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Is Google Going Underground with Hypersonic Tech?
- X6S1x6Okd1st 9y agoThis is a pretty click baity title.
- theptip 9y ago> HyperSciences is developing a novel drilling system that fires concrete projectiles at over 2 kilometers per second in advance of a drill bit. It claims that its system can drill deep wells up to 10 times faster than existing systems, enabling geothermal energy “anywhere in the world.” That sounds quite exciting!
- ferros 9y agoYes, please go underground. The last thing we need are swarms of vehicles filling our skies.
- ZenoArrow 9y agoThis is more than just for vehicles. What I'd hope is that it would bring down the cost of ground source heat pumps.
- Robotbeat 9y agoNothing to do with ground source heat pumps, tho. This is for geothermal energy. Ground source heat pumps don't need a hypersonic drill tech as they're generally going through soil, not bedrock.
- jessaustin 9y agoThis really depends on the location. Many locations that are not generally flat floodplains (or glacial plains? IANAGeologist) don't have enough soil for this purpose.
- _pmf_ 9y ago> The last thing we need are swarms of vehicles filling our skies. But they'll work as great as Google's automatic translation, so there's nothing to worry about!
- rmm 9y agoThis would be useful for exploration drilling in mining...
- youdontknowtho 9y agoNo, but their marketing is top notch.
- taneq 9y agoBetteridge's law of headlines says no.
- charlysl 9y agoThis is true. Betteridge's law of headlines is one name for an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no."
- mrfusion 9y agoWhy do they need to drill 150 meters down to reach 50f temperatures? Most geothermal heat pump systems are six feet!
- briffle 9y agoSurface Area. The 6 foot deep ones are usually dug horizontally like a trench to give enough surface area to exchange temperatures. (sometimes coiled up in the trench, to use more piping surface area) That is not an option outside of rural areas with lots of land.
- Robotbeat 9y agoGeothermal energy, not geothermal heat pumps. Think geysers and volcanoes, not pumping heat into or out of a lump of ground. It's a pet peeve of mine that everyone seemed to think it was a good idea to call ground-source heat pumps "geothermal." Of course it would lead to confusion. shakes fist angrily at sky :)
- adrianmonk 9y agoThe article covers two different things. There's something called Dandelion’s that goes 150 meters down for heat pump purposes. And then there's something else that goes 7 kilometers down for geothermal energy purposes. The geothermal energy thing is the main subject of the article, but for whatever unknowable reason, the author of the article mentioned the heat pump thing as context.
- mrfusion 9y agoBut the artical says theyre getting 50f temperatures.
- awakeasleep 9y ago"The system will be 5 times cheaper than current drilling methods" When did it become acceptable to write nonsense like that? How can something be five times less expensive? What is wrong with saying "one fifth the price?" It's not just this author, I see this in print media everywhere.
- sixothree 9y agoDoes "5 times cheaper" even mean 1/5th of the price? To me, 5 times cheaper implies the starting point is not price of the thing being compared to. "5 times cheaper" sounds like it could be 80% of the price of normal methods. Method A: $1005 Method B: $1000 Method C: $975 Method C seems to be 5 times cheaper than Method B.
- Orou 9y agoYou're confusing cost with savings. Method C provides 5x greater savings on the cost when compared to Method B. It does not mean that the actual cost is 5x less.
- sixothree 9y agoI'm confusing it (on purpose in this case) because the usage is confusing.
- adrianmonk 9y agoIf someone said, "That trip is 20 hours of driving, but we could get there 5 times faster if we fly," then what would you think they mean? I would think 4 hours. Yes, the language "five times cheaper" is imprecise, but common sense says they probably mean the simple interpretation. In fact, because they aren't speaking precisely, it isn't reasonable to apply some kind of super technical methodology to interpret what they're saying.
- h1boo 9y agoLast quarter we went from $1000 profit to $1001. This quarter the profits were $1003. "Our profits grew 200% compared to last quarter, stocks are through the roof this morning". Is there some phrase in stats used to describe this nonsense?
- jamesdgb 9y agoI have found the link from the article very interesting. https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/digging-for-geothermal-energy-with-hypersonic-projectiles https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/renewables/diggi... It is basically using ramjet technology (such as in the Lockheed D-21), but it's kind of the inlet shape which moves through air enriched with combustible at hyper-sonic speed, on impact the projectile just vaporizes. edit: the gif animation at the top of the article is very misleading
- ginko 9y agoWhat business does a software company have to go into tunneling?
- scottmp10 9y agoMy first thought was that it was part of Google Fiber's efforts to make running cable cheaper. Looks like another moonshot though.