Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Lagayascienza]

Here are a few concluding points I did not have time to make earlier:

6. The fossil fuel industry and their climate-change denying mates in government knew at least 40 years ago that fossil fuel use was changing the composition of the atmosphere. But that was of no concern to them when there were huge profits to be made. The fossil fuel industry got control of governments with their lobbying and big donations and were allowed to carry on despite knowing what the outcome would be. They didn’t want the capital outlay of investing in magma energy. Cheaper to stick with fossil fuels, deny climate change, get massive government subsidies and continue making massive profits. So they made sure the magma study was buried. If, even 20 years ago, magma energy had been pursued, there may have been a chance of it contributing to a carbon free future and rescuing the climate. But no, short term profit won the day and it’s been business as usual up the present day. GHG emissions from fossil fuels are still rising. And now it’s far too late for magma energy to get us out of the mess even if it were feasible to magma-fy the whole world. It would require massive capital investment in infrastructure worldwide and it would take decades before it had a meaningful impact on reducing emissions. If we had started slowly phasing out fossil fuels and changing over to clean renewables even a couple of decades ago we would not be facing the climate catastrophe that now confronts us.

7. Fortunately, the use of other ready to go renewables is expanding rapidly. And it needs to. There is now no way we are going to keep global heating below 2 degrees C. We’ll be lucky to keep it below 4 degrees C. But we must try. There is going to have to be large investment in upgrading electricity grids and battery storage but that is unavoidable and less than what would be required for the world to try to suddenly convert to magma energy, IF indeed magma energy turned out to be feasible on a worldwide scale which is highly doubtful.
Ready to go technology using solar, wind and other renewables and probably nuclear power are the only way out of this mess.

8. Simple physics tells us that we cannot change the composition of the atmosphere, one of the major earth systems, and expect nothing else to change. This has long been known. The fossil fuel industry did its own research into the effect of its GHG emission on the atmosphere decades ago. They sat on it. And it made sure the magma study was buried. And what we have to show for it is the climate catastrophe we are now facing.

[Mercury]

I'm not going (again) spend time responding in detail to the above. You don't want the truth. I'll just again point out the following:

I object to the assertion I don't want the truth. The character of my philosophy is that of 'speaking truth to the good.' However, brevity plays to your strengths!

1. I read the study report a couple of weeks ago when you started on about magma energy. That's how I know what's in it. Magma energy, IF it is viable on a worldwide scale will take massive investment and many decades to get going. We don't have decades. Magma is no panacea. We urgently need to use readily available renewables such as wind and solar and probably go nuclear if we are to avoid the worst.

We do have several decades. Net Zero commitments are set for 2050; and I've spoken of that date as the horizon for fossil fuels. Developing magma energy over exactly that timescale is the proposal I've spoken of elsewhere. You say it will take massive investment, but relatively speaking - it's a paltry sum. A few hundred billion to supply the world with clean energy forever after. Shared between all the nations of the world, it's chump change; and should be compared to the blank cheque you'd have to write to build and rebuild a million windmills every 20 years.
Even then, wind and solar wouldn't produce enough energy to meet current energy demand. Less yet increased energy demand. Less yet supply surplus energy to desalinate, irrigate, recycle and capture carbon. To say nothing of the mountain of tech scrap you wouldn't have the energy to recycle. Build windmills and you'll set the world into a spiral of entropic decline that ends in economic and environmental ruin.

2. I know very well what sensible capitalism looks like and it is not laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is necessary but it needs to be regulated because it cannot regulate itself. I didn't read political economy at university for nothing.

I'm not proposing lassiez faire capitalism. I'm contrasting the rational motives of lassiez faire capitalism in developing magma energy, to explain to someone who claims to have studied political economy, what a cartel is! And why the term cartel might be applied to fossil fuel industries and governments, as an explanation of why magma energy hasn't been developed, to answer your remark 'if it was possible we'd have it already!'
We've gone down various side tracks on this, in particular the assertion that capitalism is the problem. No, it's not. Philosophically, the fundamental nature of the problem is a wrongful relation to science as truth. But we really don't have time to re-write 400 years of philosophical and epistemic history. What we can do is borrow from that hypothetical ideal, the authority to supercede the logic of overlapping religious, political and economic ideologies that bring us to the edge of oblivion - insofar as is existentially necessary. In these terms we arrive at supplying the world with abundant clean energy from magma - as the most effective, and least disruptive thing we could do to address the climate and ecological threat. Otherwise, I wouldn't change a thing!

3. You pick a couple of philosophers who may have somewhat fanciful ideas on what needs to be done and then you use them as a straw man with which to demonize the whole environmental movement and those with leftist but still democratic views. Environmentalists and climate scientists and middle of the road voters did not cause this crisis. Your mates on the right who are still climate change deniers and laissez-faire capitalism caused it. And they are the ones who want business as usual.

Malthus, Marx and Meadows inform the entire environmental movement from its origins - and it is anti-human, anti-capitalist and anti-growth. This is quite apart from climate science. I wholly accept the science. What I do not accept is the political proscription. I don't accept the world is over-populated, nor that people are the problem. That's a very bad road to go down. I don't accept that capitalism has inherent contradictions, of which the climate and ecological crisis is an example. And I don't accept there are limits to growth; nor that limits to growth thinking offers any kind of solution.
What we need is abundant clean energy; sufficient to internalize the externalities of capitalism - not less, more expansive, less reliable energy from wind and solar.
As an example of how shallow the thinking is; the environmental left claim that because wind costs less to build per kw/hr, that energy will be cheaper - but supply and demand determine price, not construction costs. Because wind is low grade and unreliable energy, and because energy demand is inelastic, energy prices will skyrocket. Poor people will be priced out of the market for heat, light, food, clothing, travel - while the rich won't even feel it, and this is how you make environmental savings. I would call it evil, but never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

4. This study was not buried by the left or environmentalists but by your mates on the right who have destroyed our climate.

