4 ms·
It would rather seem to me that despite the challenges, that it should be easier to dig a hole than to do 'Nuclear Fusion' in which case we ought to consider ma
by jasmer 4y ago
It would rather seem to me that despite the challenges, that it should be easier to dig a hole than to do 'Nuclear Fusion' in which case we ought to consider maybe doing more substantial research?
Imagine if we solved this problem and over the scope of 40 years the whole world just went geo and dumped Oil, Solar, Nuclear?
- credit_guy 4y agoNo, geothermal will never work. Someone posted a more informed comment on Hacker News about 2 months ago. The idea is that if you drill to 5 km deep, let's say, you find very hot rock. But once you extract the heat from that rock, new heat is very slow to come because rock is a good thermal insulator. So, you'd need to produce secondary holes. Lots of them. In the end the math just doesn't work out by orders of magnitude.
- pencilguin 4y agoGeothermal works fine, in numerous places worldwide today, as may be seen simply by looking. It just costs more than wind and solar. Same as nukes. Unlike nukes, geo was once competitive without heavy subsidy, in places.
- credit_guy 4y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but I think geothermal works where the nature has done the work for us. Where there are underground springs that turn hot and the water comes up steaming. If you plan to drill the holes yourself, you have a lot of work to do. Drilling is expensive, and a single hole will not get you a lot of heat after the initial honey moon period.
- pencilguin 4y agoCalifornia has got reliable power from geo for quite a few decades, as has Iceland. Iceland is not awash in geysers. Geo costs more than renewables, but that was not at issue. It is anyway cheaper than nukes, in places where it is used.
- jasmer 4y agoGeothermal is not the same as drilling holes down into the earths crust. Geothermal is tapping into natural release of heat from the earth.
- pencilguin 4y ago...which involves drilling.