Illustrated Daily; Geothermal Energy

States, for instance, have a relatively high temperature rate. Therefore, that is in the potential area for the hot dry rock system. It's in the eastern half of the United States, which has a lower temperature rate. Although it turns out there are finding many anomalies in the eastern part of the United States, the potential anomalies where the hot dry rock will be very feasible. So ostensibly, a hot dry rock project could be right in the middle of a city. There could be a right now to have it. That's right. Anything you'd like to add to the top ground? Well, I think that's essentially a good statement of it. Stop, Dave. Buck drama. What is the efficiency factor reading regarding the energy conversion of this type of project to online electricity? Now, geothermal energy is generally a low temperature kind of energy lower than the nuclear power plants or the coal-fired power plants. And so it has a corresponding lower efficiency.

You might say that they would run like 20% for geothermal, 30% for nuclear, 40% for fossil fuel-powered plant. This most recent well we've drilled here, EE2, has taken us up into a temperature range for geothermal wells hotter than any other well in the United States and up into the range of nuclear power plants. So conceivably, our efficiency could be more than we've expected. That's very clean industry as well. The temperature is upwards above 300 centigrade. It would measure commercially at 337 degrees centigrade at the bottom of the hole, which is over 600 degrees Fahrenheit. Stop, Dave. This country has the potential to produce what percentage of online electricity from geothermal sources. When I'd like to answer that by explaining what the potential for the hot dry rock, geothermal might be in the United States. A recent survey by the USGS has pointed out that there is a potential of 3 million quads of energy available using the hot dry rock technology.

And a quad is the equivalent amount of energy that the sun deposits upon the Earth in one day. It's 100,000 BTUs. The Department of Energy conservatively estimates that you might be able to use 2% of the 3 million quads, which would give you then 260,000 quads of energy. The United States in 1977 used a total of 78 quads for all sources of energy from automobiles and heat and every type of energy that we use. All energy consumption or energy consumption, so it is really a very tremendous potential. I think we ought to realize that we are talking about maybe sometime in the future, maybe the year 2050 before the really large uses of geothermal energy come in. And this is all going to depend on the economics of drilling and how long it's a lifetime of these geothermal systems.

And that's exactly the kind of question that we are investigating here on Fenton Hill and we'll have to investigate in a number of other places before the full potential of geothermal energy can be realized. So it's probably not a very good short-term energy to the country's energy needs. In terms of, let's say, hydrogen power, solar, our wind energy, and now this hot-bride-roft geothermal energy, how are these types of energies to point to interact in the future? And I think that we're going to go through a phase where we will need our nuclear energy. And then the geothermal energy will become available, but as our population of the world, if it continues to increase, eventually the pressures on the temperature of the Earth just from all the energy that we're generating will mean that we finally will have to go to solar energy. And that is the ultimate energy for the world to use.

I've seen projections by NASA, for example, that they've got this orbiting space stations that collect solar energy and then microwave it down to Earth. They are no more viable in geothermal energy because they eat the Earth. And the only kind of solar energy in the low ground is going to be allowable if there's a great consumption of it, as the energy comes directly to the Earth from the Sun. So is the population the main factor in pinging on this population is going to be the cause of it. And it looks as our energy consumption is not increasing according to the forecast and maybe that people will become smarter enough and sophisticated enough not to require these great quantities of energy and perhaps we will level off our population too. Is it conceivable then that we could not be dependent by the middle of, let's say, the next century on fossil fuels and start using these alternative forms? Yes, maybe.

Very conceivable. Mr. Dennis, would you like to add anything? Well, I think may us cover it pretty well. Okay. It's not too. Okay. Let me just get some code away from places. Sure. It's very good answer. It's one that people would believe a little more than that. It's something you just moving the program. But it's true too. The dependence on nuclear energy in the stars. Yeah. And then the phasing out slowly of nuclear energy. Yes. Maybe we could, I guess we could move it there. Let's think maybe we could expand on that point just a little bit and then you could talk more precisely about it. Well, it's probably better in this context. Yes. Not just about emphasizing nuclear. Okay. Okay. That was a nice little shorty. Okay. Nice addendum here to the total presentation. Now you could do a 90 minute documentary on this.

It's still uncomfortable. I wonder if I could get permission sometime to go to your hydrothermal. Or is that kind of a bark up here? Yeah. That's run by you. Oh, it's run by you. That's run by you. And I'm sure you could grow up there. You wouldn't think that the oil companies would be doing some development around these alternative forms. These alternative forms would eventually take place.