Take a bunch of molten iron (enough that it will go however deep) and let it percolate down through the earth's crust, leaving a huge hole. Let the iron cool and throw water down. When the water hits the now solid but hot iron(from the mantle below the thin layer of crust) steam is expelled. Harness the steam atop the hole and use it to generate electricity.

Mantle>>Heats crust>>Heats iron close to bottom of crust>> Iron heats water>> Water turns to steam and rises to top>> Steam turns turbine>>Turbine turns generator>>Electricity
-- empty89, Aug 27 2004

(?) 1903! - That can't be right! - Well I *think* it's true. http://www.energyqu.../1900ce-1910ce.html
[Dub, Dec 01 2005]

Isn't this a normal geothermal well, but less complicated/ possible?

Widely Known to exist
-- swimr, Aug 27 2004


Except this could be used anywhere, not just in active volcanic areas
-- empty89, Aug 27 2004


Maybe you could just leave the iron cold, and use whatever you were going to heat it up with to make the steam.
-- bungston, Aug 27 2004


"Take a bunch of molten iron" - which would cool and harden on the bottom and form a container for the remaining iron, however much you started with. You're suffering from Bad Science here, boy (girl?).

I'm not altogether sure that molten anything would leave a channel behind it as it sank into the ground. But if it did, a better approach would be to use nuclear fuel rods. They would have the double advantage of being heavier than the materials in their path, and providing their own heat as they melted down.
-- DrCurry, Aug 28 2004


Plus if you started them on the moon and dropped them onto earth, they would be going pretty fast when they hit.
-- bungston, Aug 29 2004


Really fast...maybe enough to create nuclear yield if any actually survived the atmosphere? Figure out how to shapecharge a nuke and your tunneling needs are solved.
-- otmShank, Aug 29 2004


so you want to use energy to heat iron to the melting point, pour it on the ground and let it melt a hole, then pour water down the hole to get some energy back? I've heard some wasteful ideas, but this takes the cake.

OK, so the whole thing would supposedly be heated by the mantle, right? Wrong. The only reason Geothermal works in some places is that the crust is thin enough there, or there is a pocket of magma working its way up. Drilling a hole at some random location where this is not the case will do nothing but give you a hole in the ground.
-- Freefall, Aug 30 2004


[Baked] All over the world occurring naturally. The energy needed to heat the metal is redundant and wasteful.
-- subflower, Nov 30 2005


How deep would you have to drill in, say, Vermont, to hit hot crust? Seems like you probably can't drill that deep.
-- sninctown, Dec 01 2005


Baked, I think. I'm pretty certain the Italians have been running their trains on the geo-thermal electricity for years.
-- Dub, Dec 01 2005



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