3 ms·

ENergy conversion equipment can't easily be re-purposed for geothermal. The temperatures are usually much lower, and the working fluids are often hydrocarbons

• theptip 5y ago
  Quaise seems to think it's possible: > “What we intend to do is go to existing power plants—it could be a coal power plant, it could be a gas power plant, any of the thousands of fossil-fired power plants that exists in the United States and around the world—and we will propose to them to create a small geothermal field around them, which is matched to the turbine specification of the power plant. What comes out of the ground is steam that feeds into the turbine, and the rest is what they’ve always done. The turbine creates electricity. The plant is already connected to the grid,” https://www.powermag.com/a-game-changing-vision-for-geothermal-energy/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CWhat%20we%20intend,to%20the%20grid%2C https://www.powermag.com/a-game-changing-vision-for-geotherm... Could just be marketing fluff; I'm not an expert here. But don't coal plants exclusively use steam turbines? Edit: Seems that lots of energy in the US comes from steam turbines: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/how-electricity-is-generated.php#:~:text=Steam%20turbines%20are%20used%20to%20generate%20the%20majority%20of%20the%20world%E2%80%99s%20electricity%20and%20they%20accounted%20for%20about%2044%25%20of%20U.S.%20electricity%20generation%20in%202020 https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/how-electric....