Comment & Debate
“Disadvantages of geothermal energy”. Clean Energy Ideas – we have established the main disadvantages of building a geothermal energy plant, mainly lie in the exploration stage. During exploration, researchers will do a land survey (which may take several years to complete) and then post their findings to the company that contracted the survey.
Many companies who order surveys are often disappointed, as quite often, the land they were interested in, cannot support a geothermal energy plant. To extract the heat we have to find certain hot spots within the earths crust, these are very common around volcanoes and fault lines, but who wants to build their power geothermal energy plant next to a volcano?
Some areas of land may have the sufficient hot rocks to supply hot water to a power station, but what if these areas are contained in harsh areas of the world (near the poles), or high up in mountains. Some very good proven spots have been found in New Zealand, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
The questions that are usually asked during a survey are; is the rock soft enough to drill through, do the rocks deep down contain sufficient heat, will this heat be sustainable for a significant amount of time, is the environment fit for a power plant. If the answer to these basic questions is yes, a more in depth survey should go ahead.
“The disadvantages of geothermal energy”. Alternative Energy – the big drawback to geothermal energy is that there must be hot rocks close enough to drill into in order to harness this energy. Not only do the rocks have to be hot, but they also must be suitable for drilling. The rocks also must be close enough to be able to access. Not many areas are as fortunate as Iceland in this regard.