No, the prospect of abundant clean energy from magma was merely ignored by the environmental left for the past 40 years, and for several years that I've been trying to bring it to their attention. The silence is deafening.

5. The predictions of The limits to Growth have proved correct. That is an inconvenient truth for you but that it's the truth nonetheless.

Limits to Growth projections have proven correct; that is true, but it's not the whole truth - because the Limits to Growth can be transcended by the application of technology, as occurred in relation to Malthus dire predictions of mass starvation resulting from the mathematical disparity between population growth and the availability of agricultural land. In the event, people invented trains, tractors, refrigeration and fertilisers, multiplying the availability of food resources far ahead of population growth.
Magma energy is the same principle. Supplying an abundance of clean energy multiplies resources. Resources are not a finite quantity being used up, but are in fact a function of the energy available to produce them.
I explained early on that only 2% of the UK is built upon, and three quarters of the world is less densely populated than that. There's lots of land, but little fresh water. Given the energy to desalinate and irrigate, vast tracts of land can be brought into productive use - reducing exploitation of natural water courses, and forest ecosystems.
That's just one example, a little less disgusting than mining landfills for resources - which also becomes possible given the energy to do so. Recycling all waste is a huge saving in terms of pollution and new resource production. Magma energy allows us to capture atmospheric carbon long term; easing the transition from fossil fuels.
Mining, steel and cement making, aluminium refining, chemicals production - all require vast amounts of energy, that could be supplied first, greening the economy from the supply side, such that demand side impositions on business and individuals would be unnecessary.
An Inconvenient Truth - ha! Tell me, why didn't Al Gore promote Nasa/Sandia Labs Magma Energy research?

[Lagayascienza]

I won't repeat what I've said above about how this crisis came about and who it was that ignored the magma study and why it was ignored and by whom. The truth is obvious but the truth is not as you would like it and so we will never agree.

Therefore, I will just reiterate that the magma energy proposal is never going to happen - at least not in time to address the climate crisis we are now facing. There just isn't time. There is a huge amount of warming yet to flow through from past CHG emissions which continue to rise alarmingly in the current business as usual environment. Further, your argument is based on just one preliminary 40 year-old study which did not address the issue of the immense capital investment that would be required to magma-fy the whole world. It looks at tapping magma beneath up to 10km of continental crust. This would need to be done all over the world, the cost of which is currently unquantifiable but would be immense. It would be the biggest energy infrastructure project ever undertaken. If you think your fossil fuel mates are going to undertake it for the good of the climate then you haven't really thought about it. They would only do it if they could calculate the profits that would flow from it, and providing it would not negate their previous and current very profitable investment in climate disrupting fossil fuels. And even if they started today, it would take decades which we do not have. Read the climate science. The highly respected climate scientist James Hansen would be a good place to start.

[Mercury]

The question for me is not who is to blame, but how to solve the problem, and a Limits to Growth approach won't work. We need massive amounts of clean energy to address the challenges ahead, and we need capitalist exchange, knowledge, resources and skills to develop and apply magma energy technology.

The reason Magma Energy will happen is not for the good of the climate as such, but because everything is at stake. I set this out in my first post; how repeated and increasing climate costs will undermine the insurance industry, which will take down real estate, which will take down banking - and money will become worthless. Like in Germany after WWI, people exchanging wheelbarrows full of notes for a loaf of bread. Zeros pencilled in on banknotes because banks can't re-issue larger notes fast enough to keep up with inflation. Only on a global scale. They cannot let that happen because their own fortunes will become worthless.

You say: "Read the climate science. The highly respected climate scientist James Hansen would be a good place to start."

Why do you imagine I'm not wholly on board with the climate science? Do you simply assume that because I advocate for a pro-capitalist approach, that I must be a climate change denier? I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think there was a real and serious threat.

It's not necessary to drill to 10km depth to access magma energy. Hot rock surrounding magma chambers beneath volcanoes can be tapped at depths of 1-3km, and there are 450 volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. I accept we are behind the curve on this; but there's still time. Again, Net Zero targets are set for 2050, and they are intended to avoid exceeding 1.5'C above pre-industrial global average temperatures by the year 2100. We are not on course to reach those targets, and I think they're kicking the can down the road politically, but that's another matter. Point is, the sky is not going to catch fire the day after tomorrow. It is in my view, technologically possible to bring enough Magma Energy online by 2050 to meet current global energy demand, and twice and thrice as much before 2100.

[Lagayascienza]

Climate scientists have been telling you the truth about what's happening to the the climate and the dangers of continued GHG emissions for many decades. That truth was inconvenient and was brushed aside.

Another truth that may be inconvenient is that there is no immediate cornucopia at the end of the magma rainbow. We need to cut GHG emissions and keep pursuing solar, wind and other renewables and probably go nuclear ASAP if we are to avoid the worst. If magma energy ever proves feasible on a world-wide scale (highly questionable), and if it were pursued even on local and regional scales, it would take many decades to make even a small contribution to world energy needs. If solar, wind and other clean renewables are not pursued, and if emissions are not cut immediately, magma-fication, if it ever happens, will occur in a ravaged world of vanished rainforests and coral reefs, sea level rise, inundated coastlines, farmlands and cities and lower living standards, all against a backdrop of climate instability and increased climate related natural disasters. Hundreds of millions will be displaced and economies ruined. All thanks to those on the right who ignored the magma study, refused to listen to climate scientists and allowed, indeed subsidized, big oil on it’s destructive path. Nice work.

It didn't have to be this way.

[Mercury]

Climate scientists have been telling you the truth about what's happening to the the climate and the dangers of continued GHG emissions for many decades. That truth was inconvenient and was brushed aside.

