“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.”
“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.”
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 :(
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:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
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
Fission is a form of decay, but its relatively rare compared to the other more typical modes of devay.
Spontaneous fission is relatively rare, because it is usuallly restricted to superheavy elements, which are fairly rare and short lived.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_fission
It was a needlessly pedantic nitpick though.
Lol I don’t believe you read the article. Don’t lie now when anyone can scroll up and see that you wrote:
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.
Your absolutely right, I didn’t read the full article. It was clearly a puff piece. There is no new science here.
Heat pump doesn’t just refer to the home heating and cooling systems, it can also be refer to any process that can boost the temperature up to the usable temperature.
Current geothermal systems dont require super critical steam right out of the ground, they boost the temp from relatively low temps (<180c) up to usable temperature. This technology has existed for decades, and can be rolled out right now, no moon shots required. Oil companies have dug down 12km, which is enough to get to 180 across a huge portion of the US.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/56b679/us_temperatures_at_the_depth_of_10_km_62_mi/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_cycle
I’m sorry about the fusion comment, which was rude, but I haven’t been deliberately rude to you, I’d appreciate the same.