Climate Policy

[Zenda]

Or do you mean we will slow down the winds enough to have an environmental impact? Are you sure we can have that much of an effect?

Not sure, ofcourse. But if we take away 20% of all wind power, wouldn't it be logical to assume that wind speeds may slow down 20%? Maybe less in some places, and more in other places. Remember, we got into this global warming mess because we thought for a long time that our little bit of extra CO2 wouldn't make any difference.

I'm pretty tired and the letters on the wikipedia page of geothermal energy have begun dancing, so this may be a dumb question. Like above, are you sure we have enough of an (any) impact on how much heat is released for this to become a problem?

It's all in the link given by Jester.

"If you stick a straw down a 15-km hole in the earth, you’ll find it’s nice and hot there, easily hot enough to boil water. So, you could stick two straws down, and pump cold water down one straw and suck from the other. You’ll be sucking up steam, and you can run a power station. Limit-less power? No. After a while, your sucking of heat out of the rock will have reduced the temperature of the rock. You weren’t sucking sustainably. You now have a long wait before the rock at the tip of your straws warms up again."

If we are talking about sustainable geothermal energy, it would provide for 2 kWh per person per day if *all* available land was used. That's assuming we can drill 15 km deep holes at no cost, and have 100% efficient methods to convert steam into electricity. Higher outputs are possible, but the source will become non-sustainable.