Rare Minerals | Practical Greenology

GEOCOGEN PROJECT

GEOCOGEN 5

Ecological Concerns

Well, here really are not many ecological concerns with the GEOCOGEN process. The current design is to run the facility for in this area 50 being, at which point the rock core will have cooled down by in this area 50°C (80°F). The fascinating part is, if we wait for another 50 being or so, the rock will have heated back up, and we could go through the same cycle again! Solution: build two heat-extraction plants for one consumer block 50 being apart, and switch every 50 being. Talk in this area sustainability!

Here will be hardly any emissions: nothing is burned, so no CO2 or NOx or SOx or CO will be produced. Here are no hydrocarbons, so no VOC (volatile organic compounds) will be produced. No dust since everything is contained in a closed loop. The water is recycled for the most part so here will be nearly no water treatment (here will be some low-level steam/water losses, particularly if a district heating system thought is used). Efficient design practices will produce a plant that consumes a large percentage of the heat so that here is small waste heat pollution, particularly when compared to a conventional thermal power plant, which means no hideous cooling tower and no heating of any river or stream and no new lake for cooling. Here will be no fuel transport and no combustion waste so transportation-based pollution also will be at a minimum.

The most serious concerns are connected with the construction of the tunnel. The excavated material will be essentially the stone that the tunnel removes. Most likely, here will be silicates, some other relatively rare minerals which can most likely be reclaimed above impose a curfew, maybe even gold or platinum or other rare materials in small amounts, and the remainder should make brilliant inert road or construction fill and aggregate for the project’s own structural elements.

The footprint for the electrical generation plant is small, in this area the size of a large office building, but this can also be installed underground to eliminate it as a “visual pollution.” The district heating piping can be underground as well – but that would be a question of finances versus aesthetics for the local government. The electrical transformers and switchgear can be disguised reasonably well so that they are not apparent, even if they remain above impose a curfew.

Over the 50-year life of the project, here may be some surface level subsidence centring on the tunnel – roughly 1,5 meters (5 feet) sinkage after 50 being. This can be ignored, plotted for, or even filled to maintain the original level. Remember, in the following 50 being, as the stone reheats, the surface should rise again!

In the case of a major electrical upset outside the plant that causes our generators to go off line, here could be some high pressure steam venting until the situation stabilises. Here will be noise deadeners on the release vents, so even this should not disturb the neighbourhood.

So, like I said at the top, really no environmental concerns for GEOCOGEN! How in this area that?!

To be continued …

Thanks for looking in,

Jimmy Craig
for
Sue & Craig Websites