Another truth that may be inconvenient is that there is no immediate cornucopia at the end of the magma rainbow. We need to cut GHG emissions and keep pursuing solar, wind and other renewables and probably go nuclear ASAP if we are to avoid the worst. If magma energy ever proves feasible on a world-wide scale (highly questionable), and if it were pursued even on local and regional scales, it would take many decades to make even a small contribution to world energy needs. If solar, wind and other clean renewables are not pursued, and if emissions are not cut immediately, magma-fication, if it ever happens, will occur in a ravaged world of vanished rainforests and coral reefs, sea level rise, inundated coastlines, farmlands and cities and lower living standards, all against a backdrop of climate instability and increased climate related natural disasters. Hundreds of millions will be displaced and economies ruined. All thanks to those on the right who ignored the magma study, refused to listen to climate scientists and allowed, indeed subsidized, big oil on it’s destructive path. Nice work.

It didn't have to be this way.

It seems like you are trying to claim moral high ground for your tribe, or something. I'm still just trying to solve the problem. Are you absolutely incapable of accepting the environmental left made a mistake ignoring magma energy for 40 years?
Meadows' Limits to Growth has become the ubiquitous assumption; the idea that economic growth and environmental sustainability are diametric opposites, locked in a zero sum game to the death. That is the view I'm criticising, because it's wrong - not because it's left wing. Is the reason you cannot accept Limits to Growth is wrong, because maintaining the fiction serves your left wing political interests? It seems so. In one breath you demand I accept the science, and in the next breath scorn Nasa/Sandia Labs research. You talk of inconvenient truths, while studiously ignoring the fact earth is a big ball of molten rock. If you think my ideas are in any sense designed to 'own the libs' then you do me a disservice. I don't care who toes I trample on. I aim always to speak truth to the good.

Let's do some back of the envelope maths. It would require 1.5 million windmills to meet global electricity demand. Electricity is around 20% of all energy use. So to meet all energy demand from wind that's 7.5 million windmills - at a cost of around $4m each. Windmills last around 20 years; which means you have 20 years to build 7.5m windmills just to stand still in terms of total energy availability. Only, according to the IEA - global energy demand is set to increase 50% in the next 30 years. So lets call that 20 years to build 10 million windmills at $4m each, before you are building windmills to replace windmills you built 20 years before. $40 trillion every 20 years? Now I'm no maths genius, but by my rough estimation that adds up to economic ruin. And all that mining, refining, concrete and steel, manufacture, transport, construction and maintenance, to say nothing of the fact windmills are almost impossible to recycle, adds up to environmental ruin.

But if you bore a hole into a volcano, run a pipe through it, and run water through the pipe, that requires relatively little infrastructure, and will produce massively more and constant base load power. Once the infrastructure is built, it doesn't need replacing every 20 years. If hole x loses heat, you can drill another hole nearby, and hole y can feed the same power plant. Initial costs may be high, but ongoing costs are much lower. Electricity can be transmitted by high voltage electric cables, or by converting electricity to hydrogen gas - distributed by pipeline, or compressed into a liquid fuel, and shipped. Hydrogen can be burnt in internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells and power stations - and the only emission is water vapour. Now I'm no math genius but in my rough estimation that adds up to hope of a prosperous and sustainable future for humankind.

[Lagayascienza]

Climate scientists have been telling you the truth about what's happening to the the climate and the dangers of continued GHG emissions for many decades. That truth was inconvenient and was brushed aside.

Another truth that may be inconvenient is that there is no immediate cornucopia at the end of the magma rainbow. We need to cut GHG emissions and keep pursuing solar, wind and other renewables and probably go nuclear ASAP if we are to avoid the worst. If magma energy ever proves feasible on a world-wide scale (highly questionable), and if it were pursued even on local and regional scales, it would take many decades to make even a small contribution to world energy needs. If solar, wind and other clean renewables are not pursued, and if emissions are not cut immediately, magma-fication, if it ever happens, will occur in a ravaged world of vanished rainforests and coral reefs, sea level rise, inundated coastlines, farmlands and cities and lower living standards, all against a backdrop of climate instability and increased climate related natural disasters. Hundreds of millions will be displaced and economies ruined. All thanks to those on the right who ignored the magma study, refused to listen to climate scientists and allowed, indeed subsidized, big oil on its destructive path. Nice work.

It didn't have to be this way.

It seems like you are trying to claim moral high ground for your tribe, or something. I'm still just trying to solve the problem.

Not so. And you are not on any moral high ground. Far from it. Your solution is a dangerous pipe-dream.

Are you absolutely incapable of accepting the environmental left made a mistake ignoring magma energy for 40 years?

The mistake was not made by the left. That study was buried by the right where no one would find it. It was those on the right who, over the last 40 years ignored the magma study, ignored climate science, promoted climate change denial, discouraged the use of clean renewables, whilst subsidizing the destructive use of fossil fuels. That mistake was made by the right who hated the fact that we could pursue clean renewables and economic growth. In fact, it was not a mistake. They knew exactly what they were doing and what the outcome would be for the climate. They occupy the real moral low-ground.

Meadows' Limits to Growth has become the ubiquitous assumption; the idea that economic growth and environmental sustainability are diametric opposites, locked in a zero sum game to the death.

This is not my view and I have never advocated for anything like it. Nor has anyone else on the majority moderate left nor has the environmental movement. They all know that clean energy AND economic growth are possible and, indeed, that they complement each other. But that was an inconvenient truth you and your mates on the right didn’t want to hear and still refuse to accept.

That is the view I'm criticising, because it's wrong - not because it's left wing. Is the reason you cannot accept Limits to Growth is wrong, because maintaining the fiction serves your left wing political interests?

