A SOUTH Tyneside scientist has helped proved the region once basked like the Bahamas.

Professor Paul Younger, from Hebburn, is part of a team which has spent the past four months looking for a geothermal energy source.

And yesterday researchers struck hot water.

Their discovery aptly came on one of the hottest days of the year so far, with temperatures on South Tyneside soaring – although the heavens opened later in the afternoon. During the early hours, the giant drill hit a hot-water source 2,000m below the earth’s surface at the Science City site.

The £900,000 project, which began four months ago, marks the first deep excavation in the UK since the 1980s and the scientists now plan to pump the water back up to the surface so that it can heat local buildings.

Prof Younger, from Newcastle University, said: “This hot water could be available 24/7 because it doesn’t depend on the weather. It is as cheap and as low-carbon as it comes.”

The drill also went through a coal seam at a depth of 660m that nobody knew existed and uncovered fossils thousands of years old. Newcastle University geology student Laura Armstrong has been examining fossils that were discovered in a block of limestone more than 1,000m below the ground. “It is one of the most exciting things we’ve found,” she said. “These shells and corals suggest that Newcastle was once a tropical environment, like offshore Bahamas.”

The next step is for scientists to run tests on the sandstone, which acts as an insulator for the hot water.

http://www.shieldsgazette.com/news/scientists_happy_to_be_in_hot_water_1_3521295

They plan to drill another hole, the two would provide enough power for the Uni and 11,000 homes.

Green might not at current tech meet all our needs. But with more investment we get cheap renewable energy. Planning permission seems to be the problem... causing delays to which certain energy farms although approved are yet to be complete.


I must say in the USA.. wouldn't small towns in the sunnier regions prefer to be virtually self reliant, and perhaps even sell energy off to the grid??