Unveiling New Power Sources: Harnessing Earth's Inner Energy
You might know lots of power sources like nuclear energy, fossil energy, as well as renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal and hydropower but volcanologist who study volcanoes and geologist who study tectonic mountain shift might have just been able to find two new power sources.
Since the industrial revolution, we have been releasing CO2 to the atmosphere because we need to keep innovating and increasing modernization. This has led to increased global warming, and this is why the year 2023 was the hottest year in the history of humans and so we can reduce the heat and global warming we have been looking into how to stop using fossil fuel but we cannot stop using fossil fuels if we do not have an alternative.
The first source is Magma. The earth exacts pressure on itself, and this pressure produces intense temperatures that creates magma chambers under the earth. Magma are molten rocks near the earth crust but then they can be close to the earth surface that they erupt to form lava which can destroy buildings and towns.
While much about lava is still unknown, volcanologist are finding and studying them and it has been studied that magma has 50 thousand times more energy than all the fossil fuel on earth and they have been working on how to harness the heat from the magma as energy. In case you do not know, magma chamber researches have been happening in areas that are volcanically active such as Hawaii, Mexico, Iceland, and Kenya.
While we know so much about lava, we do not know much about magma. When magma reaches the earth surface and reacts with the atmosphere and it is not capable of being an energy source but with the right equipment, researchers are looking at how to extract the heat of magma to spin turbines and create electricity.
To this, researchers are going to creating a Magma observatory which deals with freezing the magma solid with water and will create a sock of glassy rock from the drill they create so as to prevent it from being exposed to outside air, after which they will channel the magma to a chamber where they will monitor information about the magma. This will lead to Near-Magma Geothermal Energy which can be used to generate electricity.
For now, some concerns include how large the boreholes will be and the scalability of it but we also had the same problem at the beginning of our understanding about fossil fuels. Overtime with technology, we can improve on this in the future but then, magma energy source isn't the only one that researchers are working on, they are also working on Geological hydrogen also known as gold hydrogen.
Gold hydrogen is a colorless and odorless gas that burns without the production of CO2 as byproduct, rather it releases water as by product. In 2012, a geological hydrogen reserve was first discovered in Mali and since, researchers have been looking into finding golden hydrogen in its natural state. It is not like we haven't been burning hydrogen but thus isn't in its pure state, rather we get it from the burning of natural gas with steam.
Scientists have been able to find gold hydrogen in the Pyrenees and Hajar mountains, and more reserves are been searched for although scientists are still yet to understand how this gas is being made but with this sources, there is a possibility of leaving fossil fuel in the future.
As we navigate a future less dependent on fossil fuels, the exploration of Magma and Geological Hydrogen presents promising avenues. These breakthroughs underscore the importance of Earth's inner energy in shaping sustainable energy solutions for generations to come.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36944726/
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42569-9
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078062/
https://www.researchgate.net/publication
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26134722
https://www.wired.com/2011/02
https://africa.businessinsider.com/science/iceland-scientists
https://phys.org/news/2011-02-magma-power-geothermal-energy.html
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26134760-500-the-gold-hydrogen-rush-does-earth-contain-near-limitless-clean-fuel/
A lot of times, human exploration of science into getting a better life can be scary. What happens if the borehole cannot hold the magma, or the cooling water can't turn the initial lava to rock so as to hold the magma? You can imagine a catastrophic event.
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