Re: the extra heat into the environment if we use deep geothermal wells.
I wrote the following in my "Cold Fusion - an environmentalist's
perspective" article for Infinite Energy magazine.
"The human population is forecast to stabilise at around 11 billion by the
middle of the next century and if each human was then using a constant 30
kilowatts, which may very well happen if we have unlimited energy to run our
homes, transport and manufacturing processes etc, then we would be adding
around an extra 1/750 of the heat that Earth intercepts from the sun. This
might be insignificant globally but, as the climate seems to have a fractal
nature and be vulnerable to the "butterfly effect", it may conversely have
large effects. Fractional changes in the solar insolation due to tiny
variations in Earth's orbit are thought to account for the periodicity of
ice ages. In any event, the outpouring of so much waste heat in areas of
high population density would certainly have an effect on the local
microclimate and so this effect should be guarded against - it may be that
we will need to radiate the waste heat into the night sky to get rid of it."
If geothermal proved to be a problem, I think it would be easily soluble.
Nick Palmer
On the side of the Planet - and the people - because they're worth it
