Earths Natural Heat vs Its Minerals

When it comes to the global climate change issue the race is on to try and find an answer to stop polluting our planet but still fulfill all our energy needs and continue to keep up with the seemingly ever-growing population growth. There are many options and many different beliefs on our global climate situation but when it comes down to it we have two types of energy sources; renewable and non-renewable. One of the few renewable resources out there is Geothermal heat and has very little harm on the environment and may be one of our best answers to solving this climate change crisis or at least combat some of damage. Then there is Nuclear energy which is used to generate about 20% of the United States electricity right now, it’s effects on the environment however, are a little less clear.

Geothermal is a very simple idea at it’s most basic level, ‘geo’ means earth and ‘thermal’ means heat in Greek, thus geothermal energy is simply energy being produced from Earth’s natural heat sources in its rock and fluids beneath the surface. The heat lays usually just ten feet under the ground and sometimes right on top of the surface in the form of hot springs and pools, as well as geysers like The Geysers field in California that have been running 1960. However there is obviously more heat as you move deeper into the earth and eventually can reach molten hot magma. Some countries have been using geothermal heat for thousands of years, the oldest known use was in the third century in China where people were using hot spring pools for bathing grounds. Not only does geothermal energy heat and cool spaces but it can also create electricity.
 Residential applications of geothermal use this idea by using a closed loop system, started by diggin...

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As far as price is concerned the power produced at The Geysers field in California sells their power at $0.03 to $0.035 per kWh, a power plant today would require costs to be about $0.05 per kWh and this could peak during high-demand periods. The costs for a geothermal power plants are always most expensive right up front because of all the drilling and pipelines that have to be done. In 2011 nuclear power rates were averaging at about $2.10 per kilowatt-hour in states like Arizona and New Mexico. The Palo Verde Nuclear generation plant in Tonopah, Arizona is the largest power plant in the United States by net generation. The plant sits on 4,000 acres of land and provides power to roughly four million people throughout California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas with 30.4 million megawatts of power in the year 2000 and has continues to provide electricity.