<<Some countries that have poor solar resources, such as Japan, have very
good
geothermal resources. IIRC, Japan has already determined that 3% of their
land is suitable for cheap geothermal technologies with a total generational
capacity that is somewhere around 5-7 orders of magnitude greater than
current consumption in Japan.
The U.S. is the Saudi Arabia of geothermal, having the worlds largest
high-grade geothermal resevoir (the region between the Rocky and the Sierra
Nevada mountains inclusive). MIT has estimated that with conventional
technology, the geothermal generational capacity of the U.S. is ~3
Terawatts. With cheap HDR geothermal, the geothermal capacity of the U.S.
is in the mid-Petawatt range. Note that "cheap HDR" is typically defined as
an HDR resevoir that is 5km deep or less. In most regions of the world, HDR
resevoirs are at least 7km deep and in some places, tens of kilometers down.
In the case of the U.S., it is probably of some value that among the best
places for solar power harvesting are also the best places for geothermal
harvesting.
Cheers,>>
Excellent email. We need to go to Hot Rock Geothermal, despite its cost to
drill extremely, deep; it gives us an alternative source then Nuclear Fusion
which never seems to arrive. We can use HDR Geothermal to make hydrogen,
methane, hydrane, methanol, ethanol, or even gasoline to propel vehicles. The
economics of HDR georthermal is not certain for fuels, but eventually.
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