There is a race going on right now that very few of us have heard about. It is between two competing energy companies, one in Australia and one in Switzerland.
The competition is to be the first energy company in history to tap deep enough into the Earth’s core to use its heat to generate steam-based power on a commercial scale.
The energy companies hope to use a system of water pumps that send water down into the Earth’s depths, then bring it up once it is heated so that it can then drive steam-powered generators to make electricity.
These power companies hope that by using heat from the Earth itself, they can reduce reliance on fossil fuels and cut down on emissions.
There has been a set-back, however. “The glass vases on the shelf rattled, and there was a loud bang,” Catherine Wueest, a tea shop owner from the Swiss city of Basel, on the Rhine River, recalls. “I thought a truck had crashed into the building.”
It was not a truck, but in fact, the result of drilling by Geopower Basel that set off a magnitude 3.4 tremor. There have been several other, smaller tremors since December. So many, in fact, that the city has asked the power company to halt the project.
Scientists say that if we could tap just 40% of the geothermal heat below the United States, we could meet our annual energy demand 56,000 times over, eliminating entirely our dependence upon fossil fuels for energy production.
The obstacle, however, is the cost. It costs $1.4 million to drill a new oil well, but would cost about $7 million to drill each geothermal well.
Geothermal wells would also tap out an area’s heat energy in a couple of decades, needing to be re-drilled about every 20 years.
Then, of course, there is the problem that Basel Geopower is facing, which is earthquakes that might be set off by tapping into the Earth that far.
Basel Geopower is currently researching their options, but for now, drilling in Switzerland has stopped, giving the Australians time to take the lead.
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