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Geothermal Energy: Earth's Gift to Mankind · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should Know from house stuff
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles to be, Chuck Bryant, Jerry
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and me Josh Clark, which makes this who know the podcast?
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: That's right. I thought that I wrote this article, and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: it turns out it didn't list not your pseudonym, Stephanie Watson. No,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I thought I updated. I did something way back in
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: the day on our website about geothermal energy. It might
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: have just been an update that I didn't end up
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: getting a byeline for. It was probably how to survive
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: shipwreck due to geo thermal energy or something like that. Right,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Maybe did you do a bunch of like survival ones. Yeah,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that was a survival guy for a while. You were
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: wearing that like bush hat. Uh, the Safari hat, yeah,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: where one flap goes up. Huh, Like the jungle guy
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: from g I Joe, what was his name? I don't know.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't watch those man, that's crazy crazy, I was
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: too sophisticated. Uh, Chuck, So do you know the Earth
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: is about four point eight billion years old? It's old,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: super old. That's like so old. It's a lot younger
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: some people do. Science is pretty um much in consensus
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: on the idea. That's about four point eight billion years
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: old alright. For about the first billion of those years,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it was in a crazy state, just loco basically. So
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: the whole thing is supposedly formed as an accretion disk, right,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and the terrestrial planets in our Solar system, which include Earth, Mercury, Venus,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: and mars um happened to attract the heavier elements elemental particles,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: which created a rocky core eventually, and then more and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: more stuff was um attracted to this rotating gravity pulsing core,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: and the Earth was formed eventually. Right while as it
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: was formed or forming, at some point, another celestial body
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: which just took off afterward, slammed into Earth. And remember
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: we talked about the Moon. This is how the Moon
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: was formed, just basically spit out a bunch of the Earth,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and then the Moon formed its own little lucretion disk,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and then there was the Moon. Um. But when this
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: body hit the Earth, they think that it melted. The
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: impact melted the first several thousand kilometers of the Earth's surface.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: The depth just melted it. It hit it that hard.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Isn't that cool? Yeah, so I really I raised this all.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I mentioned all this for two points. One that heat
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: that was originally part of the Earth really formation, yes,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: and then secondly, the heat from the impact that eventually
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: calved the Moon it's still there too. Wow. Isn't that
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: crazy to think that after four point eight billion years
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the Earth is still cooling down. Yeah, that's pretty remarkable.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: That's not all. So those those account for combined about
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: half of the heat found in the Earth's court. The
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: other half is mostly from radioactive decay of isotopes in
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: the core. From these incredibly high temperatures and heat um,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the particles actually decay and as the decay, a particles
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: sloughed off, and when there's an imbalance in the mass,
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that extra mass is released as heat energy. So that's
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: about half of the heat in the core, but it's substantial.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: It is uh hundred miles, that's sixty clicks down. You're
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: gonna have temperatures of about seventies sid degrees fahrenheit. That's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that's hot. That's the core, baby, And at that core,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and we should say for our friends everywhere else on Earth,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that's about degrees celsius. That's right. Uh. And at that
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: core um. We're talking about rock melting temperatures creating magma,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: which is that melted rock. So you've got the magma
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: down there. It's less dense, so it tends to rise.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And we talked about a lot in the volcano episode.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: We talked about it some in the Geyser's episode. When
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the lava flows, that is the magma. But when it
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: just stays down there, it heats up water underground water,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and that escapes, sometimes as geyser's uh, sometimes as hot
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: springs even. Yeah, it can just be like an underground
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: reservoir of really really really hot water, yeah, or it
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: just stays there. And that's what's called a geo thermal reservoir,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: is when you have this really hot water heated by magma,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: just hanging out down there waiting to be used. And
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: so just in the first fifty kilometers no, I'm sorry,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: just in the first ten kilometers below the Earth's surface, right, yes,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: not that deep, there is an estimated fifty thousand times
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: more energy in the form of heat then there is
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: in all of the oil and natural gas reserves in
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the world. Fifty thousand times more energy. Right, because of
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: all this heat and everywhere you go on Earth, you're
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: going to find in some way, shape or form, this
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: heat that's in the Earth's surface, beneath the surface. Yes,
