Looking Inside Earth

[rhodan]

Berkeley Research News:<ul type="square">First Measurement of Geoneutrinos at KamLAND<br /><br />BERKELEY, CA – Results from KamLAND, an underground neutrino detector in central Japan, show that anti-electron neutrinos emanating from the earth, so-called geoneutrinos, can be used as a unique window into the interior of our planet, revealing information that is hidden from other probes. <br /><br />“This is a significant scientific result,” said Stuart Freedman, a nuclear physicist with a joint appointment at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California at Berkeley, who is a co-spokesperson for the U.S. team at KamLAND, along with Giorgio Gratta, a physics professor at Stanford University.<br /><br />“We have established that KamLAND can serve as a unique and valuable tool for the study of geoneutrinos with wide-ranging implications for physical and geochemical models of the earth,” Freedman added.<br /><br />In a paper presented in the July 28, 2005 issue of the journal Nature, an international collaboration of 87 authors from 14 institutions spread across four nations has demonstrated the ability of the KamLAND detectors to accurately measure the radioactivity of the uranium and thorium isotopes, the two main sources of terrestrial radiation. The measurements the collaborators made are in close agreement with the predictions of the leading geophysical models of our planet’s thermal activities.<br /><br />....<br /><br /><b>Our Mysterious Inner Planet</b><br /><br />Surprising as it may seem, for all that we have learned about far distant astrophysical events like deep-space supernovae, dark energy, or even the Big Bang itself, the interior of our own planet remains a mysterious and largely unexplored frontier. Among the many questions is the source of terrestrial heat. The total amount of heat given off by the earth at any given momen</ul>

 

[tom_hobbes]

Fascinating article, thank you for sharing it here. I have to confess that I've never heard of geonuetrino's, but I don't think I'll interact with them much anyway. <img src="/images/icons/smile.gif" /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font size="2" color="#339966"> I wish I could remember<br /> But my selective memory<br /> Won't let me</font><font size="2" color="#99cc00"> </font><font size="3" color="#339966"><font size="2">- </font></font><font size="1" color="#339966">Mark Oliver Everett</font></p><p> </p> </div>

 

[paleo]

Thamks. Interesting article.<br /><br />But as for "The total amount of heat given off by the earth at any given moment has most recently been estimated at about 31 terawatts (TW). A terawatt is equivalent to one trillion watts. For comparison, the average energy consumption of the United States at any given moment is 0.3 trillion watts."<br /><br /> Hmmm? As a geologist I wouldn't cosider that realistic. Doesn't seem even ballpark. That means at any moment the energy consumption in the USA is about 1/90th of the heat given off by the Earth. I would think American energy consumption wouldn't be anywhere near that percent but multiple times lower. The sun radiates about 3000 times the amount of heat energy into the Earth than humans use. I think the atricle means heat generated from original Earth sources and not heat radiated from the Earth. Even there, however, I'd have thought that not just all the natural radiation, but thermal activity, would be far more than 90 times USA cenergy consumption.

 

[rhodan]

paleo,<br /><br />I'm not a geologist, so I'll take your word for it. We could contact the author of that article of course, to clear things up.<br /><br />Meanwhile the US may be getting its version of KamLAND: <ul type="square">A Gold Mine for Science<br /><br />BERKELEY, CA – It is the deepest mine in the United States and was the site of the single largest gold deposit ever found in the Western Hemisphere. What has, for the past 125 years, been known as the Homestake gold mine, outside the town of Lead, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, could become the home of an enormous underground multipurpose national scientific laboratory.<br /><br />The National Science Foundation has announced that the Homestake gold mine is one of two finalists in the competition to determine the future location of the Deep Underground Science and Engineering Laboratory (DUSEL). The Homestake underground lab proposal, which is being led by Kevin Lesko, a nuclear physicist with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), will receive a $500,000 grant from NSF to go forward with a conceptual design for DUSEL. <br /><br />...<br /><br />“The Homestake mine is a vast site capable of hosting a comprehensive suite of experiments in all major fields of science, including low background experiments and very large detectors in particle and nuclear physics, and multidisciplinary deep sub-surface studies in geosciences, geoengineering and microbiology,” said Lesko . “Furthermore, with 375 miles of tunnels already carved, the Homestake site could be expanded over the next 30 years to accommodate an evolving scientific and outreach mission."<br /><br />...<br /><br /><b>The Need to Go Underground</b><br /><br />While the Homestake mine may have been emptied of all its precious metals, it represents pure gold in the future for a broad number of scientific investigations which must be carri</ul>

 

[valareos]

"The total amount of heat given off by the earth at any given moment has most recently been estimated at about 31 terawatts (TW). A terawatt is equivalent to one trillion watts. For comparison, the average energy consumption of the United States at any given moment is 0.3 trillion watts." <br /><br />OOk. .let me get some numbers here<br /><br />The consumption of energy for the US in 2001 was 96,246 trillion btu (entire year)<br /><br />The consumption of energy average then is approximately 10.98 trillion btu per hour.<br /><br />Which converts to approximately 3.22 million Kilowatthours per hour.<br /><br />meaning average, the us consumes only about 894 thousand kilowatts per second or 894 million watts<br /><br />compare to the earths 31 trillion watts<br /><br /><br />and in any given second the us is using ONLY 0.0029% of the power the earth can produce as a whole<br /><br />Are those numbers better?