No, The Limits to Growth’s predictions have proven correct as you well know. It was your mates in the fossil fuel industry and on the political right who knew all too well that what they were doing was crazy, but which you and they refused to accept. They promoted the fiction that climate change was not happening or that, if it was happening, it was not because of the fossil fuel industry’s GHG emissions. That is the fiction that got us into this disastrous situation.

It seems so. In one breath you demand I accept the science, and in the next breath scorn Nasa/Sandia Labs research.

I have not scorned the magma study. You have tried it make the study into something it never was. It was a preliminary study that is 40 years old. It did not address the difficulty of, nor the immense capital investment that would be needed, to drill tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust world-wide. But drilling through continental crust on a world-wide scale is what would be required and not just plugging into the odd volcano here and there. It would be the biggest energy infrastructure project humanity has ever undertaken and the cost would be astronomical and ongoing.

You talk of inconvenient truths, while studiously ignoring the fact earth is a big ball of molten rock. If you think my ideas are in any sense designed to 'own the libs' then you do me a disservice. I don't care who toes I trample on. I aim always to speak truth to the good.

I have not ignored the facts about the structure of the earth with its crust, mantle and core. This is primary school knowledge. What I have done is point to the problems inherent in drilling not just one hole through 10km of continental crust (which is what the study investigated) but tens of thousands of such holes worldwide. And the problems and cost of such a project would be ongoing. (See below)

Let's do some back of the envelope maths. It would require 1.5 million windmills to meet global electricity demand. Electricity is around 20% of all energy use. So to meet all energy demand from wind that's 7.5 million windmills - at a cost of around $4m each. Windmills last around 20 years; which means you have 20 years to build 7.5m windmills just to stand still in terms of total energy availability. Only, according to the IEA - global energy demand is set to increase 50% in the next 30 years. So lets call that 20 years to build 10 million windmills at $4m each, before you are building windmills to replace windmills you built 20 years before. $40 trillion every 20 years? Now I'm no maths genius, but by my rough estimation that adds up to economic ruin. And all that mining, refining, concrete and steel, manufacture, transport, construction and maintenance, to say nothing of the fact windmills are almost impossible to recycle, adds up to environmental ruin.

Even if your calculations were right, which is very doubtful, it must be done because of where your mates have taken us. Not reducing emissions, not converting to clean ready-to-go renewables and continuing down the business as usual path that you and the fossil fuel industry advocate, is what will end in economic as well as environmental disaster. Even if it were possible to bore tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust these holes would not provide everlasting energy because the rock around them would cool with heat extraction, and so new holes would have to be drilled repeatedly to keep the energy flowing. This economic cost of this is incalculable but would be prohibitively huge.

But if you bore a hole into a volcano, run a pipe through it, and run water through the pipe, that requires relatively little infrastructure, and will produce massively more and constant base load power. Once the infrastructure is built, it doesn't need replacing every 20 years. If hole x loses heat, you can drill another hole nearby, and hole y can feed the same power plant. Initial costs may be high, but ongoing costs are much lower.

We are not talking about plugging into a volcano here and there. Not all countries have volcanoes. We are talking about drilling tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust worldwide. Volcanoes are only occur on plate margins – along the ring of fire for example - and in a few other isolated continental hot spots. Moreover, plate margins are the most seismically active regions on earth and infrastructure there would be repeatedly damaged or destroyed and have to be replaced at enormous cost.

Electricity can be transmitted by high voltage electric cables, or by converting electricity to hydrogen gas - distributed by pipeline, or compressed into a liquid fuel, and shipped. Hydrogen can be burnt in internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells and power stations - and the only emission is water vapour. Now I'm no math genius but in my rough estimation that adds up to hope of a prosperous and sustainable future for humankind.

The same can be done at less cost with ready-to-go renewables. Their uptake has meant that, these days, whole states in Australia use nothing but those sources when they are at peak productivity. I read that the same has happened in the UK on the odd day here and there. With much greater uptake, these sources of energy will be able to provide for all our energy needs. There will need to be upgrades to the grid and investment in more battery storage to ensure reliable baseload power. However, this is entirely doable and is underway in some places. And just as a backup, we could go nuclear. These are all proven technologies. We don’t need to repeatedly and endlessly drill tens of thousands of large holes world-wide through 10km of continental crust at untold cost to achieve clean energy sufficiency. If magma were the panacea you believe, it would be happening now. It is not and will not be happening anytime soon. However, we need to do something very soon to avoid the worst that your mates have thrust upon us. And it is being done, but not quickly enough in an environment of increased GHG emissions due to the climate-change-denial and business-as-usual game you and the fossil fuel polluters are playing. Emissions must be cut drastically in the next few years and the uptake of renewables increased rapidly. That is the only way out of the current dilemma. And it is the moral way out. It will avoid the worst - a catastrophe that will see the climate ruined, 100s of millions of people displaced, and whole economies destroyed just so that your fossil fuel mates down on the moral low ground can continue to make billions playing their dirty polluting game.

We can have economic growth and clean reliable energy. We know that. All that is required is the political will to bring the polluters to heel and to encourage the further uptake of proven renewables. Your way will not provide this. Your way is to continue trashing the joint. We don’t need to. We can have the best of both worlds – economic growth and a livable planet. That is what we need to do and what we should do.

[Mercury]

Help prepare your child for turn-taking by giving him opportunities to practice waiting. For example, play “stop and go” games at the park, with toy cars, or in the pool. The more comfortable your child is with the concept of waiting and self-control, the more successful he will be with taking turns.

[Lagayascienza]

To be clear on what the study in question actually says, I post the abstract below in its entirety and unannotated. Below that, I have highlighted relevant sections in blue and added notations in red. For anyone interested, the entire report can be downloaded for free. Just search: " Final Report - Magma Energy Research Project".

