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First tunnel to a magma chamber could supercharge geothermal power
- justsomeoldguy 3y agofor anyone interested in reading the article behind the paywall: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sca_esv=595707050&gbv=1&sxsrf=AM9HkKkzNpGXLFltvjpvEDCqe1KknjTF4w%3A1704387801061&q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fmg26134722-100-worlds-first-tunnel-to-a-magma-chamber-could-unleash-unlimited-energy%2F&oq=&aqs= https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?sca_esv=595707...
- DemocracyFTW2 3y ago404. That’s an error.
- bell-cot 3y agoReaction: "Unlimited"??? The article is so over-hyped that I wish they could be banned from using the word "scientist".
- dang 3y agoOk, we've used the phrase from the subtitle instead.
- hutzlibu 3y agoI think the article was quite fine, compared to the average pop science article. And by all practical means, savely tapping into the earths heat, would indeed mean unlimited energy for our needs (there is a LOT of heat down there). We also say solar is renewable, even though the sun does not last forever. But within our frame of reference - it does. I am just sceptical, that we can indeed use that energy savely on a global scale, without causing massive side effects like earth quakes, as the core of the earth is hardly understood. But this is, what this research is about, so I think it is exciting and about time, someone makes that experiment.
- ekianjo 3y ago> our needs (there is a LOT of heat down there). We also say solar is renewable, even though the sun does not last forever. But within our frame of reference - it does. Photovoltaic cells surely dont last as long as the sun...
- ben_w 3y agoCells don't need to, as they can be… "renewed", you might say.
- ekianjo 3y agoThey don't get to be renewed with zero pollution.
- ben_w 3y agoAll life processes produce waste that is dangerous to that which created it, yet we do not call photosynthesis "non renewable" despite oxygen being toxic to obligate anaerobes. Likewise while PV has non-zero impact, the impact is sufficiently small and of a nature that basically doesn't matter. Fossil fuels are about a hundred times more polluting than volcanoes[0][1], so a factor of about one hundred in reduced emissions per unit of useful output compared to setting things on fire takes you down to the environmental impact of one part of geology. [0] at least the CO2 is, but what matters for PV is everything else except the CO2 because in a world powered by renewables all the energy used in production doesn't produce CO2 in the first place; volcanoes do also release sulphur compounds etc. [1] there is a certain degree of irony that one of the memes used by climate change deniers is to precisely invert this ratio.
- hutzlibu 3y agoWell, probably nothing we build will. And probably nothing we say will last forever, actually last forever. We still use the word forever and other unprecise terms in common language. I also hate it at times, how unprecise (and wrong) normal language is. But I have given up on the habit of getting mad about it and rather go with the intent and not about the single words. So no one meant literally indefinite energy here, it was meant, "potentially way more energy, than we currently need". And this is correct.
- quesera 3y agoI made the mistake of reading a whole New Scientist magazine once, a few years ago. Thoroughly disappointing. Sensationalist and shallow. Does not seem to be written for people with actual curiosity. I do not know who it is written for, although I presume they have their demographic figured out. That might be the most disappointing part.
- cfn 3y agoThirty years I was a subscriber and it was actually decent. After a few years of subscribing I noticed a pattern of recurring articles and stopped. I considered subscribing again a couple of years ago but it was so obviously not serious science, only sensationalism, that I gave up.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- belter 3y agohttps://archive.is/A2BNC https://archive.is/A2BNC
- aimonster2 3y agoReally. Just use that energy to absorb CO2 via CaO to CaCO3 and convert it into long chain hydrocarbons using water . Iceland is surrounded by water, after all. Just don't take too much CO2 out of the environment with that limitless energy :)
- avidphantasm 3y agoWhat would happen to the hydrocarbons? If they are burned for fuel, the CO2 would go right back into the environment.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI imagine once you have the nice problem of all planet earth energy coming from renewables, you could start pumping the fuels underground?
- __MatrixMan__ 3y agoI'm sure the chemists can come up with something in the ballpark of graphite/wood/carbon fiber which we can use as a building material so that we can stop cutting down trees to make our houses.
- quickthrower2 3y agoI like that idea. Although a sustainable forest also takes carbon out of the atmosphere. (Same for any trees that would have been burned for fire control). We just need to make sure we are not using trees we didn't plant or have to destroy anyway.
- aimonster2 3y agoMore plants. Eventually, we'd be down to using just pure hydrogen since the CO2 levels would be just right for plant growth, so no need to capture any more.
- tzs 3y ago
- hojinkoh 3y agoThis reminded me of a late-1990s Taiwanese RPG by DOMO Studio called "Tun Town" (I'm not sure if it was translated into English...), in which the main plot was a fictional town drilling too much into a volcano to tap energy eventually caused it to erupt. Not sure how scientifically sound that was lol
- evrimoztamur 3y agoAlso the theme of Gorillaz’ song Fire Coming Out of the Monkey’s Head, where shadowy figures dig too deep for the jewels in a volcano island.
- diggan 3y agoAh, the classic tale of digging too greedily and too deep. Whether it’s Gorillaz' shadowy figures or Middle-Earth's dwarves, everyone seems to forget that volcanoes and precious jewels come with a hot-tempered landlord.