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: so I said, um, that's just waiting to be used.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It's not waiting to be used because it is being
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: used in the form of geothermal energy. And that is
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: not new. Uh. It goes back to the Roman times.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Ancient Romans used hot springs. Yeah, the city of Bath
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: in England, it's a Roman towns right built around hot
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: springs right here in North America ten thousand years ago.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Are American Paleo Indian friends. They used hot springs, they
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: bathed in them, they cooked in them. Yeah, they imagine
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: that at the same time, I don't know. They could
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: be like Cramer. Remember we prepared that radish flower as
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: he bathed. Yeah, nice, but stew. Yeah. They used to
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: lower FDR into the warm springs at warm Springs, Georgia.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: That's right. Uh. And the first real geo thermal heating
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: system was developed in Boise, Idaho here in the United States.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: But before that, it was developed in Italy and that
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: was actually after it. So the one I thought the
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: first one was in Pizza and Lord Ela. No, So
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the first and we'll talk about the distinctions in a minute.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: But the first the first plant was in Italy. Yeah,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: so that was a geo thermal energy production plant. And Boise, Idaho,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: they used what's called direct geo thermal energy, which is
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: basically where you just pipe this really hot water and
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: use it to heat greenhouses in the winter or there's
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of um cities that get snow on the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: ground that have basically radiant heat sidewalks where the heat
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: from the geothermal springs nearby is pump an east sidewalks
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: or streets to keep the ice from forming. Yeah, Klamath Falls, Oregon,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: they have such a system because they knew we have
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: a kg r A nearby, which is a known geothermal
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: resource area. They have water from about two hundred to
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: two twenty degrees just sitting underneath the ground, and they,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: like you said, melt the sidewalks, They melt their bridges,
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: they melted up, melt their faces out there, and anything
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they can with that junk. So, like I said, fifty
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: thousand times the amount of energy in the form of
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: heat just waiting to be used in the first ten
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: kilometers below the Earth's surface everywhere on Earth. Yeah, that's
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: pretty attractive, man, for a few reasons. One, everybody knows
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: that fossil fields are dirty, they're problematic, they require transportation.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And if you think about electrical production in the world, Um,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the world uses seventeen points seven million megawatts of electricity,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: or it did in two thousand twelve. That's a ton
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: of electricity. Most of it was produced by gas, oil
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: or coal. And the whole point of all of those
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: things is you burn them and you create heat. Then
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you use that heat to heat up water, use that
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: water to make steam, and use that steam to turn
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: a turbine. Yeah, we talked about this in one of
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: our other ones. How amazing electricity. Yeah, that just every
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: everything we've ever come up with still comes down to
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: trying to get that steam to turn that turbine. That's
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: exactly right. That's why that's why we use all of
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: these fossil fuels. Is too heat water, not even just
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: fossil fuels. Man. Nuclear power uses radioactive and they dip
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: it in water, It heats the water up, turns it
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: in vapor, spins a turbine. I mean, like with geo
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: thermal energy. One of the things that makes it so
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: attractive as you're cutting out a lot of processes. You're
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: you're not only are you cutting out the need to
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: burn fossil fuels, you're cutting out entire steps which, over
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the course of the plant's lifetime, can reduce the cost
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of this geothermal energy production. Yeah. And it is caught
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: on in a big way. I believe they are. I
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: think twenty countries now that are using geothermal energy. The
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: United States is leading the way there. Yeah. Surprisingly, I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that. Yeah, but um, if you want to
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: really see it in action, go to Iceland into the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: city of Ricky Vick, where basically the entire city is
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: heated with those uh geothermal wells. Yeah. And the country
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: of Iceland as a whole, a quarter of its energy
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: is produced geothermally amazing. Same with El Salvador. Do you
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: know that? Oh well, I thought you're gonna say I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: did not. You got me there. Um. The thing is, though,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: was world, why about seven thousand megawatts of geothermal energy
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: are produced? And don't forget we use seventeen point seven million.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: It's still it is. But we'll talk about the different
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: kinds of geothermal energy right after this. All right, kinds
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: of geothermal energy I like this of you know that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: earth science jazz is me man. Yeah, well, whatever I
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: did for this many years ago, I remember being very
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: turned on by it. I don't know if it was
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: updating or writing. I just remember thinking, man, this is cool.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: And if you are a critic of geothermal energy, hold