Final Report -
Magma Energy Research Project

Abstract

The DOE-funded, 7-yr research project conducted by Sandia National Laboratories to assess the scientific feasibility of extracting energy directly from buried magma sources in the upper 10 km of the earth's crust has been completed successfully. Scientific feasibility (the demonstration, by means of theoretical calculations and supporting laboratory and field measurements, that there are no known insurmountable theoretical or physical barriers which invalidate a concept or process) was demonstrated for the concept of magma energy extraction. The US magma resource is estimated at 50 000 to 500 000 quads of energy - a 700- to 7000-yr supply at the current US total energy use rate of 75 quads per year. Existing geophysical exploration systems are believed capable of locating and defining magma bodies and were demonstrated over a known shallow buried molten-rock body. Drilling rigs that can drill to the depths required to tap magma are currently available and experimental boreholes were drilled well into buried molten rock at temperatures up to llOO°C. Engineering materials compatible with the buried magma environment are available and their performances were demonstrated in analog laboratory experiments. Studies show that energy can be extracted at attractive rates from magma resources in all petrologic compositions and physical configurations. Downhole heat extraction equipment was designed, built, and demonstrated successfully in buried molten rock and in the very hot margins surrounding it. Two methods of generating gaseous fuels in the high temperature magmatic environment - generation of H2 by the interaction of water with the ferrous iron and Hz, CH,, and CO generation by the conversion of water biomass mixtures - have been investigated and show promise.

So, let’s have a closer look at what this abstract actually says. (Highlighted text in blue and my annotations in red)

…to assess the scientific feasibility (not the actual practical technical and economic feasibility) of extracting energy directly from buried magma sources in the upper 10 km of the earth's crust… Scientific feasibility (the demonstration, by means of theoretical calculations and supporting laboratory and field measurements…no known (what about unknowns?) insurmountable theoretical or physical barriers which invalidate a concept or process demonstrated. (What was demonstrated wasn’t much. It was scientific feasibility based on what was known over 40 years ago, most of it based in theory, some lab work and some very limited field studies in shallow magma on Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. Not in continental crust 10kms or more thick. The whole thing is extremely preliminary and in no way proof of the actual technical and economic practicality of the concept on a world-side scale. )700- to 7000-yr supply at the current US total energy use rate of 75 quads per year. Existing geophysical exploration systems are believed capable of locating and defining magma bodies and were demonstrated over a known shallow buried molten-rock body. (Yes, locating shallow magma, and drilling a shallow hole in magma close to the surface on a volcano, is one thing. But such conditions do not obtain over most of the earth’s continental crust which can be up to 70km thick. And 70% of the earth’s surface is ocean and a lot of the rest is covered in mountains and ice sheets kms thick. It is one thing to drill a shallow hole in a volcano. Quite another to demonstrate that it (and deeper ones) could contain fluids that could be recirculated through tens of kms of continental crust world-wide and be used to produce energy over the long term) experimental boreholes were drilled well into buried molten rock… (Yes - into shallowly buried molten rock. Much more than a few shallow experimental bore holes in the side of a volcano would be needed to prove that the concept was technically and economically feasible world-wide and long-term.)
Engineering materials available and their performances were demonstrated in analog laboratory experiments. (Again, analog laboratory experiments are one thing. Demonstrating it in the field under prevailing conditions quite another.) ...methods of generating gaseous fuels in the high temperature magmatic environment - generation of H2 by the interaction of water with the ferrous iron and Hz, CH,, and CO generation by the conversion of water biomass mixtures - have been investigated and show promise. (“Show promise”. Well, that’s hardly a royal flush or a lay-down misere. There is obviously much more work that would need to be done to demonstrate that this would be technically and economically feasible even on a local, much less world-wide scale. Moreover, as mentioned, volcanoes are not found everywhere and are notoriously unpredictable and dangerous. The study talks of drilling through up to 10kms of continental crust but does not show this would be possible. The deepest hole ever drilled into the Earth’s crust was just over 12kms in northwestern Russia. It was just nine inches in diameter. It took took 20 years to drill!! Clearly, your proposal, Mercury, would be the biggest energy infrastructure project ever undertaken by humans and impossible to implement on the scale needed, and within the timeframe needed, to address the current climate emergency.)

Finally, when we read the report in full, it becomes clear that its conclusions are expressed in much more guarded terms than in the very short abstract I've posted above. To call this small, outdated, mostly-theoretical and lab-based, preliminary study the answer to the world's environmental and economic problems is completely false, dishonest, and unrealistic. It's just more climate-change-denying misinformation. And it would be dangerous if anyone took it seriously and if, as a result, we stopped pursuing clean, ready-to-go renewables. I find it difficult to understand why or how an intelligent person could have allowed him/herself to go down this rabbit hole. I can only conclude that it has been ideologically motivated after the ingestion a dangerously colored pill. I’m all for clean, renewable energy AND economic growth. Both of which are possible. Indeed, they are complementary. But this small, out-of-date, preliminary study did not promise that - it merely indicated that if you drill a shallow hole in a volcano you could get some heat out. I could have told them that. And now, forty-odd years later, there is no hope of doing the real work that would be needed to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of magma energy on a scale, and within a timeframe, (much less construct the infrastructure) that could make any difference to the climate emergency that now confronts us. Indeed, if we stopped pursuing ready-to-go renewables, and if we allowed GHG emissions from fossil fuels to continue to rise alarmingly as they are currently under the business-as-usual scenario which you, Mercury, support, we are doomed environmentally and economically. We need to deal with this situation urgently. The rapid, world-wide uptake of proven, ready-to-go-renewables (that are already up and running and making a real difference in some areas as mentioned in my previous post), and a drastic and immediate reduction in emissions from fossil fuels, are our only ticket out of this mess. Not doing so, and relying on holes that may take 20 years to drill, and drilling on shaky, dangerous volcanoes, based on some shaky preliminary study done 40 years ado, won't work and will lead to disaster. In short, it would cost the earth both literally and metaphorically.

