Some of the comments on the article are interesting. There are actually lots of real difficulties, particularly when you go deep. Stainless steel isn’t, for example and isn’t it interesting that fracking is acceptable for this but not for oil and gas.
There was a company in Australia which spent a lot of money trying to tap the deep hot rocks in the north of South Australia. The investors lost their shirts including one Tim Flannery aka “flim flammery” who has been promoting the climate change bs for years (it’s never gunna rain again etc, etc). He’s been making quite a living out of it but has bought a couple of low lying waterfront properties.
Lawsuits, limited area where geothermal is possible (note: possible not necessarily practical), and did I say lawsuits?
If trillions of dollars had wasted on Geothermal energy instead of solar power and wind mills, where would we be now?
I’ve seen geothermal power stations in New Zealand (aka New Zimbabwe).
The “renewable” part seems to be rebuilding the damn thing every few years because of the corrosion.
Wind energy is renewable.
I understand you have to “renew” the blades after some time.
I believe the temperature limit is due to the electronics on the drilling heads. They’re already fabricated from silicone carbide using ceramic circuit boards and are operating at the very top edge of what’s possible now. The drilling heads are usually powered by the drilling fluid pumped down the drill tubing so if it’s traversing a mile or two of hot rock, there’s not much cooling to be had. It’s a problem for the oil and gas industry as well so there are various deep pockets looking to push operating temperatures higher but it’s slow going pushing the physics of semiconductors and materials where you could use molten lead as a heat exchange fluid.
This appears to be one of those things that will improve over time. Problems now if people try to force it and have the same issues as with other sources pushed ahead of their current capabilities. It would be good to let the market, I.E. unenlightened self interest, dictate the direction of future energy. Subsidizing and forcing solar and wind has shown drawbacks to politically correct energy decisions.
One thing mentioned a few times in the article was permitting difficulties. Is it likely that FUD will damage this long term as it has the nuclear industry?
My main takeaway is that this may mature into a major source if allowed to. The problems noted in the article and comments are almost certainly solvable. Hopefully when it makes financial rather than political sense.
I wonder if in the long-term it might become feasible to forestall a super Volcano event in an area like the caldera under Yellowstone park by drawing off allot of the thermal energy and using it to generate power for us… killing two birds with one stone.
That would be – a whole LOT of energy.
Which should put in perspective just how insignificant our energy use really is.
Ocean has thinner crust, perhaps drilling deep to get geothermal energy is better done in ocean.
“On May 14, scientists aboard the research vessel Kaimei lowered a long, thin drill called a giant piston corer nearly 5 miles (8,000 meters) through the Pacific Ocean — waiting two hours and 40 minutes until the drill finally reached the bottom of the Japan Trench, according to a statement. There, the team extracted a 120-foot-long (37 m) sediment core from the bottom of the sea before slowly hauling the corer up again.”
So instead do in 1 or 2 km of ocean depth and drill 1 or 2 km thru ocean floor.
Some of the comments on the article are interesting. There are actually lots of real difficulties, particularly when you go deep. Stainless steel isn’t, for example and isn’t it interesting that fracking is acceptable for this but not for oil and gas.
There was a company in Australia which spent a lot of money trying to tap the deep hot rocks in the north of South Australia. The investors lost their shirts including one Tim Flannery aka “flim flammery” who has been promoting the climate change bs for years (it’s never gunna rain again etc, etc). He’s been making quite a living out of it but has bought a couple of low lying waterfront properties.
In 2006, in Switzerland Geothermal Energy and Induced Earthquakes…
Lawsuits, limited area where geothermal is possible (note: possible not necessarily practical), and did I say lawsuits?
If trillions of dollars had wasted on Geothermal energy instead of solar power and wind mills, where would we be now?
I’ve seen geothermal power stations in New Zealand (aka New Zimbabwe).
The “renewable” part seems to be rebuilding the damn thing every few years because of the corrosion.
Wind energy is renewable.
I understand you have to “renew” the blades after some time.
I believe the temperature limit is due to the electronics on the drilling heads. They’re already fabricated from silicone carbide using ceramic circuit boards and are operating at the very top edge of what’s possible now. The drilling heads are usually powered by the drilling fluid pumped down the drill tubing so if it’s traversing a mile or two of hot rock, there’s not much cooling to be had. It’s a problem for the oil and gas industry as well so there are various deep pockets looking to push operating temperatures higher but it’s slow going pushing the physics of semiconductors and materials where you could use molten lead as a heat exchange fluid.
This appears to be one of those things that will improve over time. Problems now if people try to force it and have the same issues as with other sources pushed ahead of their current capabilities. It would be good to let the market, I.E. unenlightened self interest, dictate the direction of future energy. Subsidizing and forcing solar and wind has shown drawbacks to politically correct energy decisions.
One thing mentioned a few times in the article was permitting difficulties. Is it likely that FUD will damage this long term as it has the nuclear industry?
My main takeaway is that this may mature into a major source if allowed to. The problems noted in the article and comments are almost certainly solvable. Hopefully when it makes financial rather than political sense.
I wonder if in the long-term it might become feasible to forestall a super Volcano event in an area like the caldera under Yellowstone park by drawing off allot of the thermal energy and using it to generate power for us… killing two birds with one stone.
That would be – a whole LOT of energy.
Which should put in perspective just how insignificant our energy use really is.
Ocean has thinner crust, perhaps drilling deep to get geothermal energy is better done in ocean.
“On May 14, scientists aboard the research vessel Kaimei lowered a long, thin drill called a giant piston corer nearly 5 miles (8,000 meters) through the Pacific Ocean — waiting two hours and 40 minutes until the drill finally reached the bottom of the Japan Trench, according to a statement. There, the team extracted a 120-foot-long (37 m) sediment core from the bottom of the sea before slowly hauling the corer up again.”
So instead do in 1 or 2 km of ocean depth and drill 1 or 2 km thru ocean floor.