“This road is long, and much of the map remains blank. The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons.”
The image is a test brick being spun around under the output of a MASER which is a type of directed energy weapo…tool. This is normally highly controlled to run tokamaks but they are trying to make it less expensive and adapt it to shot dirt and rocks to evaporate them and easily penetrate at 1meter per hour for around 100 days…~3km deep.
Didn’t see that in the article, sounds interesting … where can I read more?
You can check them out here in their websites: https://www.quaise.energy/
There’s a pictogram schematic of their maser system. The little tube part above the molten pit is called the waveguide. Waveguides allow the transport of energy from the source to elsewhere. The wavelength has to be tuned such that the receiving end…rock… Actually absorbs the power. Otherwise the amplifier would receive deflections and either overheat or blow up.
Article is paywalled, but geothermal power solutions already exist. NZ gets 25% of its power from geothermal. Its not a science problem, its an engineering one, and mostly solved as well. And fortunately, the oil companies have all the expertise to do it.
SLB had acquired Celsius Energy, a company that deploy low depth geothermal solution. They are also partner with Genvia to developpe hydrogen. And have also plans for offshore wind turbines. Oil company all have plan to transition to new energy. Then know oil is not a long terme business. The problem is doing the transition while making money. If you dont make money, you die. And if you die, you cannot do transition. Unfortunately, oil still generate shitload of money…
I’d really like to see governments enact bans on drilling new oil wells. Then suddenly all the tooling for drilling wells is freed up for geothermal wells.
While oil drilling is profitable, there is always the risk that these new companies get bought out by oil companies and told to drill for oil instead.
It is a good sign that in some countries where leasing is still open, oil companies are buying a lot fewer permits
France has ban drilling new Wells on its territory. For now, despite oil lobbying, ban is still applied :) The problem with geothermy is more a social and legal problem. No one care about drilling in the middle of north sea. But geothermic should be drill close to population. And suddenly, everyone becomes afraid of earthquake, and you need dozens of authorizations.
France is also 80-90% nuclear from memory, so less demand for other renewables?
But valid point, its never that simple :(
More something like 50% nuclear, 40% renewable, but we also sell lot of nuclear electricity to Germany. Hydraulic is very well used. We have hydrolic power plant everywhere it’s possible. Not many people know this. “Hell ya, why don’t we build more hydrolic plant ?!” Well, because we already did 😅
Archive Link I thought all posts were supposed to have alternative links. Whatever.
The headline is sensationalistic, because we are a country of morons, but the article gives a pretty good overview of the history and engineering problems with geothermal in the US.
It’s not mostly solved because a huge portion of the world doesn’t live above shallow geothermal
“We have the ability to do this right now, but we need to solve distribution” is exactly what an engineering problem is.
They need to solve drilling deeper. This company is working on that
I can get geothermal right where I live, and its definitely not a shallow geothermal area. Its expensive, because digging the pipes is hard, but its definitely solved.
You dont have to go that deep to get to warmer than surface air, which is all thats needed to run a heatpump. I dont know what that group is aiming at, but its definitely not a moonshot.
Stupid question. Can you use a heat pump for cooling?
Yup, thats exactly how your fridge/freezer works. Low pressure refridgerant inside the fridge space, absorbs heat, is then compressed outside the fridge, raising its temperature which is then allowed to radiate out.
Good video on the concept here:
Geothermal heating won’t stop climate change, this is about using geothermal for power which requires going deeper than traditional drilling can do. It’s about taking advantage of the fusion reactor under our feet.
If you have a heat differential, you can generate power. Heat pump to boil water and drive a turbine.
What is this
nonsenseabout a “fusion” reactor under our feet?!? There is no fusion going on in our core.Edit: striked out inflammatory phrasing.
Don’t know what to tell you except that it’s obvious you didn’t read the article nor have you looked into what it’s talking about. They need to go deep enough to get supercritical steam.
And yes I meant fission, not fusion. But go off on the rest I guess
There is no fission inside the earth either, except some exceptionally rare locations.
Have you actually looked into what your talking about?I did read the article, but the first half was fluff about them digging a hole and not having enough concrete. The rest is press releases for drilling startups.Super critical steam may be what they are trying to get, but it is definitely not a requirement for generating energy.
Edit: needlessly inflammatory comment striked out.
There is A LOT of radioactive matter below the earth’s surface … constantly generating heat.
“About 50% of the Earth’s internal heat originates from radioactive decay. Four radioactive isotopes are responsible for the majority of radiogenic heat because of their enrichment relative to other radioactive isotopes: uranium-238 (238U), uranium-235 (235U), thorium-232 (232Th), and potassium-40 (40K).” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth’s_internal_heat_budget
Lol I don’t believe you read the article. Don’t lie now when anyone can scroll up and see that you wrote:
You dont have to go that deep to get to warmer than surface air, which is all thats needed to run a heatpump. I dont know what that group is aiming at, but its definitely not a moonshot.
They aren’t talking about drilling for heatpumps. Not knowing what they’re aiming for is a result of not having read the article.
Current drilling technology can’t get us deep enough for the energy we need to use geothermal as a power source. The company in the article is trying a very new method using gyrotrons to vaporize the rock after traditional drilling caps hits a financial barrier.
Real Engineering just put out a video on it if you’d rather watch than read.