[Mercury]

My response hasn't even been approved by the moderators and you're having another go? You are burying my post behind yours, so it's not responded to! It happened once and I let it go, but now you're making a practice of it. It's not on. Please wait, and respond to the following first:

Climate scientists have been telling you the truth about what's happening to the the climate and the dangers of continued GHG emissions for many decades. That truth was inconvenient and was brushed aside. Another truth that may be inconvenient is that there is no immediate cornucopia at the end of the magma rainbow. We need to cut GHG emissions and keep pursuing solar, wind and other renewables and probably go nuclear ASAP if we are to avoid the worst. If magma energy ever proves feasible on a world-wide scale (highly questionable), and if it were pursued even on local and regional scales, it would take many decades to make even a small contribution to world energy needs. If solar, wind and other clean renewables are not pursued, and if emissions are not cut immediately, magma-fication, if it ever happens, will occur in a ravaged world of vanished rainforests and coral reefs, sea level rise, inundated coastlines, farmlands and cities and lower living standards, all against a backdrop of climate instability and increased climate related natural disasters. Hundreds of millions will be displaced and economies ruined. All thanks to those on the right who ignored the magma study, refused to listen to climate scientists and allowed, indeed subsidized, big oil on its destructive path. Nice work. It didn't have to be this way.

It seems like you are trying to claim moral high ground for your tribe, or something. I'm still just trying to solve the problem.

Not so. And you are not on any moral high ground. Far from it. Your solution is a dangerous pipe-dream.

Again, I'm just trying to solve the problem, and on paper, with reference to Nasa/Sandia Labs research, I believe I have - which is why I think this approach should be 'on the table.' However, the table is crowded around with fossil fuel interests and advocates of limits to growth. I cannot get near the table, and I've tried.

Are you absolutely incapable of accepting the environmental left made a mistake ignoring magma energy for 40 years?

The mistake was not made by the left. That study was buried by the right where no one would find it. It was those on the right who, over the last 40 years ignored the magma study, ignored climate science, promoted climate change denial, discouraged the use of clean renewables, whilst subsidizing the destructive use of fossil fuels. That mistake was made by the right who hated the fact that we could pursue clean renewables and economic growth. In fact, it was not a mistake. They knew exactly what they were doing and what the outcome would be for the climate. They occupy the real moral low-ground.

That's true, they did know what they were doing. They were supplying a vital commodity, employing millions of people, and generating enormous wealth - only to discover that the business in which they were engaged had an as yet unquantifiable, but potentially catastrophic downside. I remember Thatcher closing down coal mines in the 1980's because that's where I grew up. Communities had their heart torn out, and were left to rot. Whole towns built around the mine were plunged into destitution; not just the mine, but all the associated businesses were crushed. Climate science has come a long way since then. I wholly accept climate change is real, and a serious threat. But in response, the environmental left want to do to the whole world what Thatcher did to mining towns in the north of England, and I take issue with that as a conception of the moral good.

Meadows' Limits to Growth has become the ubiquitous assumption; the idea that economic growth and environmental sustainability are diametric opposites, locked in a zero sum game to the death.

This is not my view and I have never advocated for anything like it. Nor has anyone else on the majority moderate left nor has the environmental movement. They all know that clean energy AND economic growth are possible and, indeed, that they complement each other. But that was an inconvenient truth you and your mates on the right didn’t want to hear and still refuse to accept.

I can only suggest that you haven't got a clue what the environmental left are saying. I don't want to respond in those terms but you leave me no choice. You're wrong. Limits to Growth assumptions underlie the entire approach to climate change; and while I accept some are more radical than others, they all make the same basic assumption. I'm saying that assumption is false - that Limits to Growth is wrong because Earth is a big ball of molten rock, and the right way to address climate change is to supply an over-abundance of clean energy from magma, not tax everyone into poverty, turn out the lights and eat bugs.

That is the view I'm criticising, because it's wrong - not because it's left wing. Is the reason you cannot accept Limits to Growth is wrong, because maintaining the fiction serves your left wing political interests?

No, The Limits to Growth’s predictions have proven correct as you well know. It was your mates in the fossil fuel industry and on the political right who knew all too well that what they were doing was crazy, but which you and they refused to accept. They promoted the fiction that climate change was not happening or that, if it was happening, it was not because of the fossil fuel industry’s GHG emissions. That is the fiction that got us into this disastrous situation.

You keep contradicting yourself. If Limits to Growth predictions have proven correct - then how can you say: "clean energy AND economic growth are possible and, indeed, that they complement each other." Do you know these statements are contradictory? Do you know what limits to growth means?

It seems so. In one breath you demand I accept the science, and in the next breath scorn Nasa/Sandia Labs research.

I have not scorned the magma study. You have tried it make the study into something it never was. It was a preliminary study that is 40 years old. It did not address the difficulty of, nor the immense capital investment that would be needed, to drill tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust world-wide. But drilling through continental crust on a world-wide scale is what would be required and not just plugging into the odd volcano here and there. It would be the biggest energy infrastructure project humanity has ever undertaken and the cost would be astronomical and ongoing.

You have done nothing but scorn Nasa/Sandia's Magma energy study. You do so here - saying it was a preliminary study. No, it wasn't.

"In a previous seven-year study, we concluded that there are no insurmountable barriers that would invalidate the magma energy concept. ....The present program is addressing the engineering design problems associated with accessing magma bodies and extracting thermal energy for power generation. The normal stages for development of a geothermal resource are being investigated: exploration, drilling and completions, production, and surface power plant design. Current status of the engineering program and future plans are described."

That's way past anything that can be dismissed as preliminary. And it absolutely did address the engineering design problems associated with magma energy extraction. This is why I'm thinking you have an axe to grind; that you're defending your political tribe to the exclusion of the potential for a high energy, prosperous and sustainable future - you won't even admit is distinct from the plans of the green limits to growth lobby.