 

[tempel1]

Dear friends <br />Go here please:<br />http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=117 <br />” The spacecraft's VELOCITY RELATIVE TO THE SUN is at about 26 kilometers per second (about 59,250 miles per hour). Cassini is now more than 9 million kilometers (almost 6 million miles) from Earth”. <br /><br />Since our probe is launched from the earth, it has already a velocity of 65,000 miles per hour (earth's velocity). <br /><br />Why have NASA engineers steered Cassini on this trajectory? <br /> http://www.space.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=h_cassini_trajectory_02.gif&cap=The <br /><br />Instead of increasing Cassini's velocity they have slowed down it at 59,250 miles per hour. <br /><br />NASA engineers think the earth is the center of our solar system and don't consider earth's velocity. <br /><br />In this wrong way Cassini has travelled for 2 200 000 000 miles to meet Saturn. <br /><br />Cassini would have been able to fly along a straight line travelling for less than 1 000 000 000 miles. <br /><br />65,000 miles per hour (earth velocity) + 36,000 miles per hour (spacecraft's velocity) = 101,000 miles per hour <br /><br />1 000 000 000 miles : 365 days : 24 hours : 101,000 miles per hour = 1.13 years <br /><br />If NASA engineers considered the earth's velocity, Cassini could meet Saturn in one year! <br />

 

[nexium]

Your arithmetic failed: 894 million watts is about the output of our local electric utility here in Jacksonville, Florida. <br />Assuming the 96,246 trillion btu per year is approximately correct = 264 trillion btu per day = 11 trillion btu per hour. Apparently, you assumed 3.416 million kilowatthours per btu, an error of perhaps a million times. Can someone tell us how many watthours (or wattseconds) = one btu? Neil

 

[valareos]

Double checked math, and it works out. as far as jacksonville's output, remember, the numbers I give are per second. and watts are a measurement of power, NOT energy, which is what we are really dealing with. Energy is a factor of power and time. What we need to deal with are watthours (1 watthour is equal to 1 watt being used in one hour. a 100 watt lightbulb running for 10 hours pulls the same amount of energy as a 1 kilowatt device pulls in 1 hour, even though the 1 kilowatt device pulls more power. both are described as using 1 kilowatthour of energy)<br /><br />ok... so <br /><br />US in one year used 96,000,000,000,000,000 BTU/year<br /><br />now here I will do it differently than the first calculation. Im going to go straight to seconds, which the number of seconds in one year is 365.25 days/year * 24 hours/day *60 minutes/hours*60 seconds/minute=31557600 seconds/year<br /><br />so the us uses 3,042,056,430 BTU/second<br /><br />1 kwh = 3,414 BTU<br /><br />this converts to 891,053 kwh of energy being used every second, or 891,053,000 watthours/second<br /><br />This number means that every second, the us is using as much energy as 8,910,530 100 watt lightbulbs use in an hour<br /><br />Math is correct, it is only a misconception on the difference of power and energy.

 

[valareos]

but then you get a measurement of power, NOT energy.<br /><br />The number I gave was the amount of energy used in a second, which is what we are comparing to. not the amount of pwoer. again, Watthours is a measurement of energy, watt is measurement of power. <br /><br />What I was giving was the amount of ENERGY produced per second by the us. if you cancel out the units, you get a MEANINGLESS number. cause you LOSE the time reference. which is needed for making a determination of the amount of energy used at any given moment.<br /><br />smaller example. you want to know how much energy a 100 watt lightbulb uses in one day.<br /><br />it uses 2,400 watthours per day. again, that gives a reference of energy used over time. you dont cancel out the time or you will end up with a number that states how much POWER is needed to accomplish the task.<br /><br />both our math is correct, again, its a matter of straightening out what we are talking about. the article is describing the amount of energy produced by the earth in comparison to the energy output of the US BTU is a measurement of energy, as is kilowatthours. just because it has hours in the name DOESNT mean it gets canceled out for what we are doing.<br /><br />http://www.energy.iastate.edu/renewable/wind/wem/wem-18_apen_a.html<br /><br />once more. your answer is correct when determining power, I was after energy used per second

 

[valareos]

sighs, listen, just look at your power bill. They dont charge you for total watts used in a month, they charge you on Kilowatthours per month. they dont cancel out the time units, because you are charged for energy used, not power used. Power is just potential.<br /><br />100 watt lightbulb on for 10 hours--<br />power needed to run lightbulb-100 watts<br />energy used- 1 kilowatthour<br />watthours used per hour- 100 watthours<br /><br />1 kilowatt device on for one hour<br />power needed to run device-1 kilowatt<br />energy used-1kilowatthour<br />watthours per hour- 1000 watthours<br /><br />4 kilowatt device used for 15 minutes<br />power needed to run device-4 kilowatts<br />energy used-1 kilowatthour<br />watthours per hour-4,000 watthours<br /><br />yes, for a device running for exactly one hour, the power in watts is the same as teh energy used.<br /><br />your right about keeping units straight, Im just trying to get you to understand that watthours is a different unit altogether than watts. they measure different things. you cant cancel out the time portion without changing what you are quantifying.