The Advantages of Clustering Geothermal Generators on Ocean Rift Zones

Abstract

There is a large enough geothermal resource base within the world?s oceanic rift zones to mitigate global warming and climate change. Oceanic rift zones, which wrap around the world for 65,000 kilometers, account for a major part of the heat flow from the Earth?s interior. The geothermal resources potentially available from these areas of the ocean floor are far higher in quality than the geothermal resources that are normally accessed on land, and are concentrated in areas that are relatively more easily detected. Because drilling at sea is more expensive than drilling on land and transmission requires expensive submarine cables, it is critically important to the exploration and development of these resources that they are concentrated in compact areas. Oceanic rift zones could, however, support clusters of geothermal generation stations that should alleviate many of these impediments, and provide vast amounts of baseload power with availability factors above 90 percent.