Clean energy from filthy water
notes:
-Injecting cleansed municipal
wastewater into underground
geothermal fields can create
sources of steam for generating
electricity and reduce wastewater disposal problems.
■ Projects in the Santa Rosa,
Calif., area are providing
lessons in how best to build
shallow- and deep-drilled
geothermal power plants.
■ Small earthquakes can be
caused in the area immediately
surrounding such plants--
a serious complication that
municipalities must consider.
-They are using urban effluent to generate
clean energy, improving life not only for humans but also for fish
-Every day the Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge
Project pumps some 12 million gallons of treated wastewater through a pipeline to a mountaintop 40 miles from the city and then injects it
down into an aquifer a mile and a half underground
-There hot rocks boil the water into
steam, which is piped to the surface to drive electricity-generating turbines
-According to the
U.S. Department of Energy, the technique could
supply 10 percent of the nation’s electricity by
2050, and other estimates go higher
-Injecting cleansed municipal
wastewater into underground
geothermal fields can create
sources of steam for generating
electricity and reduce wastewater disposal problems.
■ Projects in the Santa Rosa,
Calif., area are providing
lessons in how best to build
shallow- and deep-drilled
geothermal power plants.
■ Small earthquakes can be
caused in the area immediately
surrounding such plants--
a serious complication that
municipalities must consider.
-They are using urban effluent to generate
clean energy, improving life not only for humans but also for fish
-Every day the Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge
Project pumps some 12 million gallons of treated wastewater through a pipeline to a mountaintop 40 miles from the city and then injects it
down into an aquifer a mile and a half underground
-There hot rocks boil the water into
steam, which is piped to the surface to drive electricity-generating turbines
-According to the
U.S. Department of Energy, the technique could
supply 10 percent of the nation’s electricity by
2050, and other estimates go higher