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> The microwave beam is hot enough to evaporate rock, and the vaporized rock is pumped back to the surface. Is this part harder than it sounds? Do you need to
by abeppu 5y ago
> The microwave beam is hot enough to evaporate rock, and the vaporized rock is pumped back to the surface.
Is this part harder than it sounds? Do you need to keep it as hot vapor until it gets to the surface? What do you do with it then? Presumably a 12 mile column of rock turns into a whole lot of vapor. Is it toxic? When vaporized rock cools, does it become just sand, or are there interesting/concerning chemicals left over?
As a lay person, I'm never sure when I read about new tech to address environmental issues whether we're creating a new problem. We've spent generations aggressively pumping carbon out of the ground and into the atmosphere. Would a move towards rock-vaporizing drilling just mean aggressively pumping a bunch of silicon, iron, etc out of the ground and into the atmosphere?
- perlgeek 5y agoI don't really know, so take my answer with a grain of salt, but my lay understanding of chemistry and physics tells me: * Typically vaporized solids a fine powder they cools down in air, or otherwise deposit on cool surfaces * Fine rock powder could be hazard to lungs, but it shouldn't be too hard filter it out of the air that leaves the hole * Some rock materials contain sulfates or phosphates; letting those escape into the atmosphere in large quantities would be bad; but you could always let it recombine with the rest of the evaporated rock, rendering it inert. Such a process wouldn't be 100%, so this is something worth looking out for. Most wealthy countries require an environmental impact assessment before any such operation, so there's hope such things would be caught before they become a big problem.