Wait until the bat huggers hear about this...
On paper, the Basel project looked fairly straightforward: drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again. The superheated water would be capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households and heat 2,700 homes.
But located on top of a fault line and in the middle of a city, it proved too dangerous to continue, Basel's environmental and economic department said last week.
Mr Haering could face up to five years in prison if a judge rules that he intentionally damaged Basel properties. A verdict is expected next week.
The glasses of schadenfreude are raised high tonight!
They attack Syncrude for 1600 ducks but I'm forced to wonder how many thousands upon thousands of birds have been guillotined by those damn useless windmills and yet nothing happens.
Posted by: Warren Z at December 18, 2009 12:45 AMMan made earthquakes?
Like could some guy make an earthquake if he wanted to?
If a butterfly flaps its wings in Toronna, a windstorm happens in Delisle
Another butterfly drills a hole and an earthquake?
Give me a break
Posted by: Jeff K at December 18, 2009 12:53 AMJeff K,
I'm guessing you haven't learned much about the conversion of potential energy to kinetic energy to electric energy. But yes, you can make an earthquake with enough money, but no it's impossible to predict it to the point of making reliable power.
The birds killed by windmills in the millions, not thousands.
Posted by: Jon at December 18, 2009 1:17 AMPumping pressurized cold water onto hot rocks....what could go wrong with that?
Those rotten Albertans are the leading turbine bat killers in Canada.
That of course only happens when there are no ducks to drown.
Syncro
Posted by: syncrodox at December 18, 2009 1:18 AMFlash steam; you don't want to mess with it...
ttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_explosionh
I learned my object lesson years ago. There was a total wreck of a dump truck at a smelter where I worked. The driver had inadvertently dumped a massive piece of semi-molten slag on top of a small puddle. The resultant explosion picked the truck up and hurled it like a toy.
Is that the water which will be heated to "several million degrees" in the Earth's deep crust according to Al Gore?
As for creating earthquakes, Lex Luthor already performed that trick. If only Superman hadn't reversed time, the Left Coast would be gone and Kern County would have a beach!
Posted by: POWinCA at December 18, 2009 2:31 AMSlightly off topic but not entirely, sorry Kate, but a laugh for the evening:
http://www.breitbart.tv/flag-waving-communists-socialists-march-in-copenhagen-to-stop-global-warming/
Posted by: TJ at December 18, 2009 2:39 AMStill waiting for California to slide into the Pacific.
Posted by: Revnant Dream at December 18, 2009 3:30 AMThis man has what the English used to be known for & have lost to craven cowardice to the Islamics. His unflappable Class, melded to a Mountain of Defiance .
That unflappability in the face of outrage.
JMO
I wonder if he demanded "One MEEEEELION dollars"?
To paraphrase Waylon Smithers, the environmental movement long ago crossed the line between everyday villainy and cartoonish super-villainy. So far, only Hitler has matched the body count of the deluded eco-meddlers who banned DDT, and only Stalin and Mao have beat their score.
IMHO, though, Herr Haering has still got a long way to go before he reaches the Sauronesque depths of depravity exemplified by those folks in Sweden who are busily rendering bunny corpses down into biofuel. Maybe he can bump his ranking up a few notches if he wears his monocle and brings his white Persian cat to the trial.
Posted by: DN at December 18, 2009 5:18 AMa very silly very funny tune in its day:
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/d/dayafterdayshango.shtml
Posted by: curious_george at December 18, 2009 7:52 AMAlberta leads all provinces with an installed capacity of 523.97 MW in 2008.
hmmm, I bet the eco-fascists missed this little tid bit buried at the bottom of the article while their collective heads were exploding trying to figure out how Big Oil was responsible for the death of all those poor bats.
Posted by: the bear at December 18, 2009 8:40 AMDid you all hear or read Obongo's Carbonhagen speech?
Meaningless drivel: a new pinnacle.
The first paragraph establishes the principle that man can - and must! - control the earth's climate.
Pretentiousness on steroids.
This is nuts.
Posted by: pok at December 18, 2009 9:05 AMOh please save the wee bats and bugs and flying things from the evil human pursuit of staying warm in winter.
