I would like to share with you one of the most exciting green energy projects I have ever seen. When we say green energy, we usually think of the above, right? Solar or wind energy. After all, these are natural and constantly existing resources. The energy source I will talk about is also natural and sustainable, but it is not above, just below us. In the depths of the earth. In the near future, we may begin to use the energy emanating from the earth's core.
We know that the Earth's core is hot. It's beyond imaginable too hot. If we are to make a comparison, the temperature of the surface of the sun, that we see, called the photosphere, is 5500°C/9932°F. The core of the earth was thought to be around this temperature, but according to recent studies, it was found that it could reach up to 7000°C/12632°F. So inside the Earth is an iron sphere that is 70% of the radius of the Moon, and this sphere is hotter than the surface of the Sun.
Now you will say that if there is a sphere as hot as the sun 3486 km/2166 miles below us, why does it not melt us? First of all, we need to remember that heat and temperature are different things. Heat is a form of energy, and temperature is a measurement. A spark from a sparkler may reach a temperature of 1,500°C/2732°F, but it may not actually harm you. Don't try it anyway. On the other hand, a boiling water bath at just 100°C/212°F can kill you. This is because the bath contains much more heat energy. In order for the core to melt the Earth, much more energy is required than the existing heat.
In addition, this core is surrounded by a solid rock mantle. The crust on which we live floats above this mantle and protects us much more than the space between us and the Sun.
That heat may not melt the crust, but it's still a pretty powerful energy source. According to Paul Woskov, a fusion research engineer at MIT University, there is so much heat below the Earth's surface that if we used just one-thousandth of it, it could supply the entire world's energy needs for more than 20 million years.
People might say, "Well, let's use it then". We actually do already use very little of it. And, we have been using it in Turkey for more than half a century too, underground hot springs sometimes come very close to the surface in some places. Turkey is one of the lucky countries in this regard. With the studies started in the 1970s, it is the leader of Europe in geothermal energy capacity and its direct use, and the 4th in the world. According to the data of the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, 94% of Turkey's geothermal resources are low and medium temperature. Which means, it is only suitable for direct applications. In other words, if there is hot water coming out of the ground, you can build a spa or heat the nearby houses. So what will the unlucky regions do?
It is necessary to go deeper in those regions. If we can drill deep enough, we can install geothermal power plants wherever we want. But this is much more difficult to do than just say. The thickness of the earth's crust varies between 5 and 75 km/3.1miles to 47miles. The thinnest parts are unfortunately usually deep in the ocean. Therefore, in the land, it is necessary to drill much deeper holes.
The deepest hole humanity has ever managed to dig is the Kola Super Deep Borehole. Close to the Norwegian border, this Russian project started in 1970. They aimed to pierce the crust all the way to the mantle. In 1989, 19 years after they started digging, one of the boreholes reached a vertical depth of 12,289 m/40,318 feet. But they run out of money. More precisely, they realized that the investment they made was not worth the profit they would earn, and they closed this hole with the cover you see. The cover to the entrance of hell! If you pick it up and throw something in it, it will drop 12 km down and possibly melt away before it hits hard ground! Because at that depth, the temperature was expected to be around 100°C, but in reality they found it was closer to 180°C. The rock was less dense and more porous than expected, and these factors combined with the high heat made it a nightmare in terms of drilling.
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