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: your horses. We understand that there's problems with it. We're
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: just talking about geothermal energy and it's it's pros right now. Boy,
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: people get upset about alternative fuel sources. I've never under
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: gotten that. You know, there's a lot of money at Steak,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of geopolitical posturing and power and stuff at steak.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: The world's based on fossil fuels. I know, but I
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: don't know. It just doesn't make sense. It seems like
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: it would make more sense even for economies to like, hey,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: let's pursue it all. Well that's the that's the you know,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: that seems to be the prevalent mindset these days, an
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: energy policy that includes everything. Yeah, although I think a
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: lot of that though, is is just kind of paying
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: lip service to the alternative stuff, and it gives you,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: um a blank check to pursue fossil fuels more because
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: you seem like you're an open minded person. Yeah, it's
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: just weird. I just I don't know. You hear something
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: about like solar power and you think I think, well
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: that's neat, and I'll post something about that. What does
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: solar power make? You think? Well, that's neat and I'll
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: post something about it on the stuff you should know
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Facebook wall And people are just stupid. That's so, why
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: would anyone do that? Is up with like Facebook and
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: stuff like that? The worst in people. Give a man
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: of mask and he will show his true face wise words.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: Did you just make that up? No, that's an old thing.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I think anything that says give a man uh automatically
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: reveals his age. You know, been around the block a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: few times. Give a man of fish, he'll eat for
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a day. Teach a man to fish, he'll eat for
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: at least two or three days if the fish are biting.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Did you make that one up? Oh, that's a good one.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Chuck the T shirt. I never catch fish, so it
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: should say teach a man to teach. Chuck the fish,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and he'll starve because he is a very good at catch.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Can't get a bite, Nope, he'll go to Arthur treachers instead.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Man that's still around. I think they there was one
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: in l A that I remember. It seems like Captain
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: D's really took over the market. I don't even see
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Long John Silvers anymore. There's still Long John's, but I
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: mean like it's more Captain D's than anything, well as
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: it should be. Are you a Captain D's over Long
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Jon's fan? Uh? I grew up on Long Done Silver's.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: They got me with the free pirate hats. Yeah. Um,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: I think I like the Captain D's better. I just
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I just like Fried Fishy. Is Arthur Treachers like an
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: also ran just like those? Or is it like a
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: little fancier now? I think it was just another chain,
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: but it has seen its better days in the past.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, I might be wrong. Someone tell
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: me about Arthur Treachers. Yeah, if you work at Arthur Treachers,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: let us know if it's still around, all right. Direct
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: geo thermal energy that is, uh, that is where you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: have one of those known geothermal resource areas, um, not
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: too far under the earth surface. That's like if you're
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: located near a place where there are these hot pools. Yeah,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: and you're not doing anything fancy with it. You're just
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: basically piping that hot water into say a house and
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: using it as hot water at that house, which is
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: what that Boise District did um back in two And
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: you want to know something amaze, but that geo thermal
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: um direct use plant is still heating fo homes and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Boise today. Uh. And it is not just to give
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: you hot water. Um. You can also use a heat
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: exchanger and incorporate into your HVAC system and all of
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: a sudden you are using that heated water to heat
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: your home as well and to cool your home. Right.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: So that's that's a geo thermal heat pump, I believe, right,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Uh what to heat and cool? Yeah, so I think
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I think those are both. Like a geothermal heat pump
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is an example of direct geo thermal energy. Direct geo
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: thermal energy is not necessarily just like using the hot
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: water to heat and cool your house. You could also
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: be yeah exactly, or you can just use the hot
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: water directly to like wash your dishes or something like that.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: But with like when you're using a heat exchange or something.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: This is actually extremely clever and it's it's been around
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: for a very long time and as the green movements
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: kind of caught on. Stupid movement. It's this older technology
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that's starting to get re uh discovered, I guess. But basically,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: if you use the geothermal heat pump, the whole idea
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: is that you bury in the ground beneath your house
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: some pipes, a closed pipe system, and there's like an
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: h v A C system in your house that uh
