Bishop Hill Green fracking dilemma
Dec 2, 2013 Energy: other Greens 
Prominent green groups in Scotland have (inadvertently) called for fracking to take place north of the border as soon as possible.
Well, kind of.
In an article by Rob Edwards (who seems unable to write anything without quoting Friends of the Earth Scotland), we learn of a new study that examines the scope to use hot water from old mine workings to generate power.
As much as a third of the heat needed to keep Scotland warm could be provided by tapping geothermal energy from old coal mines across the central belt, a major new study for the Scottish government has concluded.
Warm water piped up from abandoned mine shafts between Glasgow and Edinburgh and in Ayrshire and Fife could help heat many thousands of homes and other buildings for decades, researchers say. They are urging ministers to embark upon an ambitious bid to make geothermal energy a major new source of clean, renewable power within a few years.
Apparently there are already some real-life pilot plants at work and environmental groups like Friends of the Earth (it's a Rob Edwards article after all) and WWF seem very keen:
Dr Sam Gardner, head of policy at WWF Scotland said it should be seriously examined and “taken forward in every suitable Scottish city and town.”
Dr Richard Dixon, director of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said: “It is a nice irony that some homes that used to be heated by coal are now being heated by water from old mine workings, and it would be great to see this idea deployed on a very wide scale.”
The sting in the tale is this bit though:
[The study] mentions that hydraulic fracturing – fracking – may be needed to help extract the heat.
Now there's a dilemma.
(Via Dart Energy's Twitter feed)
Reader Comments (55)
Johanna, those are just remembered snippets from talking to engineers at the rigsites and elsewhere.
Another snippet: given that any power produced in central Australia would not survive the journey to any population centre (Not counting Innamincka!) , it was rumoured at one point that they were approaching Google to put a server farm there, since data over fibre optic would be relatively lossless over long distances.
After reading Andrew Blum's excellent book Tubes: a Journey to the Centre of the Internet http://www.economist.com/node/21557298 I have an inkling why Google isn't setting up at the 'mincka. Coolness is an important criterion.
" Coolness is an important criterion."
:)
I'm not suggesting for a minute that Innamincka isn't hip enough. Heaven forfend. I mean, how many towns are groovy enough to have a pub powered entirely by "renewable" energy, except if (when?) they run the diesel genny.
Just that the the likes of big Google 7 Facebook servers need *low temperature* dry locations , ideally that also intersect well with a power grid. Somewhere in Eastern or Central Oregon appears to fit the bill, according to the book I mentioned.
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2011/11/do_centers_get_more_than_they.html
I don't really see how water from abandoned coal workings would be a good energy source. I can't see any reason why it should be warmed very much. Most of it will be more or less acidic after taking up some of the sulphur in the coal.
Can anyone explain why this is not so?
We have some big server farms here in the Houston, Texas area. If cool weather was an important criteria for server farms, they would most assuredly not be here.