Energy from the Center of the Earth

Nowadays, global warming is the greatest environmental problem, provoked by the huge amounts of carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels (coal, oil, natural gas).

Moreover, the nations possessing the richest oil and gas deposits are largely the most unstable regarding politics and democracy. That's why amongst the investigated alternative energies, there's the geothermal one. Unlike fossil fuel burning, there is no carbon dioxide waste. And unlike solar power, a geothermal energy plant generates energy night and day. Thus, this energy can be cheap and has minimal environmental impact.

Geothermal research made many progresses in the 1970s and early 1980s, but the decrease of oil prices in the mid-1980s came with a decrease in the interest in geothermal energy research and the study of this technology was left without funds.

A team at MIT will make the first study in about 30 years in the field of geothermal energy. "Now that energy concerns have resurfaced, an opportunity exists for the U.S. to pursue the enhanced geothermal system option aggressively to meet long-term national needs", said panel head Jefferson Tester, a chemical engineer at MIT.

Geothermal plants drill wells into hot rock, at times a mile (1.6 km) deep or even more, and water is pumped into the wells. This water will generate in contact with the hot rock large amounts of steam and super-hot water that can put in motion turbines and run electricity generators at the surface.

Currently, the US is the biggest geothermal energy producer worldwide. "The electricity produced annually by geothermal plants now in use in California, Hawaii, Utah and Nevada is comparable to that produced by solar and wind power combined", said Nafi Toksöz, a geophysicist at MIT

U.S. Geothermal plants are all gathered in west regions because in that part of the continent the hot rocks have a shallower disposition and drilling is less expensive. Scientists think that by 2050 geothermal energy will supply up to 10 % of U.S. electricity necessities.

There only one impediment for this technology: achieving the necessary water in arid regions. Further studies are also needed to investigate the seismic risks of these drills.