[frankthetank]

Not so fast doomers, ive found more energy for us!

A normal hydrothermal vent might produce something like 500 megawatts, while this is producing 100,000 megawatts. It's like an atom bomb down there.

Hmmmm...thats a lot of energy, but it would be difficult to harness, right?

...and then there is the "precious!"

They have determined, for example, that the vents are hotspots for precious metals, such as silver, gold, zinc, and copper.

As yet, these resources lie beyond the reach of commercial interests because mining the ocean floor strains the bottom line.

"The cost of working in the deep ocean is so extreme," explained Reves-Sohn of Woods Hole. "We have the same problem in the scientific community. We don't get to go to look at these places as much as we'd like."

I bet if you tapped this source you would really f up the ocean circulation causing even more atmospheric chaos.

LINK

[SolarDave]

It makes you think. As these things come and go, could the ocean currents change anough to cause historic climate changes?

And if we created an equivalent amount of hot water through power generator cooling and dumped it in the ocean, would we discover yet another way to affect the global environment?

Our water-cooled generating plants are only something like 30-34% efficient - that means a 1,000 MW plant generates 2,000MW of 'hot water' - 50 plants generate the same thermal energy as this plume - and we just dump it.... and we are thinking of building how many more water cooled generating plants?

Welcome to the next lesson in global climate change.

[frankthetank]

YUp...there is a lake here in WI that is used for cooling...

PORTAGE, Wis. — Warm, open water is sure hard to come by in Wisconsin this time of the year.

There's really only one place to find it, and that's at Columbia Lake, right outside of Portage.

It's a 500-acre cooling reservoir associated with Alliant Energy.

In winter, the water temperature ranges anywhere from 70 to 85 degrees, depending on what side of the dike you're on. The lake's average water depth is 7 to 8 feet...

It uses Wisconsin River water...Summer temps must be 100F...