4 ms·

Geothermal is indeed geographically dependent. You need to be on a fault line, or otherwise have heated rocks near the surface. Most places do not have these co

Geothermal is indeed geographically dependent. You need to be on a fault line, or otherwise have heated rocks near the surface. Most places do not have these conditions. The hydrolysis example you provided is tiny relative to the requirements of grid scale storage. To put this in perspective, the US alone uses 500 GWh of electricity every hour. And this will increase as electrification progresses, electricity only accounts for about a third of total energy production. Producing grid scale hydrolysis remains unproven. The same reliance on a globalized economy still exist with intermittent sources. The copper used in wind turbine generators probably comes from Chile, for instance.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ncmncm 5y ago
With laser drilling, geothermal is no longer geographically dependent. That will, of course, still need to be developed to production. But it is a (large) incremental process improvement, not a whole different technology. First you said hydrolysis was not practical at all. Today you say 200 MW facilities are not big enough. What will you say tomorrow? Why not admit it now?
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  You could point to flywheels as a form of energy storage. But unless you actually have the ability to operate them at sufficient scale, that's irrelevant. People have been investigating laser drilling for a decade at least [1], yet it hasn't resulted in widespread geothermal adoption. Throughout this whole thread you've been pointing to proposals and plans as though simply having plans is a demonstration of viability. Unless people are actively implementing the solutions you're proposing, then those solutions aren't proven to work. There's a massive difference between pointing to an entrepreneur that promises this special drill will be able to build geothermal plants anywhere, and actually building geothermal plants in the middle of Germany. There's a massive difference between plans that promise to store X amount of hydrogen, and actually building and running said storage plants. Electrolysis has been known for at As far as I'm concerned, both hydrolysis and this geothermal-anywhere approach fall into the bucket of "scientific breakthroughs". Could they be viable if they pan out? Sure. But it's highly unwise to bet the future of civilization on something that might work out, as opposed to something that's been operating at scale for most of a century. 1. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628955-900-laser-drills-could-relight-geothermal-energy-dreams/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628955-900-laser-dr...
  - ncmncm 5y ago
    Thus, it is good that nobody is talking about betting the future of civilization on any such thing. We have well-proven storage methods, and a large variety of promising alternatives, almost all of which depend on no new physics, just old-fashioned civil engineering. Any of those few that would need a "breakthrough" they don't get will be easily forgotten. Most of the failures will be for alternatives that turn out to be slightly less cheap than others. 60 years, by the way, pushes the boundary of "most of a century".
    - Manuel_D 5y ago
      We have well proven storage methods that don't scale. We have unproven storage mechanisms that we hope will scale. Let's actually put this in perspective: Global electricity consumption is about 60 TWh daily, which works out to about 2.5 TWh per hour or 40 GWh per minute. Plans to run a wind and solar grid predict a 12 hour storage requirement to generate 80% of our energy from wind and solar [1], and weeks of storage for a 100% wind and solar grid. And remember, this is on top of the cost of actually generating all that energy in the first place. If people want to prove that these storage mechanisms are viable, then how about they build one minute's worth of storage. If we don't even have one minute's worth of storage provisioned, then I see zero reason to be confident in the ability to build hours, days, or weeks of storage. By comparison, we'd need to build 9 nuclear plants for each one that presently exist to generate all of our electricity from nuclear. Any only 8 if we eliminate everything but nuclear and hydro. Also, It's 68 years since the first nuclear electrical plant and 80 years since the first fission reactor. 1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
      - ncmncm 5y ago
        Electrolysis was well understood for a century before we knew fission existed. Pumped hydro has always worked at scale. You keep repeating that storage is not built out. We know. Before it can have been built out, it will need building out. But nukes are also not built out. Which can get done faster? You just really wish storage tech was harder than it is because you need that for nukes not to look like the obviously bad investment they have proven, by "most of a century" of experience, to be.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ncmncm 5y ago

With laser drilling, geothermal is no longer geographically dependent. That will, of course, still need to be developed to production. But it is a (large) incremental process improvement, not a whole different technology. First you said hydrolysis was not practical at all. Today you say 200 MW facilities are not big enough. What will you say tomorrow? Why not admit it now?

Manuel_D 5y ago
You could point to flywheels as a form of energy storage. But unless you actually have the ability to operate them at sufficient scale, that's irrelevant. People have been investigating laser drilling for a decade at least [1], yet it hasn't resulted in widespread geothermal adoption. Throughout this whole thread you've been pointing to proposals and plans as though simply having plans is a demonstration of viability. Unless people are actively implementing the solutions you're proposing, then those solutions aren't proven to work. There's a massive difference between pointing to an entrepreneur that promises this special drill will be able to build geothermal plants anywhere, and actually building geothermal plants in the middle of Germany. There's a massive difference between plans that promise to store X amount of hydrogen, and actually building and running said storage plants. Electrolysis has been known for at As far as I'm concerned, both hydrolysis and this geothermal-anywhere approach fall into the bucket of "scientific breakthroughs". Could they be viable if they pan out? Sure. But it's highly unwise to bet the future of civilization on something that might work out, as opposed to something that's been operating at scale for most of a century. 1. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628955-900-laser-drills-could-relight-geothermal-energy-dreams/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628955-900-laser-dr...
- ncmncm 5y ago
  Thus, it is good that nobody is talking about betting the future of civilization on any such thing. We have well-proven storage methods, and a large variety of promising alternatives, almost all of which depend on no new physics, just old-fashioned civil engineering. Any of those few that would need a "breakthrough" they don't get will be easily forgotten. Most of the failures will be for alternatives that turn out to be slightly less cheap than others. 60 years, by the way, pushes the boundary of "most of a century".
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    We have well proven storage methods that don't scale. We have unproven storage mechanisms that we hope will scale. Let's actually put this in perspective: Global electricity consumption is about 60 TWh daily, which works out to about 2.5 TWh per hour or 40 GWh per minute. Plans to run a wind and solar grid predict a 12 hour storage requirement to generate 80% of our energy from wind and solar [1], and weeks of storage for a 100% wind and solar grid. And remember, this is on top of the cost of actually generating all that energy in the first place. If people want to prove that these storage mechanisms are viable, then how about they build one minute's worth of storage. If we don't even have one minute's worth of storage provisioned, then I see zero reason to be confident in the ability to build hours, days, or weeks of storage. By comparison, we'd need to build 9 nuclear plants for each one that presently exist to generate all of our electricity from nuclear. Any only 8 if we eliminate everything but nuclear and hydro. Also, It's 68 years since the first nuclear electrical plant and 80 years since the first fission reactor. 1. https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...
    - ncmncm 5y ago
      Electrolysis was well understood for a century before we knew fission existed. Pumped hydro has always worked at scale. You keep repeating that storage is not built out. We know. Before it can have been built out, it will need building out. But nukes are also not built out. Which can get done faster? You just really wish storage tech was harder than it is because you need that for nukes not to look like the obviously bad investment they have proven, by "most of a century" of experience, to be.