Iceland is a geologically new island formed by the spreading of the mid-atlantic ridge.
NZ is basically a giant mountain range sticking out from the bottom of the ocean, in a climate where it rains and snows, a lot.
They are interesting cases in using technology to generate power both at low cost and minimal environmental impact, but in no way at all are they models for the rest of the world.
An externality can't be costed because there is no way to know the cost. You can only model it. As there is no way to validate the model, you end up with many competing models with no way of knowing which one is correct. As such, you can't give an accurate price.
Borehole geothermal is possible too. Basically, find a large, hot mass of rock close to the surface, drill down a couple of kilometres, pump water down and get steam out (typical temp is ~200-300C).
That's in Australia, known for its geological stability, lack of active volcanoes, etc.
Drift? Not in Australia. Even in other parts of the world, most of the boreholes are proposed in large granite masses (they're hot because of radioactive decay as well as conduction) which are relatively static.
Mostly it's just an issue of getting enough investment to get a plant off the ground - there's no major technical impediment involved.
Yes, even in Australia. We're very stable by geological standards, yet we still have minor fault lines and the whole plate is still moving north.
When your borehole is kilometres deep it only takes a tiny amount of drift to start breaking stuff all up and down the system.
And superhot steam is not exactly a friendly substance to begin with.
The main company who've been working on the Australian deep-drilling geothermal problem is Geodynamics. And they have been at it for years and years. They've consumed tens of millions of dollars and have, so far, not successfully produced a deep-geothermal plant.
Laugh if you like; but the stuff used in stationary plants isn't full of an unpredictable cocktail of dissolved minerals and hydrocarbons.
Truthfully I am not across the detail of the problems with deep boreholes.
I am however across the fact that it hasn't worked yet. And we're talking stuff that Very Intelligent People With A Lot Of Funding have been working on for quite a while at this point. And they don't even have a working proof-of-concept plant working yet.
Deep borehole geothermal sounds great on paper, but the engineering challenges are enormous and yet to be surmounted. By comparison oil, gas and especially coal are absolute doddles with work with.
Iceland has a total population of 319,000.
NZ has a total population of 4.4m.
Both are situated on active volcanic areas.
Iceland is a geologically new island formed by the spreading of the mid-atlantic ridge.
NZ is basically a giant mountain range sticking out from the bottom of the ocean, in a climate where it rains and snows, a lot.
They are interesting cases in using technology to generate power both at low cost and minimal environmental impact, but in no way at all are they models for the rest of the world.
An externality can't be costed because there is no way to know the cost. You can only model it. As there is no way to validate the model, you end up with many competing models with no way of knowing which one is correct. As such, you can't give an accurate price.