(05-09-2026, 08:21 PM)Punatang Wrote: State stuck with.. Council bill seeks to.. County driver safety coordinator charged...
Let me see, the thread is about geothermal, and more specifically, if we were to get down in the weeds, DHHL's plans to explore the resource on their lands throughout the sate. So, please brother 'Tang, help me out here.. what does any of that have to do with the subject at hand? Really, if those issues have any meaning at all why not start your own threads with them? Otherwise, what's your point?
Regarding geothermal.. I have spent a good part of my life focused in one way or another on geothermal here in Hawaii.
In the early eighties I was a part of a small group in Volcano call Puna Geothermal Committee that rallied the troops (the Sierra Club, the National Park Service, the Volcano Community Association, and the Pele Defense Fund) and through the courts stopped Campbell Estates and True Geothermal from their proposed geothermal development that was intended to be right up against Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. With wells literally less than a thousand feet, upwind, from Thurston Lava Tube and the state of the technology at the time (no reinjection wells) this would have been a nightmare. Although, even today with the development of the technology, preserving the Kahaualeʻa Natural Area Reserve, is imperative. As has been keeping the Volcano community from turning into an industrial hub.
More recently, with reinjection wells as demonstrated by PGV, I turned a 180 on my stance towards geothermal. Where without reinjection we had large “settling” ponds on the surface of Earth wherein toxic waste was discharged and left so that the water in them would evaporate and percolate back into the ground. These, as anyone that lived in Lower Puna in the early days of geothermal knows, were untenable. But reinjection changed all that and now, as proven by PGV, we are getting large amounts of electricity for a very small use of the land, and practically no toxic waste water, and no left over spent solar panels or turbine blades to throw away.
Additionally, with the growing body of data we now know the ideal source of geothermal isn’t a volcano, but rather across vast swaths of otherwise unremarkable land. Earth’s interior is hot, and that heat is constantly venting almost uniformly from everywhere. So much so that one can drill a hole and within a few kilometers reach enough heat to run steam powered turbines. Anywhere.
For anyone interested in geothermal as an energy resource the US Department of Energy’s website provides a good starting point to explore its feasibility.. for instance their FAQ page at..
https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/geothermal/geothermal-faqs
Answers quite a few questions. One, which is the initial basis for any development, is what characteristics indicate a site might be good for geothermal power plant development? And the answer is..
Elements that indicate a site may be good for geothermal electricity development include hot subsurface geothermal fluid with low mineral and gas content, shallow aquifers for producing and reinjecting the fluid, a location eligible for permitting, proximity to existing transmission lines or load, and other characteristics. Geothermal fluid temperature should be at least 300°F/149°C, although plants can operate on fluid temperatures as low as 210°F/99°C.
And that is the ticket.. the presence of water at 300°F, which is widely available without a local heat source like a volcano. And still, with our volcanics, yes, we have an abundance of heat to begin with and some of it quite shallow. Although even PGV’s wells still tap into their resource at considerable depths of 5 and 6 plus kilometers.
Of course, for any resource the other question is can it be scaled up to meet our needs, now and into the future? Solar and wind, besides being toxic on their front end and creating mountains of waste on the back, need large quantities of land, and constant reinvestments.. and still are limited in how much they can grow. Whereas geothermal, which occupies a small footprint on the land, can create large amounts of energy, and be scaled up far beyond any perceivable needs long into the future.
Regarding posting etiquette, years ago Rob established a form of a link with some part of the linked article quoted. And while we can discuss the importance of having access to information behind paywalls to support a poster's premise, I think the link and quotes makes for a more enjoyable experience overall. And besides paywalls are there to protect copyright, and the holder's right to monetize it. Of course, in most cases archive.is/ does circumvent all that, it is still nice to keep the pages of PW to a nice digestible format. Rob also asked us not to quote other posts we are responding to at full length but rather quote a snippet and allow the reader to go back to the original if they wanted the info again. But some people think they have to repost the entirety of other's post so as to drive home a point.. which is silly methinks, and the flow of posts suffers because of it, imo, of course.