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: circulates air or say something like water or anti freeze
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: through these pipes, and it takes the heat from your
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: house and exchanges it through this heat exchanger in the summer,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: sends it through the underground where it's cooler than it
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: is in your house in the summer, so that that water,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: anti freeze or whatever is cooled, which brings it back
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: and then cools the air in your h v A
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: C system, which then blows out through your duct work. Yeah,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: just a few feet under your feet underground, it's fifty
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: to sixty degrees year round. Yeah, below the frost line,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: which is usually about ten ft below ground. Uh. And yeah,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: if you you can, since it's a steady temperature um
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: depending on the season, especially if you have wild seasonal
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: fluctuations where it gets really cold and really hot depending
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: on yeah, Um, then you can really take advantage of this.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: So the whole idea is if it's say like fifty
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: degrees in the summertime, when it's ninety degrees, if you're
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: cooling that liquid that's in turn cooling your air, that's easy.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But fifty degrees in the winner that seems you know,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: not that much warmer, but just that little bit of
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: warmth that extra is, say twenty degrees on a particularly
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: cold day, that heats up that air, which means that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: your h v a C system has less has less
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: energy to expend in further heating up the air to
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: say seventy five degrees exactly. So you're still using like
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: a lot of the same technology like a compressor and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: all of that that you would use with a traditional
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: h v A C system in your home. But this
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the the the steady temperature of the ground is like
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: you said, assisting that, so you're having you're using less
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: energy and and thus your energy costs are less as well.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Plus it's reliable, it's not you know that it's going
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: to be between fifty and sixty degrees all year round,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: all year round. The third way that you can use
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: this is with the power plant, like we talked about,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and that is when they, like we said, they generate,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: they pipe it up through the wells and they generate electricity. Uh.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: There are dry steam plants where they just pipe it
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: directly uh into the generator empower it. That's I guess
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: the easiest and most cost efficient. Yeah, that's that's just yeah.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I think the one in uh Italy um and where
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Lardarello I think is Lardarello, Italy in four it's still
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: in in online today. Basically, we have the steam, right,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and let's use it, and let's just put a turbine
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: on top of it, and so it cuts out all
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: those middlemen. It's just you're using the steam, naturally produced
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: steam underground to spind the turbine to produce electricity. Right.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: And obviously you have to have um a great amount
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: of uh luck I guess to be located near such
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a place. Right. And that's so that's considered a dry
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: steam plant. Yes. Then you have the flash steam, and
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that's water between three hundred and seven hundred degrees fahrenheit
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: which is super hot that they draw up through a well,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: uh and then use that steam to spind the turbine.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: That's right. And then there's binary cycle plants. So UM,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: let's say you're not located over a super hot reservoir, UM,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: but you still have pretty hot water something that would
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: be considered like a hot springs. Typically this is between
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty and three hundred degree water UM,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: which is as low as or as high as a
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight degrees celsius. Right, And what you
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: do is you take this water and you use it
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to heat another liquid that has a lower boiling point.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty clever. Then when that liquid with the lower boiling
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: point begins to boil, it creates the steam that powers
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the turbine. So again that's like an assist I would
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: say probably. And then lastly, there's another one that's newer
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: UM that's called enhanced geo Thermal energy, and basically a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: uses fracking techniques to UM create a geothermal hot spot.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: So they go in and they dig wells, they dig
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: a deposit well, and they dig another well and exit
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: well right. Um. And then in between those two they
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: go in and just break up a bunch of this
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: really hot rock where there's no water necessarily but it's
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: super hot, right, and then they pump water into this
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: um hot rock bed, let it heat up, and then
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: they let the hot water come back up the other well,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: and then they use that to create steam, usually like
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a binary cycle plant. And again that spins the turbine.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: It's all about spinning that turbine. All about been in
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the turbine, man, all right, So let's take a break
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: here and we will finish up with I guess the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: lowdown on how it compares to other forms of energy
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: out there. All right, So here we are. Is it good?