Posted by: Jim at December 18, 2009 9:26 AMIt is very sad about the bats, and the ducks, and even the earthquakes. I personally wouldn't mind another source of energy not dependent on the Middle East. But technological innovation comes at a price, as Edward Tenner demonstrated so well in his book “Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences”.
What is missing from all the articles on the unfortunate interactions from wildlife and technology is any understanding of exactly how brutal Nature really is. For example, Avian Botulism* is an entirely natural phenomenon that kills millions of ducks and other water fowl on a regular basis in Western Canada and the US. Rather than mindlessly bashing petro cmpanies and other easy targets, we should go after Gaia and her followers for volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, changes in ocean currents, subsiding coast lines, droughts, ... Oh wait, I forgot, those are all do to Global Warming and Big Oil. So sorry.
*Good pdf on Avian Botulism here - it's almost too Rube Goldberg to see true, but it is:
http://www.srd.alberta.ca/BioDiversityStewardship/WildlifeDiseases/documents/Avian_bot.pdf
pok - heh re Obama's speech - maybe we can send him the story of King Canute
Posted by: Erik Larsen at December 18, 2009 10:40 AMGeez...bats eat mosquitos...mosquitoes carry West Nile....expect a spike in West Nile in humans...and they'll blame it on AGW..."wouldn't need the turbines if it weren't for global warming!" Oh, it's a mixed-up, shook-up world...
Posted by: Dan Gusztak at December 18, 2009 12:44 PMSo does this mean there are no longer acts of God? Have the insurance companies of the world got the memo? We can all start suing each other for disasters now seeings how they are man made and nature has nothing to do with anything anymore.
Posted by: Does this Mean at December 18, 2009 1:08 PMWind turbines are excellent devices from which to
hang moonbats; which we will likely be seeing, in\
years to come.
Geothermal power has been well researched and is
fairly well understood. Absent a hot spring,
the rock around the extraction device cools, to
ever=increasing distances, and yield falls. It will
recover, after several years. If the facility is
large enough, the theramal contraction in the
rock may be enough to trigger seismic activity,
though I'm not sure how well that has been
*proved*. With ten minutes of googling anyone
can find reports on pilot projects, and why they
were ot continued.
At the risk of getting Sasquatch all twitchy again, may I reiterate a point I tried to make the other day.
Subterranean rock is hotter than surface rock.
Heat moves from a high temperature zone to a lower temperature zone through a process called conduction.
Rock is generally a poor conductor of heat; metal is better, air is worse.
Therefore, heat in subterranean rocks will move to the surface of the earth, but slowly.
Geothermal Energy is nothing more a system of heat transfer that accelerates the transfer of heat from underground to the surface in a concentrated enough stream that it can be converted to electrical energy.
Therefore Geothermal Energy contributes to "global warming" because it upsets the natural process.
Warmists oppose "global warming" yet they support Geothermal Energy (inadvertent earthquakes notwithstanding).
Therefore Warmists are hypocrites. But we knew that already.
I have an idea that needs some fleshing out, but might work. Lava flows are already bringing subterranean heat to surface, therefore contributing to "global warming". The heat from lava isn't utilized in any meaningful form. I propose a study be initiated, and I am willing to head up that study. Persons interested in getting onboard, please send me enough money that I can move to the big island (Hawaii), buy a bunch of buildings and equipment, hire some assistants, and get on with it. I'm not promising anything in the way of rapid success, but I do promise to be honest with my temperature readings.
Optimistically - Mahalo!
Posted by: kakola at December 18, 2009 1:49 PMWhat about those poor animals neglected at the Toronto Humane Society? Scratch an environmentalist and you'll find someone who hurts nature more than helps it.
Just my thoughts.
Note that this was only triggering earthquakes. It probably was not responsible for the buildup of stress in the rocks which is attributed to plate tectonics. So there now may be a method to relatively safely trigger small earthquakes to release the energy. The lawyers will put a stop to it so a really massive amount of stress can be built up.
Posted by: Gary P at December 18, 2009 7:59 PMDrive a hybrid car and starve a family in Africa.
They just can’t seem to win.