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Q&A

Could a geothermal plant work for several millennia

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Is possible to have a geothermal plant (not necessary a very powerful one) to work for several millennia without the place where it is built over running out of heat?

I found a page (don't remember which one) which said that a geothermal plant can only work for around 200 years before it depletes the "heat well".

But (this is my idea) if a geothermal plant was over a "heat river" (a place where lava or magma moved around and heating the area, I don't know if that is possible) the plant could get an endless supply of heat (I don't know if it can recycle water but also there could be a river near!). But after thinking of that I got this question: Would the magma river disappear naturally after several millennia (maybe 10,000 years)? Continents move a few centimetres per year, maybe magma do the same and the river would disappear.

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This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/86868. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

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From my understanding of geology, the answer is Yes. This is, of course, discounting anything to do with maintaining the facility over such a time period.

The biggest issue that I can see is plate tectonics. Hawaii is/was formed by a hotspot in the plate, which moves while the islands themselves don't. Some places have volcanoes being active for thousands of years, while others end up going dormant because the source ends up moving. As far as I know, the same applies to most sources of geothermal energy.

Depending on your setting, this could be a non-issue. A place like Mars doesn't have tectonic plates like Earth does, so could easily provide heat for a significant period of time.

The geothermal plant isn't going to suck the heat out of the crust. There's far, far too much heat being produced that a geothermal plant could remove it. But the source of heat won't be still, which is where I think the 200 year note comes from.

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