The raw power exhibited by volcanic systems is obvious.
Thanks to USA Sandia National Laboratories, we have the basic science necessary to capture energy from the magma of volcanos. The need to do so is also obvious, with practically unlimited quantities of both clean electric power and hydrogen available.
What is not obvious is how to commercialize the process. The first step of a 'proof of concept' prototype has not yet been seriously attempted.
This site is a review of where we stand and what might be the next steps towards bringing this energy source to mankind.
Welcome
Welcome to magma-power.com. This website is dedicated to promoting the potential of Magma Geothermal Energy Utilization, or deriving energy from the heat of the Earth.
It is now the twenty-first century and for some there is a sense that we are running out of energy or will in a lifetime. This opens a fear of endings rather than things new and exciting, new beginnings. The ideas presented here open our eyes to one of the large untapped energy sources that is distributed world-wide and will meet the complex set of criteria that must be met by the next major energy resource to be exploited.
The criteria are many: We insist on clean air and water. The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere threatens a green house effect. The dependency on international energy resources raises distortions in international affairs. Plutonium, a nuclear power residual product, raises fears of easily made nuclear weapons and nuclear waste storage creates more unease. Also greater energy efficiency in every productive energy use can help, but it does not expand energy supply.
Will my grand children be able to have a car? is more than a passing thought for some. The answer is yes. This website is an investigation of the next important energy resource that meets our requirements in all ways. That is energy from the Earth’s heat—magma.
About the Author
Charles A. KezarAdjunct Professor, Lyndon State College
C. A. Kezar Spent six years with the US House Energy Subcommittee of the House Science Committee and several years with the Department of Energy before he moved to Strategic Defense work and Special Defense Programs.
About Magma Power
The archeological record shows that the first human use of geothermal resources in North America occurred more than 10,000 years ago with the settlement of Paleo-Indians near hot springs. The springs served as a source of warmth and cleansing, their minerals as a source of healing.
Today, we in the United States continue to use hot springs, but the exploitation of geothermal resources has deepened. While people still soak in shallow pools heated by the Earth, scientists and engineers are developing technologies that will allow us to probe more than 10 kilometers below the Earth’s surface in search of more geothermal energy.
Although most of the easily exploitable geothermal resources have been tapped, the untapped potential is actually vast and particularly valuable because of its benign environmental impact. Geothermal energy does not cause air pollution or add to the accumulation of carbon dioxide, a green house gas, in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide tends to trap the multiple sources of atmospheric heating and without countervailing effects raises the average Earth temperature causing both negative and positive climate effects.
This untapped geothermal resource is the focus of this website. That is the extraction of energy directly from the yellow-hot magma that lies in pools beneath the surface of the Earth all over the world, but in this website the United States magma resource is the subject. According to the US Geological Survey the estimate of the size of the molten and near-molten magma resource in the USA is between 50,000 to 500,000 quadrillion BTU’s. At current energy use rates in the United States that is between 500 and 5,000 years of energy use of all kinds—electric power to gasoline. Yet we have not really begun to develop the technology to bring this benign energy resource in to commercial use. The question is why?
The domestic and worldwide benefits are potentially enormous. Not just from more energy, but from the potential gained from a switch to a non-polluting, non-green-house-gas-producing energy source.
Expanding the use of energy from magma also can replace the nuclear weapons risks of nuclear power because spent nuclear fuel contains Plutonium (239), an easy-to-use nuclear bomb making material.[1]
The energy extraction costs for nuclear and magma power are reliably estimated to be about the same as shown in Figure 10.
Finally the geographic distribution worldwide of magma resources is very different from both oil and Uranium resources, thus potentially easing the geopolitical forces around oil.
