Geothermal energy — or drilling down to trap the earth’s internal heat — is an exciting source of clean power because it exists everywhere and could supply a steady and reliable source of energy. But what does it look like, this power under our feet?
I was obliged to draw a picture of geothermal energy for my latest Innovate column for Sierra magazine. That’s harder than it sounds. I’m a writer, not a graphic designer, and I’m more comfortable with a reporter’s notebook than a sketchbook. But in order to fulfill the column’s mission of revealing the world’s coolest and cutting-edge energy technology, I had to dig down and find my inner sketchist.
I thought it would be interesting to show you how my original, hamfisted drawing turned into the sleek, glossy infographic you see in the magazine. Here, side by side, are my original sketch and the final, professional infographic that appeared in the July/August 2011 Innovate, Geothermal in Coal Country. (Click on the images to expand.)
 My original drawing. |
 Final graphic by artist Brian Kaas. |
The idea for this column started with one factoid: A study had determined that the most promising spot on the East Coast for clean, emissions-free geothermal energy was in West Virginia. West Virginia? Like, coal-belching, mountaintop-removing West Virginia? I made a few calls and got ahold of Brian Anderson, an assistant professor at West Virginia University. Over the course of several conversations, he laid out for me his complex yet ingenious scheme for harnessing Appalachia’s subterranean heat.
You can see the details in the column, but I’ll add that I was impressed by the scope of Anderson’s plan. He has done nothing less than re-imagine West Virginia’s energy system, using geothermal heat as the key to an interlocking set of energy loops that turns the clippings from the timber industry (the state’s third largest) into biofuel, and uses the greenhouse gas emissions from the local Mount Storm coal plant to drive heat from the ground. He’ll need buy-in from big industry if he hopes to build such a mammoth and expensive project.
My challenge was to present this graphically — a far lesser challenge than Anderson’s, but difficult nonetheless. (Neither Anderson nor anyone else had ever created a drawing.) How could I depict three distinct yet interconnected energy loops operating above ground, while showing another loop circulating 2.4 miles underground? With explanatory callouts? And do this in a graphic that’s less than eight inches wide?
After tapping my pencil awhile on a blank page, it occurred to me that I could show the underground portion with a diagonal cutaway that would take up only a small part of the graphic area. Above ground, I decided to take the three above-ground systems — homes, forests, coal plant — and give them each a chunk of real estate on the page.
Here’s what I came up with (the attractive final product was created by graphic artist Brian Kaas). What do you think? What could this ink-stained scribbler have done better? Many more Innovates lay ahead, after all, and I welcome the feedback.
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