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Is it bad? Well, like everything, it's both land on
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the good side, though I think it's typically good. The
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: thing is, the bad stuff is so um rarely mentioned.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: You know. Everybody thinks like geo thermal it's as green
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: as it gets, and there are like a really there's
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of about geo thermal energy that is very green.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: For the most part, it emits very very little carbon
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: dioxide compared to a fossil fuel power plant. Yes, I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: have some numbers on that. In fact, by the way,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: if you've ever driven by a geo thermal plant, you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: see the smoke coming out, that's not smoke, that's water vapor.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: So don't get all up on your hackles water vapor
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: just water vapor, which and I looked this up, I
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't find anything. Water vapors are greenhouse gas as well,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: like a pretty bad one. But I didn't see anything
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: where that that was like a problem with geo thermal energy.
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, alright, So here's some numbers. They did a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: case study of a coal plant. They meaning scientist scientists
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: science doer may or may not have been funded by
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: a front group. Uh, they said, Um, they studied a
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: coal plant with uh scrubbers with good scrubbers and emissions
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: control technology, so basically a newer coal plant, And they
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: said that admitted twenty four times more CEO two and
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: almost eleven thousand times more sulfur dioxide and about thirty
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: eight hundred times more nitrous oxide per megawatt hour than
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: a geothermal steam plant. Pretty good, that's not bad at all. Um. However,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: one of the one of the concerns with geothermal is
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: it does emit sulfur dioxide, which gives it a horrible
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: eggy smell, yes, and contributes to acid rain. But s
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: O two emissions from geothermal plants for about thirty times
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: lower per megawott hour than coal plants, which are the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: largest s O two source, So that is one of
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: the bad emissions. Other than that, not a whole lot
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of really harmful emissions. No. UM. Most of the problems
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: that come from geothermal energy production come from the fact
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: that when you are harvesting hot water from these geothermal sources. UM.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Before they used to just pump it out. Yeah, that
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: was an open loop system, and they much anymore, and
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: they figured out that this is a huge waste of
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: a resource, right, so they started making clothed loop systems
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: where the water would be pumped out, it would be
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: used to say heat some other um fluid with a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: lower boiling point or however you used it to to
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: make that turbine spin, and then the water would be
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: captured and then sent back down into the reservoir to
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: be reheated and used again. Super smart, It is very smart,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and in that case there's even fewer emissions than with
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: an open loop system. The problem is is that it
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: also leads to introduction of things like salts, sometimes arsenic,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: other heavy metals into the groundwater supply UM once it
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: comes through and makes the cycle, So there's a there's
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: a threat to groundwater contamination. Using geothermal energy production. That's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: one problem with it. Another one is those hotbeds that
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: are used that basically use fracking techniques. Just like with fracking,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: they can cause things like earthquakes or like massive earth sinking.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: There's probably a geothermal plant in Off, Autralia where the
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: area is sunk about five feet ever since it's been
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: in production. Wow. Yeah, because you're going in and you're
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: sucking out all the water, you're breaking up a bunch
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of rocks that form bedrock. You know, so when you
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: start messing with that stuff, it can have seismic um repercussions.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: That's a good band name. Thanks. Uh. Noise pollution is
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: on the plus side because they say it typically produces
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: less noise than the equivalent of leaves rustling from breeze.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Is not ba plus the the typical geothermal power plant
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: takes about a lot less real estate. Yeah, you can
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: do a vertical system, uh if it suits the area,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and that really doesn't use up much UM as far
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: as like spreading it out what's called service area because
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: it's going straight up and down. UM uses a lot
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: less water. Geothermal plant uses five gallons of freshwater per
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: megawatt hour. Compared to three hundred and sixty one gallons
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: by a natural gas facility. Isn't that ironic? It uses
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: less water even though water is the basis of the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: whole thing. And apparently a binary air cool plants use
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: zero fresh water. Oh, it's all. It's all just down
