> How would they deal with various minerals dissolved in the water from gumming up their turbines or heavy elements escaping into the environment? This kind of

> How would they deal with various minerals dissolved in the water from gumming up their turbines or heavy elements escaping into the environment? This kind of ongoing, predictable maintenance is usually priced into the project, along with a health margin for error, and is rather easy to predict (except when you're one of the first such power plants using a new technology or exploiting a new geography). According to [1], the upfront capital cost for a geothermal plant is 5-6x that of a natural gas plant ($/kW) and the maintenance cost is over 10x ($/kW-yr) but since geothermal doesn't require expensive fuel it can be cheaper than fossil fuel based power (depending on price of fuel). Replacing pipes every few months isn't any different than buying tons of gas if you're still making profit and since geothermal plants rarely run more than 90% of the year because of diminishing returns, there's plenty of time for that maintenance. > random thought: Could geothermal power be considered nuclear power considering half of the Earth's internal energy comes from decaying radioactive isotopes? Technically yes, but nuclear power implies a concentrated sample of radioactive material. Radioisotope thermoelectric generators [2], which generate power from the heat of decaying isotopes, are relatively common nuclear power sources in space exploration. They were used on the Apollo 12-17 missions, they still power the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, Cassini, and many more including, most recently, the Mars Science Laboratory rover. [1] https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/capitalcost/pdf/updated_capcost.pdf https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/capitalcost/pdf/updated_capcost... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_ge...