You talk of inconvenient truths, while studiously ignoring the fact earth is a big ball of molten rock. If you think my ideas are in any sense designed to 'own the libs' then you do me a disservice. I don't care who toes I trample on. I aim always to speak truth to the good.

I have not ignored the facts about the structure of the earth with its crust, mantle and core. This is primary school knowledge. What I have done is point to the problems inherent in drilling not just one hole through 10km of continental crust (which is what the study investigated) but tens of thousands of such holes worldwide. And the problems and cost of such a project would be ongoing. (See below)

I explained there's no need to drill to 10km depth; that useful temperatures can be achieved at depths of one to three kilometres, albeit, in places often geographically undesirable. Less than entirely ideal. It serves to bear in mind the history of Iranian oil:

D'Arcy hired geologist George Bernard Reynolds to do the prospecting in the Persian desert. Conditions were extremely harsh: "small pox raged, bandits and warlords ruled, water was all but unavailable, and temperatures often soared past 50°C".[5] After several years of prospecting, D'Arcy's fortune dwindled away and he was forced to sell most of his rights to a Glasgow-based syndicate, the Burmah Oil Company.
By 1908, having sunk more than £500,000 into their Persian venture and found no oil, D'Arcy and Burmah decided to abandon exploration in Persia. In early May 1908, they sent Reynolds a telegram telling him that they had run out of money and ordering him to "cease work, dismiss the staff, dismantle anything worth the cost of transporting to the coast for re-shipment, and come home." Reynolds delayed following these orders and in a stroke of luck, struck oil shortly after, on 26 May 1908.

Let's do some back of the envelope maths. It would require 1.5 million windmills to meet global electricity demand. Electricity is around 20% of all energy use. So to meet all energy demand from wind that's 7.5 million windmills - at a cost of around $4m each. Windmills last around 20 years; which means you have 20 years to build 7.5m windmills just to stand still in terms of total energy availability. Only, according to the IEA - global energy demand is set to increase 50% in the next 30 years. So lets call that 20 years to build 10 million windmills at $4m each, before you are building windmills to replace windmills you built 20 years before. $40 trillion every 20 years? Now I'm no maths genius, but by my rough estimation that adds up to economic ruin. And all that mining, refining, concrete and steel, manufacture, transport, construction and maintenance, to say nothing of the fact windmills are almost impossible to recycle, adds up to environmental ruin.

Even if your calculations were right, which is very doubtful, it must be done because of where your mates have taken us. Not reducing emissions, not converting to clean ready-to-go renewables and continuing down the business as usual path that you and the fossil fuel industry advocate, is what will end in economic as well as environmental disaster. Even if it were possible to bore tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust these holes would not provide everlasting energy because the rock around them would cool with heat extraction, and so new holes would have to be drilled repeatedly to keep the energy flowing. This economic cost of this is incalculable but would be prohibitively huge.

My calculations are certainly wrong. The scenario they describe is powering the world with wind. That wouldn't happen in any event. I just wanted to give you an idea of the scale of the problem, and the costs associated with your assertion:

"We need to cut GHG emissions and keep pursuing solar, wind and other renewables and probably go nuclear ASAP if we are to avoid the worst. If magma energy ever proves feasible on a world-wide scale (highly questionable), and if it were pursued even on local and regional scales, it would take many decades to make even a small contribution to world energy needs."

See, you're scorning Magma Energy again, and you're advocating for a limits to growth approach. Did you pick up on the fact global energy demand is around 600 quads, while Nasa/Sandia Labs say there's a minimum of 50,000 quads of magma energy available just from the US alone? What's that - about 85 times world energy demand? Considered in relation to the hypothetical problem of powering the world with wind, surely you see that 'pursuing solar, wind and other renewables' is a waste of time, resources and political will.

But if you bore a hole into a volcano, run a pipe through it, and run water through the pipe, that requires relatively little infrastructure, and will produce massively more and constant base load power. Once the infrastructure is built, it doesn't need replacing every 20 years. If hole x loses heat, you can drill another hole nearby, and hole y can feed the same power plant. Initial costs may be high, but ongoing costs are much lower.

We are not talking about plugging into a volcano here and there. Not all countries have volcanoes. We are talking about drilling tens of thousands of holes through 10km of continental crust worldwide. Volcanoes are only occur on plate margins – along the ring of fire for example - and in a few other isolated continental hot spots. Moreover, plate margins are the most seismically active regions on earth and infrastructure there would be repeatedly damaged or destroyed and have to be replaced at enormous cost.

Again, we built the oil industry in the Iranian desert, and managed to export that energy to the West. There's no reason why we cannot transport magma energy, as base load electricity and/or hydrogen fuel. I've even considered other methods, like using magma energy to heat sand batteries, but hydrogen seems more efficient, and is a versatile fuel with many applications.

Electricity can be transmitted by high voltage electric cables, or by converting electricity to hydrogen gas - distributed by pipeline, or compressed into a liquid fuel, and shipped. Hydrogen can be burnt in internal combustion engines, hydrogen fuel cells and power stations - and the only emission is water vapour. Now I'm no math genius but in my rough estimation that adds up to hope of a prosperous and sustainable future for humankind.

The same can be done at less cost with ready-to-go renewables.

No, it cannot. I've explained why. I can explain it again, or better yet, you could go back and read what I've written previously.

Their uptake has meant that, these days, whole states in Australia use nothing but those sources when they are at peak productivity. I read that the same has happened in the UK on the odd day here and there. With much greater uptake, these sources of energy will be able to provide for all our energy needs.

Muggles! Globally, electricity is about 20% of all energy use.

