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“Digging 10 miles underground” is like “building a solar panel the size of California” — really useful if you can find a feasible way to do it

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
If we had a solar panel the size of California, what would we do with it? Is there a flat contiguous area of land that size where no one lives, or does it float in the ocean? I guess the idea is that since we're imagining things that don't exist anyway, we could assume the panel is made of invisible pixie dust. But at least for me, drilling a ten mile hole is intuitively easier to envision. Maybe that's ill-informed on my part, I don't know, but it's why the idea is appealing. It instinctively seems like a feasible task.
- chaosbolt 4y ago
  The Sahara desert and Australia are huge but at least for the thermosolar farm in the Moroccan desert, the difficulty is transporting the electricity far enough to sell it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
  - pmoriarty 4y ago
    Another option is to build it in space. Lots of room there.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      It's easy to generate solar power in space, but difficult to do anything with it.
iquerno 4y ago
Let's see, area of california = 423k km2. Check. Largest solar park in the world = 57 km2, cost 1.3B$. Check. Total cost of a solar panel the size of california, with the help of the most intricate indian technology = 9.6T$
pengaru 4y ago
> “Digging 10 miles underground” is like “building a solar panel the size of California” — really useful if you can find a feasible way to do it Kola already reached 76% of the way there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole
cgh 4y ago
Feasibility is kind of what the article is about. Also, this quote seems salient: >> Finally, Houde said, geothermal is “the perfect energy source to take advantage of the largest workforce in the world, the oil and gas industry.” That industry has “11 million jobs in the US alone, and a skill set that is exactly what’s needed for geothermal to rapidly scale.”
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  There's a thing when you get to only about a mile or two down and happen to strike vastly rich oil reserves. Then you're a billionaire already so what's the incentive to continue going all the way?
  - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
    If ICE vehicles fall out of fashion, oil will still be immensely useful for chemical refinement but with nowhere near the demand that burning it has. It'd still be a fortune but a slow one rather than a "drain it as fast as possible to print money" kind. Digging deep holes for geothermal guarantees the industry a future at this scale when the move to electric inevitably happens. The alternative is for them to pass up the opportunity and solar, wind, and nuclear to eat their lunch.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    What is the probability of oil getting in the way of an arbitrary hole whose position is picked for other reasons. Such as proximity to large population.

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

If we had a solar panel the size of California, what would we do with it? Is there a flat contiguous area of land that size where no one lives, or does it float in the ocean? I guess the idea is that since we're imagining things that don't exist anyway, we could assume the panel is made of invisible pixie dust. But at least for me, drilling a ten mile hole is intuitively easier to envision. Maybe that's ill-informed on my part, I don't know, but it's why the idea is appealing. It instinctively seems like a feasible task.

chaosbolt 4y ago
The Sahara desert and Australia are huge but at least for the thermosolar farm in the Moroccan desert, the difficulty is transporting the electricity far enough to sell it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouarzazate_Solar_Power_Station
- pmoriarty 4y ago
  Another option is to build it in space. Lots of room there.
  - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
    It's easy to generate solar power in space, but difficult to do anything with it.

iquerno 4y ago

Let's see, area of california = 423k km2. Check. Largest solar park in the world = 57 km2, cost 1.3B$. Check. Total cost of a solar panel the size of california, with the help of the most intricate indian technology = 9.6T$

pengaru 4y ago

> “Digging 10 miles underground” is like “building a solar panel the size of California” — really useful if you can find a feasible way to do it Kola already reached 76% of the way there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole

cgh 4y ago

Feasibility is kind of what the article is about. Also, this quote seems salient: >> Finally, Houde said, geothermal is “the perfect energy source to take advantage of the largest workforce in the world, the oil and gas industry.” That industry has “11 million jobs in the US alone, and a skill set that is exactly what’s needed for geothermal to rapidly scale.”

fuzzfactor 4y ago
There's a thing when you get to only about a mile or two down and happen to strike vastly rich oil reserves. Then you're a billionaire already so what's the incentive to continue going all the way?
- CuriousCosmic 4y ago
  If ICE vehicles fall out of fashion, oil will still be immensely useful for chemical refinement but with nowhere near the demand that burning it has. It'd still be a fortune but a slow one rather than a "drain it as fast as possible to print money" kind. Digging deep holes for geothermal guarantees the industry a future at this scale when the move to electric inevitably happens. The alternative is for them to pass up the opportunity and solar, wind, and nuclear to eat their lunch.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  What is the probability of oil getting in the way of an arbitrary hole whose position is picked for other reasons. Such as proximity to large population.