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: from the from the earth. Yes. And for the land use,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I did have one more stat um over a thirty
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: year span, which is the time period they usually use
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to consider like the big impact of a life cycle
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: of a system. Uh. They said, a geo thermal facility
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: uses four four square meters of land per gig about
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: our while coal uses three thousand, six hundred and thirty
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: two square meters per gigat hour. It's a big diff
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I also saw that they had like a net energy
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: ratio of like four. For every like one input of
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: energy you get five, Yeah, which is really great. The
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: thing is, the upfront costs are very expensive. So in
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of places where it would be advantageous to
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: start a geo thermal energy production plant, they just don't
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: have the money to set up that kind of infrastructure.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: It's anywhere from like one million to four million dollars
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: for a well to be drilled, and would say, like
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: a hot rock binary system, you need two wells at
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: least that's just for you know, one area, so that
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the upfront cost can be prohibitive. And the same thing
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: goes for if you're setting up like a geo thermal
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: heat pump in your home too. Yeah, I think it's
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: pretty reasonable. Well, with government subsidies, it's super reasonable. Now
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: with the energy savings, they typically estimate the thing pays
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: for itself within like five years. Yeah. They for the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: two thousand nine Economic Stimulus Recovery Act, they remove the
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: cap on heat pump system rebates, so now you can
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: get h towards a qualified geo thermal heat pump system.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: So even the richie riches can make out. Uh So,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: if you're looking at an average a typical home of
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: square feet, boy, that's a typical home. Geez, a heating
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: load of sixty to us in a cooling load of sixtus.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: It's gonna cost about twenty grand to install yet uh back,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and that's about double the cost of conventional heating and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: cooling hvac um. But it reduces your bill by and
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: at last eighteen to twenty three years, which is easily
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: double what your standard h BAC will cost, So you're
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: definitely gonna to make your money back UM if you
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: want to invest in something like this. Uh. It's also
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: better than wind and solar in many ways because you
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: don't have to rely on the sunshine or the wind
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: to blow. It's seven. That's the other thing. It's dependable.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: It's also typically considered renewable, although they've figured out that UM.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: You have to take measures to sustain a production plant,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Like you can't just pump all the water out. You
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: have to make a closed system. But even if you
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: do use a closed system like UM, the area can
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: cool off for well over time, like the one in
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Italy has seen a reduction and steam power over since
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties because the geothermal reservoir beneath that has
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: been cooling. So you basically have to like take it
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: easy on it. You have to treat it like a
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: little gently, you know. Yeah, And apparently you can use
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: UM if you're putting in a system not just for
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: your home, but like a plant, it can other things
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: can be going on there. It can be a golf course,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it can be a horse trading facility. Sure, it can
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: be uh, what else is landis where it can be
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: a cemetery. Well maybe not a cemetery, yeah, because people
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: don't get buried below the frost line. They just get buried.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: My family does. So there's addressing that. A lot of
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: people say, well, it just takes up too much land.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: What if you don't have a lot of land. Um,
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: you can actually build a vertical system where the pipes
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: just go straight down rather than flat beneath your house
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and you'll have the same effect. That's right. Uh. The
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: last thing I have here is the world's largest facility
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: called the Geysers. It's in San Francisco, right, Yeah, and
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: about seventy miles north of San Francisco in the Maya
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Kamas Mountains, a company called Kalpine. It is forty square
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: miles long UM and it powers fourteen plants. And this
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: thing has been around for a while. This is not right. Uh,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: seven five megawatts of electricity. It creates enough to power
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: seven homes or a city like San Francisco. So it
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: meets the power needs of Sonoma Lake in Medicino Counties
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and UH portions of Marina and Napa, and satisfies almost
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: six of the average electricity demand in the North coast region.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: That is the Golden great Bridge, Golden gate Bridge to Oregon.
