Forum Overview :: Biohazard: Code Veronica :: Senor Barborito MetaFilter Post

[quote name="Senor Barborito Metafilter Post"][quote]I understand that there must be some (seemingly, at least) unsolvable engineering problem in harnessing it, but I don't know what it is.[/quote] No expert here, but I repeatedly hear corrosion brought up as a major issue - and since geothermal would seem to involve metal parts in an environment with a lot of hot water and salts, it seems plausible enough. My own opinion on this is that fission power via pebble bed reactors should simply be seen as a stopgap until fusion. We need something to act as a backbone for our energy production (that is, a core source outside of solar/hydro/tidal/wind/geothermal) until we get there. Given the choice between rendering a cubic kilometer under the Yucca mountains uninhabitable for functionally eternity or choking to death on the byproducts of fossil fuels while drowning in melting glaciers . . . sucks to be you, anaerobic bacteria. The preprocessing is a bitch but compared to what we've got now it just doesn't seem like there's much of a choice to be made here, you know? posted by Ryvar at 9:56 AM PST on November 10 [/quote]