Why We Need to Transition
The Alberta tar sands which have been euphemistically renamed oil sands, produce the dirtiest and most expensive oil on the planet. So economically and from an investment stand point going all in to develop such a resource is a shaky thing for an economy and for investors. The more important point is its impact on climate change and the destruction of the immediate environment and the subsequent plume of toxins that drift out over the land and leach into the water systems. It takes two tonnes of earth or sand and three barrels of fresh water to make one barrel of bitumen, in addition to this the plants consume enough natural gas every day to heat six million homes. Is Alberta prepared to lose a forest the size of Florida permanently from its province, with the toxins impacting water and land systems on a much larger scale?The next question Albertans and Canadians have to ask ourselves is do we benefit in the long run with facilitating this industry. The tar sands have attracted 60 percent of global investments and the Canadian and Alberta government rather than controlling the resource to transition to clean energy have attempted to liquidated the resource as quickly as possible. So this is short term cash with no long term future. It also has the potential, by fostering such an economic monoculture, to derail our democracies, if our industrial bases are not diversified enough.
Finally in order to stay within the 2 degrees Paris agreement we can only burn 20% of our known fossil fuel reserves. We will need that 20% even in a green energy future, so we need to convert rapidly. The fastest way to do this is to convert to geothermal energy.
Why Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC is Ideal for Geothermal Plants
The geothermal energy industry uses drilling technology and expertise that exists on a large scale in Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan so it can be scaled up by using equipment, labour and expertise that already exists and is often idle during fluctuations in the fossil fuel market. In addition, there are thousands of abandoned oil wells leaking methane into the atmosphere that could be converted easily to a closed loop geothermal system, solving two problems creating clean energy and stopping the methane leaks.Type of Geothermal Plant for Converting Oil Wells
Closed loop geothermal power plants are ideal for converting exhausted oil wells as they do not depend on a source of water but just hot rock. Most wells these days are deep enough to have hit hot rock that can power these plants indefinately with clean electrical energy.
High Output Closed Loop CO2 Geothermal
Green Fire Energy has developed a closed loop geothermal electric production process. Their method uses supercritical carbon dioxide in a closed loop system, which produces substantially more power than conventional water geothermal electric systems. A diagram of their system is as follows:
The system does not need a water source, nor permeable rock and the turbines need in this system can be smaller and more efficient.
The system does not need a water source, nor permeable rock and the turbines need in this system can be smaller and more efficient.
Conventional Geothermal Electric Plants
Traditional Geothermal Systems and Enhanced Geothermal systems both water based are illustrated in the following diagrams. The trouble with conventional geothermal electric plants is they are dependent on a source of hot water which can be created by either by fracking and create an artificial reservoir or by finding one that already exists which requires exploration. or a and existing underground hot springs.
Geothermal Electric Plants World Wide
New Plants in the US coming on Stream
The United States alone has numerous Geothermal Electic Plants feeding their grid the following is a list of new Plants in the planning or in the process of coming on line, this is from a 2015 report produced by the US government:
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