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah't that crazy? That's so perfect for San Francisco. Man,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: they're all over that stuff. That's great. You've got nothing
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: else huh no, man, uh man. My dad was an
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: hva C engineer. He'd be pretty proud of this one. Yeah,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: you're gonna point it out to him, probably who probably
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: won't listen, but still, and he'd say, what's that show
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: you do again? If you want to know more about
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: geo thermal energy, you can take those words in the
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: search part how stuff works dot com? And I said
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: search bars somewhere in there, And that means it's time
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: for this movim. I'm gonna call this organ donation follow
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: up from an expert, as he says, Hey, guys, I'm
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: a donation specialist at an opi O, an organ procurement
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: organization in the Northeast. I've been doing it for about
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: eight years. Uh. And the biggest concern I had with
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: your show was how tissue donation was incorrectly grouped together
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: with whole body donation. They're definitely not the same thing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Body donation for science research is completely different than tissue
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: donation for transplant. A tissue donation should be and is
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: grouped together with organ donation. UH. Bone, skin, cornea, heart valve,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and vascular tissue are both life saving and life enhancing
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: gifts meant for recipients. In fact, when you register to
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: be a donor d m B or an online database,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: you're registering is an organ and tissue donor, not a
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: whole body donor. Secondly, there absolutely is federal oversight regulation
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and protocol for tissue Uh. The f d A A
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: A t B American Association of Tissue Banks. I but
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: that's a fun uh conference. Yeah conference. Uh. The e
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: B a A, the I Bank Association of America or
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: some of those governing bodies opos and tissue banks are
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: held to strict standards, including site visits and annual audits. UH. Lastly,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I encourage you both to do some further research into
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: tissue donation and be careful not to perpetuate into ex
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: stereotypes and misconceptions. Uh. Those This is from Josh Brennan,
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and another guy wrote in and was like, I see
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: where Josh is going, but he's got it backwards. He said,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: there's too much regulation on the organ side. Seven thousand
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: people year die because of the overregulation, and they need
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: to make it all for money. Disagree, And he wasn't.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: He was like, he sourced a bunch of academic He's like,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the medical and academic communities are the ones making the
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: call for this. It's like, it's not like a bunch
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: of you know, free market Zella's. Trump's not calling for it. No,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: he was like, doctors and scientists are saying this is
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: how it should go. Um. I guess that the reason
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I saw fit to lump those things in together is
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: because I saw that one of the outcome from the
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: whole body donation could be the harvesting of your parts
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: for sale. And that's well that happens from times. That's
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: what illegal or illegal or gray market. Yeah, that's what
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: the guy, the first guy said, is the gray market
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: is there because it's so heavily regulated. People are dying
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: because they can't get this stuff, so they're willing to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: go pay. He said, if you take out the if
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: you give the demand, that illegal supply will have to
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: be there. Yeah, I mean maybe maybe that's the case
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: as well, but yeah, I don't know. I think that
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: I think they're doing a great job with the Oregon
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Pro Human thing, aside from the seven thousand people that
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: are trying every year waiting. Yeah, that funny. Yeah, Thank
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: you very much for writing in Josh other Josh Joshia
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and do you remember the other dude's name? Um no, no,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: anonymous masked author, that's right. Uh. Thanks for letting us
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: know the deal. If you want to get in touch
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: with us, you can tweet to us at s y
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: slash stuff each you know. You can send us an
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and as always, joined us at home on the web.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Stuff you schnow dot com for more on this and
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: com