Monday, November 16, 2015

Dragon Water


DRAGON WATER
By Anton Antonio
November 17, 2015

Two days ago, I posted an infomercial on Facebook about “dragon water” with the caption: “Iceland is Attempting to Harness “Dragon Water” for Renewable Energy.”  Most of us are familiar with the term “water dragon” which is a zodiac sign in Chinese astrology associated and known to be lucky, flexible, eccentric, imaginative, artistic and charismatic… but not the term “dragon water”.  One particular friend, Betchay Angeles Gomez, became curious enough to comment that she needs to read and research on this term.  As a response to Betchay’s comment, here is a researched material about “dragon water” written by Paul Brown, the founding editor of Climate News Network and is also the environment correspondence of The Guardian newspaper.  Please read…

“DRAGON WATER COULD POWER THE PLANET
By Paul Brown
November 5, 2015

The quest is on to develop new technology that can tap the intense heat deep below the Earth’s surface and supply the whole world with electricity.  An ambitious project is being launched to drill deep into the Earth’s crust to harness super-heated “dragon water” that would generate massive quantities of renewable energy.  Unlike traditional geo-thermal heat, which exploits hot rocks to produce steam for turbines, this project goes far deeper --- to where the pressure and temperature are huge but potential benefits are 10 times as great.  There is an infinite amount of energy beneath the Earth’s crust.  The problem is the technology to harness it.  The European Union (EU) believes that deep drilling techniques developed by the oil industry can be adapted to extract the energy.  It has earmarked €15.6 million for a project in which potentially the world’s most energy-rich geothermal well will be drilled at Larderello in Tuscany, Italy.  The technical challenges are formidable because of the intense heat and pressure that will turn steel brittle and wreck electrical equipment, so the plan is to develop engineering tools that can withstand the conditions. Iceland, which already exploits traditional geo-thermal energy successfully, has tried and failed to harness super-heated rock.  But it has not given up, and a second attempt is being planned.  The EU believes using oil company expertise in drilling deep wells will be the key to success.  At a depth of between two to three kilometers, the conditions change dramatically and drillers will encounter what has been called “dragon water”.  No one has previously manages to control the forces unleashed in a well under such extreme high temperature and pressure conditions.  Roar Nybo, a physicist at SINTEF Petroleum Research, explains: “One of the major uncertainties is the presence of what we call supercritical fluids.  At depths of two to three kilometers in the Earth’s interior, ambient physical conditions change dramatically.  Something very special happens when temperatures reach 374 degrees and the pressure 218 times the air pressure at the surface.  We encounter what we call supercritical water.  It’s isn’t liquid, and nor is it steam.  It occurs in a physical form incorporating both phases, and this means that it takes on entirely new properties.  Supercritical water behaves like a powerful acid, and will attack anything --- including electronics and drilling equipment.  In a TV fantasy series, it would probably be called ‘dragon water’.”  But the dragon water has major advantages too, Nybo says.  The fluid can transport from the depth up to 10 times more energy than normal water and steam can achieve in a standard geothermal well.  It also flows more easily through rock fractures and pores.  If researchers can succeed in controlling the forces involved, without the technology breaking down, then a new and vast source of energy can be tapped anywhere in the world.  Another potential advantage is that supercritical water can also transport valuable minerals to the surface in solution.  This could provide potential incidental revenues.  “The dragon of the deep may thus help us open a real treasure trove,” Nybo says.  The depths to which engineers have to drill to achieve the desired temperatures will vary from country to country, due to variations in the thickness of the Earth’s crust and the geothermal gradient.  In Norway, temperature increases by about 20 degrees per kilometer, while in other parts of the world, this may be as high as 40 degrees per kilometer.  The average is about 25 degrees.  Geothermal energy is being developed across the world and has huge potential in every continent.  Countries currently leading the way in the generation of electricity from geothermal sources are the US, the Philippines, Mexico, Indonesia and Italy.”

I certainly hope this (dragon water) new form of renewable energy becomes a reality.  If there are no serious environmental issues attached to it, why not?  We really are in need to identify and harness ecologically friendly sources of energy as an alternative to fossil fuel which is primarily being blamed for global warming and climate change.

Having worked for an oil and gas exploration managing company (Conley & Associates, Inc.) in the late 1980s, I should say that extracting and utilizing “dragon water” will prove to be a very daunting task.  I have serious reservations, however, on the two to three kilometer depth that the report identifies where “supercritical water” can be found.  Our company, using Rig No. 10 of the Philippine National Oil Company (PNOC), dug the deepest hole in Southeast Asia at 18,369 feet which is roughly 5.6 kilometers… almost double the 2 to 3-kilometer mark as suggested.  Unfortunately, we did not find gas or oil of commercial quantity… neither did we find dragon water.

Thoughts to promote positive action…

(Please visit, like and share Pro-EARTH Crusaders on Facebook or follow me at http://antonantonio.blogspot.com/ and http://twitter.com/EarthCrusader/)

REFERENCE:
ClimateNewsNetwork.net, (2015). “Dragon Water Could Power the Planet”.  Retrieved on November 17, 2015 from http://climatenewsnetwork.net/dragon-water-could-power-the-planet/


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