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Just guessing here, but I think it would have a much smaller footprint. Google tells me the largest geothermal power plant is in California and it's gigawatt s
by criddell 2y ago
Just guessing here, but I think it would have a much smaller footprint.
Google tells me the largest geothermal power plant is in California and it's gigawatt scale and takes up something like 45 sq miles of space.
The other factor might be location flexibility. You can probably dig a mile down just about anywhere but geothermal needs access to magma chambers. Are those everywhere?
- iSnow 2y ago>but geothermal needs access to magma chambers. No, not really. Geothermal can work wherever there's a big enough positive temperature anomaly in the ground. Rift systems with hydrothermal heat can work as well as regions over a deeper magma plume. Exploiting shallow magma chambers is only possible in a couple regions like Iceland.
- criddell 2y ago> can work wherever there's a big enough positive temperature anomaly in the ground And is that in as many places as you can dig a mile down? IS the temperature delta in those places on the same order of magnitude as when magma chambers are tapped? If not, gigawatt scale plants would take even more space, no?