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It's not just about a different way to drill. It's about a) going much deeper than existing geothermal ad thus having supercritical steam as a heat source whic

by jbotz 4y ago

It's not just about a different way to drill. It's about a) going much deeper than existing geothermal ad thus having supercritical steam as a heat source which can directly replace fossil fuels, and b) using existing infrastructure for everything except the source of heat, thus having relatively small up-front cost. Wind and solar have significant up-front cost, require changes to distribution infrastructure, etc., and on the scale needed replace all existing fossil fuel infrastructure they run into significant resource bottlenecks. This doesn't suffer any of these problems... there may be (and likely will be) obstacles they haven't thought of yet, but if things go more-or-less according to their plan, there can be little question that this would be a huge game changer, and unless something even better comes along, theirs is the best option for rapid de-fossilization of electricity production. By far.

pencilguin 4y ago
There are, in fact, no "significant resource bottlenecks" in building out solar, wind, and storage to replace fossil fuel infrastructure. All the materials needed are abundant, most of them extremely abundant. Up-front cost of wind and solar are low and falling rapidly. Their ratio to operating cost is high just because operating cost is very close to zero. Systems that depend on steam turbines, such as nukes and geo, have high recurring maintenance cost as the turbines must be overhauled regularly: superheated steam is very corrosive. Since this tech is mature, such costs are not decreasing. Tech that depends on them gets continually less competitive, and will until solar and wind costs bottom out. Heat engines are a method to turn low-grade heat energy into high-grade electrical energy. You are always better off staying in the domain of high-grade electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, chemical, elastic, or gravitational energy, without a detour through heat. The claim seems to be that future grid costs would be minimized by using new heat sources to drive existing turbines, which then don't need to be built. Unfortunately, making and operating these heat sources is itself expensive, and keeping turbines working is expensive. Turbines, particularly combined-cycle gas turbines, have a definite place in the future grid, as backup for cheaper generation. A turbine used only on some days needs less maintenance, so the grid will be designed to avoid need to run them most of the time.

by jbotz 4y ago

pencilguin 4y ago

There are, in fact, no "significant resource bottlenecks" in building out solar, wind, and storage to replace fossil fuel infrastructure. All the materials needed are abundant, most of them extremely abundant. Up-front cost of wind and solar are low and falling rapidly. Their ratio to operating cost is high just because operating cost is very close to zero. Systems that depend on steam turbines, such as nukes and geo, have high recurring maintenance cost as the turbines must be overhauled regularly: superheated steam is very corrosive. Since this tech is mature, such costs are not decreasing. Tech that depends on them gets continually less competitive, and will until solar and wind costs bottom out. Heat engines are a method to turn low-grade heat energy into high-grade electrical energy. You are always better off staying in the domain of high-grade electrical, mechanical, pneumatic, chemical, elastic, or gravitational energy, without a detour through heat. The claim seems to be that future grid costs would be minimized by using new heat sources to drive existing turbines, which then don't need to be built. Unfortunately, making and operating these heat sources is itself expensive, and keeping turbines working is expensive. Turbines, particularly combined-cycle gas turbines, have a definite place in the future grid, as backup for cheaper generation. A turbine used only on some days needs less maintenance, so the grid will be designed to avoid need to run them most of the time.