1. What is Geothermal Energy? Here on the surface of earth the weather is constantly changing and the seasons are shifting making it either hot or cold or just nice. However if you dig down far enough, say about 10 feet the temperature stays a constant 50 to 60 degrees no matter what the season is because of the earths liquid magma core. This constant temperature can make it nice and cool in the summer and nice and warm in the winter using wells and pipes to bring it up. This is just one of many ways to obtain and use this renewable energy source. Getting it almost everywhere from the bottom of the ocean to a volcano geothermal energy can be found and used almost anywhere in the world. How do we get it? There are many ways to obtain geothermal energy one such way is, as I stated above, digging down and piping up the hot air and water. Other than that here are the three most common ways to get and use geothermal energy Dry Steam Plant: this is a plant where steam is piped directly up to the power plant and there it is used to turn the turbines of the plant thus producing electricity. Flash Steam Plant: This plant uses the water that underground and “flashes” up. This high pressure water is then quickly turns to steam and turns the turbine and then turns back into water to get piped down to start the process over again. This is the most common type of geothermal plant. Binary Cycle Plant: In places where the water is not as hot as need to create the “flash” of steam (only 250 to 360 F) they use a Binary Plant. This means they pipe the water up using one tube and pipe another liquid down and the other liquid eventually gets hot enough to turn to steam and powers the plant that way. Pictography 1. http://images.angelpub.com/2009/11/1804/geothermal-energy-capacity.gif 2. http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/kids/energy.cfm?page=geothermal_home-basics-k.cfm 3.http://www.alternative-energy-resources.net/whatisgeothermalenergy. 4.http://www.geo-energy.org Pros and cons Environmental Friendliness: Pros: Geothermal plants require no coal and no other fossil fuel to fun. They produce almost zero emissions and, if not tapped by the power plant some of the geysers would actually put more sulfur and other chemicals into the air. Cons: almost zero although some do produce harmful emissions compared to the other types of plants it is an insignificant number. Reliability: Pros: Geothermal power plants are very simple. Due to this simplicity there is simply less that can go wrong. Unlike a nuclear power plant where there can be a melt down nothing too serious can happen at a geothermal plant. Every geothermal plant built within the last 100 years is still functioning (www.energy-consumers-edge.com). Cost: Pros: Although the initial cost to start a plant is high once in operation it pays for itself due to the fact that it has zero fuel cost. It requires no shipping of materials or anything of that nature. Cons: The cost for start up is high due to the tough nature of the rocks and the corrosive materials surrounding them. Geothermal digging is the most expensive digging one could do. Availability: Pros: Where available it is one of the most cost effective and competitive energy resources out there. It rivals coal and fossil fuels. Cons: The one big con with this energy source is that the availability is scarce. While now we are limited to a few hot spots, in the US they include the western states, Alaska, and Hawaii, in the future, when drilling technology gets better they will be able to dig down miles to the earths mantle and from there its just a matter of getting water down there and the steam back up. Sustainability: Pros: There is enough Thermo Nuclear Energy in the earth to last for billions of years to come. THAT’S LONGER THAN THE SUN! Units: Billions of barrels of oil equivalent Crustal Heat-----------------79,000,000 Thermal Aquifers--------------------130 Oil Reserves-----------------------5,300 Annual Global Energy Consumption----70 (www.energy-consumers-edge.com) Cons: the only problem with this again is the availability of the heat is not yet wide spread enough to get the entire world on this form of energy. Annotations "EIA Energy Kids - Geothermal." Web. 31 Mar. 2010.. This website was very informative and it contained many pictures that helped me fully understand the energy and how it is captured. This website was fun to look and contained general but useful information for my project. Geothermal Energy Association. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.. this website is the official website for the Geothermal Energy Association. It contained much more specific information and it was also very useful in seeing all the different aspects of how geothermal energy is and can be used in the future. "Power From the Earth's Heat." Geothermal Education Office. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.. this website contained many facts and figures that were essential to this poster. It was not fun or easy to read but it was very informative and essential to this project. "Pros and Cons of Geothermal Energy." Energy Consumers Edge. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.. this website outlined the positive and negative aspects of geothermal energy. Some of the facts were very interesting and surprising. This website was a big help in making this poster. "What Is Geothermal Energy?" Alternative Energy Resources. Web. 31 Mar. 2010.. this website thouroughly explained what geothermal energy was and how to obtain electricy and heat power from it. It had many diagrams and pictures which I used in the poster. It was very factual and had a lot of statistics on it as well. Parker Pyle Physics, Reading Memorial High School, Reading MA, 01867 Figure 1. this is a picture of a Geyser at Yellowstone National Park. These geysers can be used to generate electricity due to their heat and pressure. What the future holds Eventually in the future as the cost of drilling goes down, as it has by about a fourth in about the last two decades, the cost of the plants will go down and then this will be very economical to have around wherever possible. Also in the future one of the major “cons” will be answered as drilling technology gets more advanced. We will be able to drill down about four miles down to get at the hot temperatures anywhere in the earth without the need for “hot spots”. This will allow anywhere in the world to be fueled by geothermal energy. The U.S.G.S. (United States Geological Survey) estimates that in the united states alone we have about 95,000 to 150,000 MW in geothermal energy. Of that we currently have about 25,000 MW in energy produced. Hopefully in the future we can further develop this type of energy to become even more beneficial than it already is and more cost effective. Though it is already competitve with coal and other fossil fuels for cost it lacks, as of yet, the ability to be all around the world and is stuck in confided spaces where the cracks in the mantle are big enough for magma to come through and heat it the water up. Due to its cost effectiveness, durability and environmentally friendly its not a stretch to see many developing countries turn to geothermal energy as a resource and in just a few years it will be available to all around the world. Geothermal Energy: Energy for now, Energy for the future Figure 2: A Geothermal power plant. The steam you see is just that, steam and nothing more, harmless to the environment. Figure 3: this figure shows the hot spots around the world circled in red. As you can see they are in sparse sections around the world. Figure 4: this is a slice of the earth seeing the different layers from where we inhabit to the solid inner core which is where the earth generates its geothermal energy from. Graph 1: this graph shows a rising trend in the use of geo thermal energy.