Corporate Party don’t seem to be making anybody happy except the ruling elite capitalists.”

i’m off too. peace to all.

‘Tis always great to cross threads with you.

;~D