Geothermal power should fuel U.S. military

This Web only Speakout has not been edited.

F. Michael Maish

Originally published 12:00 p.m., December 8, 2007
Updated 09:12 a.m., December 7, 2007

Someone paying attention to the price of oil is surely marveling at its steady increase towards $100 a barrel. $3 gasoline is looking like a bargain of the past. Has anyone suggested these increases are a result of the pressures of supply and demand? The OPEC oil cartel has been blamed. Profits by the oil companies have been assailed. At $100 a barrel there should be plenty of oil available. Such a high price is supposed to encourage production to fill the need and lower the price.

It hasn’t. It won’t. Oh the price will fluctuate, but it is going up. Someone reading trade journals such as World Oil might have noticed that world production of oil has been flat for some time. When price increases do not result in production increases of a commodity is the definition of a peak in production: Peak Oil. Usually when something starts to run out the price tends to run up. The price of oil has certainly done that, doubling in the last year or so. But what happens next?

In the case of luxury goods, high prices reduce demand or increase supply. That is the law of supply and demand. But is oil a luxury? Well now, try walking to work. Or the third world is perhaps a more meaningful example, try hauling water from a well without a pump. What is the line between oil as a “demand” and oil as a “need”? Maybe you can work closer to home, but do you have a well for water? If not then you are like the third world, access to oil is a matter of life and death. Does Peak Oil mean a peak in life or a peak in death?

The need for oil is apparent. Let it be noted that “demand” is not an adequate word for what everyone needs. Our needs must be met. Price does not seem to be an issue. Pay it! Yet even price fails in a shortage situation. If oil becomes something in limited supply then other forces will decide who gets it. Political and military power ultimately decide scarcity problems. At that point “war for oil” becomes a little more acceptable.

Now technically oil is not the only source of energy. There is also coal and natural gas. A few alternatives are starting to become available, but they have long lead times and other issues. The point here is that take away oil and there is no large scale liquid fuel. Planes don’t fly, transportation stops (coal locomotives are only in museums). Do we even have an economy then? Civil collapse becomes likely and disturbances in the streets.

In times of crisis and shortages the military has always been necessary to preserve order. But this time they too will be in a crisis short of oil and power.

What the military needs is an uninterruptable source of power. Note, most of the popular talk about power is about whether it is “renewable”, as in it should not run out. For the military that is not good enough. It can not limit its fighting to only sunny days, for solar, or windy days for wind. To be reliable power must be available on demand, it must be uninterruptable day and night. Military power is dependent on an energy source that is dependable all the time.

Fortunately every military base in the US (and around the world) has access to a particular unlimited source of power that is currently underdeveloped.

This power source is accessible to such an organization as the military with its sizeable budget. The technology already exists and is widely in place.

While nuclear power plants are being considered by some environmentalist in extremis since the pending oil crisis is so threatening, there is a larger nuclear power plant that is being ignored. The interior geothermal energy of the earth is virtually inexhaustible since it is due to the radio active decay of elements within the crust. The interior of the earth only a few miles down is as hot as the surface of the sun 93 million miles away. Every place on earth, not a mountain, has access to geothermal energy by poking a hole in the earth.

Higher temperatures come with higher depths. Homes can be heated or cooled with a heat pump using pipes buried in the lawn. The depth of common oil wells is sufficient to drive binary cycle power plants of modest size. To replace a coal fired power plant or a nuclear reactor requires greater depth perhaps related to superior locations. The technology for deep wells already exists.

Thus every military base could have its own uninterruptible, renewable power source of what ever size required. With an unlimited power source, oil is no longer a necessary commodity. Liquid fuel can be manufactured for military use as much as desired from raw materials available everywhere. The electrolysis of water can produce hydrogen gas which has already been identified widely as the fuel of the future when oil runs out. Since hydrogen gas is notoriously difficult and dangerous to handle (think Hindenburg) it is necessary to liquefy it to produce a generally useable fuel. The simplest chemical compound would be methanol made by liquefying hydrogen by the addition of a carbon atom. The carbon is readily available from common chemical processes from the carbon dioxide in the air. While this fuel would still burn and yield carbon dioxide it would be carbon neutral.

A military with an independent power supply (that is carbon neutral) would be a great comfort in the coming oil crisis. Since geothermal energy is highly desirable in its own right, having the military develop it first would be a great boon similar to the gains made by civilians during the military’s space race.

This is a peaceful mission that the military would readily accept after years of fighting wars. Their discipline, their organization, their resources, their dedication to service would serve perfectly to develop the geothermal solution to the world energy crisis.

F. Michael Maish is a resident of Boulder.

• December 8, 2007

  8:02 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  CL writes:

  A couple simple facts:
  - On average, the geothermal gradient is about 75 degrees Fahrenheit per mile
  - The deepest hole ever drilled is the Kola Superdeep Borehole which reached a depth of 7.5 miles
  http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=567

  So Mr. Maish paints quite a fanciful picture when he writes:
  "The interior of the earth only a few miles down is as hot as the surface of the sun 93 million miles away. Every place on earth, not a mountain, has access to geothermal energy by poking a hole in the earth."

  There are a multitude of other problems with Mr. Maish's proposal. For example, how the heck would you power an F-15 flying over Afghanistan with geothermal energy???