There will need to be upgrades to the grid and investment in more battery storage to ensure reliable baseload power. However, this is entirely doable and is underway in some places. And just as a backup, we could go nuclear. These are all proven technologies. We don’t need to repeatedly and endlessly drill tens of thousands of large holes world-wide through 10km of continental crust at untold cost to achieve clean energy sufficiency. If magma were the panacea you believe, it would be happening now. It is not and will not be happening anytime soon. However, we need to do something very soon to avoid the worst that your mates have thrust upon us. And it is being done, but not quickly enough in an environment of increased GHG emissions due to the climate-change-denial and business-as-usual game you and the fossil fuel polluters are playing. Emissions must be cut drastically in the next few years and the uptake of renewables increased rapidly. That is the only way out of the current dilemma. And it is the moral way out. It will avoid the worst - a catastrophe that will see the climate ruined, 100s of millions of people displaced, and whole economies destroyed just so that your fossil fuel mates down on the moral low ground can continue to make billions playing their dirty polluting game.

You're just wrong. You'd spend fortunes creating a spiders' web of low grade power - and wouldn't be any better off in terms of total energy availability. You'd stoke the fires of mount doom to manufacture all this soon to be tech scrap, the costs would extract value from economies on a massive scale, restrict supply and so increase energy prices, and you'd still be dependent on fossil fuels for base load power so have to tax people into poverty to make up the carbon shortfall of Nat Zero carbon budgets. It's entirely the wrong approach.

We can have economic growth and clean reliable energy. We know that. All that is required is the political will to bring the polluters to heel and to encourage the further uptake of proven renewables. Your way will not provide this. Your way is to continue trashing the joint. We don’t need to. We can have the best of both worlds – economic growth and a livable planet. That is what we need to do and what we should do.

No, that's just what they're telling you. Here's a little secret. They lie! They're building wind and solar because they know low grade renewables cannot displace fossil fuels. Magma Energy can. If we want a solution to climate change, we need abundant clean energy from magma, not unreliable mitigation of continued fossil fuel addiction with a trickle of wind and solar power whenever the sun shines and/or the wind blows.

[Sy Borg]

An example of a country ill suited to geothermal energy would be Australia. It's simply not volcanic. You would need to drill holes almost as deep as the 12km Kola Superdeep Borehole in northern Russia.

[Mercury]

An example of a country ill suited to geothermal energy would be Australia. It's simply not volcanic. You would need to drill holes almost as deep as the 12km Kola Superdeep Borehole in northern Russia.

Australia is surrounded to the North and East by volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. They have 150 dormant domestic volcanoes worth investigating. Volcanoes often have a magma chamber beneath, such that useful temperatures can be reached at depths as shallow as 1-3 km. Have a glance at a map of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and you'll see Australia has potential geothermal energy resources from here to Woolloomoloo.

[Sy Borg]

An example of a country ill suited to geothermal energy would be Australia. It's simply not volcanic. You would need to drill holes almost as deep as the 12km Kola Superdeep Borehole in northern Russia.

Australia is surrounded to the North and East by volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. They have 150 dormant domestic volcanoes worth investigating. Volcanoes often have a magma chamber beneath, such that useful temperatures can be reached at depths as shallow as 1-3 km. Have a glance at a map of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and you'll see Australia has potential geothermal energy resources from here to Woolloomoloo.

Underwater volcanoes present their own problem. The US tried drilling a deep hole in water when competing with the USSR in trying to dig the deepest hole. The project failed. The logistics of drilling very deep into the ocean bed (and in international waters or waters belonging to other nations) are huge.

Also, when a volcano becomes active, that will not augur well for local geothermal projects. I would not trust it as baseload but it no doubt has a place in the energy mix, especially in nations with easier access to hotspots.

[Mercury]

An example of a country ill suited to geothermal energy would be Australia. It's simply not volcanic. You would need to drill holes almost as deep as the 12km Kola Superdeep Borehole in northern Russia.

Australia is surrounded to the North and East by volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire. They have 150 dormant domestic volcanoes worth investigating. Volcanoes often have a magma chamber beneath, such that useful temperatures can be reached at depths as shallow as 1-3 km. Have a glance at a map of the Pacific Ring of Fire, and you'll see Australia has potential geothermal energy resources from here to Woolloomoloo.

Underwater volcanoes present their own problem. The US tried drilling a deep hole in water when competing with the USSR in trying to dig the deepest hole. The project failed. The logistics of drilling very deep into the ocean bed (and in international waters or waters belonging to other nations) are huge.

Also, when a volcano becomes active, that will not augur well for local geothermal projects. I would not trust it as baseload but it no doubt has a place in the energy mix, especially in nations with easier access to hotspots.

Under what ...errr, volcanoes? They're volcanic islands. Zoom in! Now zoom out again and you see the potential. The Pacific Ring of Fire starts in Australia, reaches all the way up over the roof of the pacific, right down to South America. 450 volcanoes to start with. There's another 1100 volcanoes worldwide. And then there are subduction zones all over the Earth, where one continental plate is pushed beneath another, I'm guessing would become viable as the technology matures. But all that so, Nasa/Sandia say there's a minimum of 85 times global energy demand available from magma just in the US alone. We'd barely need to scrape the surface of the magma energy available to meet global demand, ten times over, carbon free forever.

I think it likely Nasa/Sandia Labs, three years after putting men on the moon, can be considered reputable, but trust isn't the issue. The potential must be explored in face of either fossil fuel powered climate disaster, or a limits to growth policy tragedy. Or more likely, both!

[Lagayascienza]

My response hasn't even been approved by the moderators and you're having another go? You are burying my post behind yours, so it's not responded to! It happened once and I let it go, but now you're making a practice of it.

I am not aware of any rule that states on cannot add to a post if it has not yet been responded to by one's interlocuter. However, since it bothers you, and since your posts have to be ok'd from above, I will wait for your next post before responding again, despite having much more to say on the matter, particularly WRT your demonization of environmentalists.