

SMU & Google find abundance of geothermal energy in US - joemysterio
http://futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/27/8509629-energy-from-hot-rocks-abounds

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munin
oh, there's an editorial in nature
([http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7275/full/462848a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v462/n7275/full/462848a.html))
about how this could cause earthquakes?

awesome. well, nothing worth doing is risk-free, right?

also I love how when google funds something now, they also do it. it seems
that all of the investigators were SMU people but because google.org paid for
it, now it was discovered by google as well. ;)

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illumen
'Fraking' has caused earth quakes in the uk, where they are trying to extract
the gas down there. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_fracturing>

But that is a slightly different thing to geothermal drilling. You're
basically drilling 4km down, and putting a big pipe in. Then you run water
through it, which heats the water.

There have been no earth quakes caused in Australian drilling for geo thermal
plants to my knowledge.

However, it depends on the technology used. Some of these people are just
dumping massive amounts of toxic chemicals and blasting the crap out of the
rocks. Obviously this affects the water down there - and is super evil. If
you're careful, and with planning I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to
do safely and in a non toxic way.

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jessriedel
> There have been no earth quakes caused in Australian drilling for geo
> thermal plants to my knowledge

There was a serious earthquake in Switzerland caused by geothermal plants (not
gas extraction). I believe minor ones have also occurred in the US. My
understanding is that the risk is very manageable, though.

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rbanffy
I wonder if something like this could be used to desalinate sea water.

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Sapient
Probably, but I imagine there might be a massive build-up of salt, leaving the
"mine" unusable after a while.

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rbanffy
Nah. It was a bad idea from the start. When you inject the water into the well
you'll end up with it carrying all sorts of salts it finds down there.

