this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
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Didn't Iceland over use geothermal and it caused problems?
There are AFAIK two main risk with using geothermal energy:
Both these risks are during the development of new wells, and once things are completed there is basically no other problems other than that geothermal energy is not infinite and the hot aquifers lower their temperature after some decades. This can make the system too inefficient to be worth continuing operation.
Iceland keeps using geothermal for nearly 1/3 of its energy production. However, Iceland is a really poor benchmark to compare with the rest of the world - in some places, you can cook food on the surface there. :)
What kind of problems?
If I remember correctly some geysers stopped working natural hot springs stopped being hot. Things like that. I'll see if I can find some other than an old man's memory to back it up.
Geologist by training here and it's been many years but as I recall, subsurface geothermal systems can be quite complex, especially in regional systems like Yellowstone, Iceland, New Zealand etc.
The hope, as I understand it, revolving around geothermal in the United States is tapping into much larger areas, namely the basin and range region, where subsurface temperatures are much higher than other areas. In this area, while there are many natural hot springs, they are remote and less commercial so disruption would have less impact. The benifits could also be fantastic since there is a huge area that has potential. (Most of Nevada and Western Utah). The biggest challenge is the complexity of underground faulting throughout the region. We can understand the general structure (hence the name "Basin and Range"), but the details are a challenge. At each macro fault you have lots of microfaulting and if you are attempting to scale up an energy production facility over an area you risk disrupting the system with each fracked well.
If we can very accurately map the subsurface, it'll go a long way towards making this energy source much more viable. (We've had years to get better at microfracking so getting an accurate map of what's down there is most important)
Thanks for this, I didn't mean to say it was a bad thing, just more that we should take all their data into account. I know there are places in California that might work as well.
Yeah, this is a thing according to my recent visit to Yellowstone. Natural geysers are very rare and increasingly rare as people tap geothermal energy.