#7 - Geothermal power plants produce power using heat from

[Administrator]

Please post your questions below!

[EmiliaGrace]

Hi, got this wrong on the June test then I worked on drilling and did a blind review of this section. I picked B on a whim. I saw the right answer was D. When I was paraphrasing I thought that the correct answer would show the geothermal power plants would become cheaper and be better than conventional. I still don't know why D is the best answer. I really didn't think any of the answer choices were the best. Could you explain why D is the best?

[Who Ray]

Hi there Emilia!

This question is interesting because the stem directs us to a viewpoint in the stimulus that does not make up its bulk. The advocates say that "near future economical power from geothermal power plants will be available in most areas." In your prephrase it seems like you narrowed in on the word "economical," but "in most areas" is actually more important. In the stimulus, it says that geothermal is cheaper in places "where such underground hot water and steam can currently be reached by drilling." Therefore, we do not need changes to geothermal turbines, coal plants, or environmental regulations to make geothermal cheaper. Instead, what we need to do is reach hot water and steam. One way to do that is the develop better drilling techniques, AC D.

Remember to let your prephrases guide your attack of the ACs, but do not let your prephrase constrict the attack!

Cheers,
Who Ray

[lanereuden]

This makes no sense. No where in the passage does it indicate digging deeper is the equivalent of being in most areas. In fact, it says there are limited areas of the world where such underground hot water and steam can currently be reached (and because of the nature of argument, this is presumably for economic reasons and not due to the fact that oil is limited to certain geographical regions). That is, that there only select regions that have the economics means to drill in this way. To get into 'most areas,' like the US, a lowering costs across the board for all types of power plants , like answer choice E suggests, would help to do so. Again, deeper into the earth does not equal, at least in my book, being available in most areas [across the globe]. And so, in my book, this question is putrid, i.e. I am still baffled in these ways by this question.

[Adam Tyson]

I hear your frustration, lanereuden! The key to answering this question is in this phrase from the stimulus:

In the limited areas of the world where such underground hot water and steam can currently be reached by drilling

The author is telling us that geothermal plants are only workable in a few places, because those are the only places where we can drill down to where the hot water and steam are. If in the near future we could drill farther down, that would likely mean that we could reach some hot water and steam that is not currently reachable by drilling. It's the reachability that is the limiting factor, not the cost!

Answer E doesn't help us any, because it does nothing to increase the general availability of hot water and steam to feed a geothermal power plant. Costs can come down to zero, but if you can't get the fuel because your drills won't reach it, what good does that do you?

Remember not to fight with the answer choices on the LSAT! That's a fight that you can never win, and which produces no useful outcomes but only leads to frustration and missed points. Instead, look for what the authors were thinking, and try to understand why THEY think an answer is good, or why another is bad. Once you can get into their heads, and out of your own, you will find the test much easier to understand and attack.

Good luck, keep up your spirits and the good work!

[cornflakes]

I actually also chose E here and now on my BR feel dumb for doing so - they really pepper "economical" twice in there to get your brain to think that its about the production costs when, in reality, its simply about accessing the underground hot water reservoirs.

Also, I didn't notice this when I initially read - but the geothermal power operation is already cost efficient in the limited places it does exist - this gives further credence to the idea that cost isn't the issue, but access (if you were to get cute with it and say well, drilling down further would COST more, therefore..)

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Exactly right here, Cornflakes. Answer choice (E) doesn't strengthen here because it doesn't address making geothermal power more widely available. It's about power plants more generally, and doesn't impact our conclusion to this particular stimulus.

[JM]

Hi, I think I understand the justification for LSACs answer to this question, but I don't think it is a good one, and so I want to ensure I'm not missing something.

Is this the key piece of the stimuli that is meant to support the correct answer, "In the limited areas of the world where such underground hot water and steam can currently be reached by drilling."?

If so, should I infer that this statement suggests that the areas of the world where hot water/steam cannot currently be reached by drilling, the inability to reach them is due to their depth?

I did not select answer choice D, because ability to "drill many times deeper" does not seem justify the contention if the reason the hot water/steam cannot be reached is something other than it's inaccessible depth. Because the stimulus did not specify "depth", and because I could come up with many other reasons that hot water/steam may not currently be reached by drilling, I felt answer choice D was potentially irrelevant, and thus did not do the most to justify the contention.

Can you please tell me if there is another component to this that I am missing? If there is not, perhaps I should forget about it - chuck it as a one-off? I fear if I am currently seeing things correctly here, but disagree as I do, it might color my future answer selections in a way that decreases correct choices.

Thank you for any insights!

[Adam Tyson]

If this was a Justify the Conclusion question, JM, you would be right to dislike answer D, but since it is a Strengthen question we don't need an answer that proves the conclusion is valid. We just need something that would be helpful in getting us closer to the conclusion.

It's reasonable to presume, based on the language you cited, that depth may at least be part of the issue. I suppose it could be other problems, such as certain areas being impermeable to current drilling technology - not too deep, but too hard to crack - but the reference to being "reached" by current drilling does suggest that there may be more hot water and steam below our current reach. Thus, improvements in drilling that allow us to go deeper would seem to improve the prospects for more geothermal energy production.

I'll paraphrase the stimulus, and simplify it a little:

Fact: Geothermal power uses underground hot water and steam.

Fact: Right now, we can only get to underground hot water and steam in a few places.

Fact: In the few places where we can get to it, it's cheaper than fossil fuels.

Contention: Soon geothermal power will be economical in lots of places.

Question: What additional fact would help make that contention look reasonable?

Prephrase: Soon we will be able to get to underground hot water and steam in lots of places.

Notice how that prephrase links the facts we already have (about hot water and steam) to the new claims in the conclusion (soon...lots of places)? Answer D is the only one that comes close to that prephrase, linking the ideas that were not yet connected in the stimulus, making it the best of the bunch and therefore the credited response. Close those gaps to improve the argument!