Posts by I'm sparticus

Outback geothermal plant goes live

Re: "The rocks driving the geothermal plant have a temperature of about 242°C."

The pant will not last that long anyhow without serious maintenance. The LP turbines get a serious kicking chemistry wise and need replacing with alarming regularity otherwise they tend to pretty much dissolve. The mass steam flow is relatively low, hence the very small 1MWe output, but as the heat source is free, the economics kind of work so long as the drillings stay open long enough to keep the flow of water/steam going long enough to justify the initial capital expense (they tend to fur-up, a bit like your kettle at home).

Seismically active areas are better suited for geo-thermal plants due to the depth of holes required, re. New Zealand, California etc. Australia is not that active as far as I know. Good on 'em though for giving it a bash.

Watch out for the GIGANTIC ALIEN JELLYFISH, warns space boffin

Re: yellow submarine?

Not entirely true; The reletive mass of a submarine when dived is pretty much the same as the displaced water, and only minor changes in ballast are required at constant depth, usually as waste is discharged and food is consumed. To change a submarines depth, internal ballast tanks are used where the surrounding water is flooded in to increase the mass of the boat or pumped out by the ballast pump to decrease the mass of the boat, hence changing the depth.

The only other variable is that the volume of the submarine will change with depth due to the crush effect, thus becoming denser the deeper you wish to dive, therefore requiring de-ballasting on the way down.

I suppose the 'creature' in question would be internally less dense than the atmosphere around it, apart from it's onion shaped balls, which it would presumably blow only if it wanted to get really high!