- praptak 3y agoThat's also Dwarf Fortress. In DF magma is actually desirable for gameplay (Magma Forge! Magma Smelter! Weaponized magma!) but there are still things that make you think twice before digging too deep.
- yellow_lead 3y agoAlso the anime darling in the franxx! Some of the synopsis: > In the early 21st century, the progress of human civilization was accelerated by ground-breaking discoveries in mining technology, allowing the extraction of magma energy for a new low-cost, all-encompassing energy source.
- mrjin 3y agoI think I recently read about concerns around what would happen if core of earth cooled down. Hopefully that wasn't the case...
- jansan 3y agoYou really need to look up how deep the earth's core actually is and how little we have been scratching on the surface.
- beebeepka 3y agopeople used to say that exact same thing about climate. Yes, Earth is deep. So is our species' hunger for more. This scenario has played so many times but surely this is different! It's "limitless" energy. Eat the hype and ignore (well, downvote) all concerns.
- baq 3y agoto put the numbers into perspective, oceans will boil off much sooner than the mantle cools down in any noticeable fashion due to human activity just due to waste heat. in fact, it'll only take ~400 years of 2.3% yoy growth of energy usage. don't tell economists! https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
- nativeit 3y agoIt took a few hundred years of industrial activity to noticeably move the needle on atmospheric warming. The atmosphere is tissue paper to the inconceivable deep ocean that is the Earth’s mantle.
- biofunsf 3y ago> He foresees great platforms all around the ocean, harvesting energy from magma holes and using it to produce low-carbon synthetic fuels that could be shipped to shore. This sounds like an energy storage solution as well? Where would the low carbon mass come for such a fuel production scheme? Haven’t heard this idea for energy storage/transport before.
- rafaelmn 3y agoHydrogen is one thing that comes to mind. I guess if your not concerned about efficiency there could be a lot of ways to do this.
- yetihehe 3y ago> Where would the low carbon mass come for such a fuel production scheme? From CO2 in air.
- dredmorbius 3y agoBetter yet: CO2 in seawater. We know that the oceans are a sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide (oceanic acidification is a direct consequence of this), and that it's energetically less costly (~30%--60% of atmospheric capture) and probably technically simpler to recover CO2 from seawater than the atmosphere. The concept's been studied for decades at M.I.T. and the US Naval Research Laboratory, the latter of which released a flurry of research articles in the 2010s on the concept. I'd written of those a ways back at Reddit: <https://web.archive.org/web/20230604174145/https://old.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/22k71x/us_navy_electricitytofuel_synthesis_papers_and/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230604174145/https://old.reddi...>
- speleding 3y agoIf you take the CO2 out of sea water to create synthetic fuel, wouldn't that contribute to the green house effect? (Unless the CO2 is captured when that synthetic fuel is burned, but in that case why not use non-synthetic fuel, for a more economical solution with the same carbon footprint)
- airstrike 3y agoSee also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896432
- aaron695 3y ago[dead]
- jackfoxy 3y agoIt's not a tunnel, it's a borehole; and therein lies the problem with geothermal power. The usable energy is proportional to the cross-section of the borehole. That's just the beginning of the issues, e.g. the magma chamber recedes or it blows out your facility. There are good reasons geothermal only accounts for a small fraction of worldwide energy sources.
- mmbop 3y agoIs this statement just a feeling, or is this coming from a source? I would bet that lots of very smart people have looked at the problem and thought it was viable if they’re moving forward. Also, the people in Iceland are very adept at geothermal (but maybe not this type).
- jackfoxy 3y agoIt comes from having researched the GeoThermal market to determine whether the last software company I worked for should enter that market. The answer was a resounding NO.
- dmoy 3y agoThere's a sibling comment asking for a source, which I can't reply to for some reason. I can't speak to the receding magma or facilities damage, but "proportional to the cross-section of the borehole" is just like first year thermodynamics. If someone has more familiarity with electricity (I guess common on HN?), here's a reasonable introduction to the comparison to circuitry: https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Systems/Thermal/SysThermalElem.html https://lpsa.swarthmore.edu/Systems/Thermal/SysThermalElem.h...
- c-smile 3y agoSo we are about to cool down Earth's core? Climate changing v.2.0 due to Earth loosing its magnetic field ...
- TSiege 3y agoI've been wondering this as well. Everything I've read online says it's not at all likely given how much energy we would be pulling out. However, I've also seen statements that earth produces 47 terrawatts of energy (unclear if this is annually or not) and we currently consume 16 terrawatts of energy every year (34% of earth's production). So it doesn't seem like a strange question to ask, what happens if we start sucking terrawatt hours worth of heat energy from the earth and dissipating it into the climate and space? We're currently pulling multiple terrawatt hours worth of energy via fossil fuels and it doesn't seem to be without major consequences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget?useskin=vector#Earth's_internal_heat_sources_and_other_small_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_energy_budget?useski...
- graemep 3y agoThat is per second. A terrawatt is a terrajoule per second. The 47 TW is the current rate at of flow outward and it is tiny compared to the amount of stored heat in the earth. The (interior of) the earth is cooling very slowly anyway.. Taking a little bit more relatively close to the surface will have a negligible effect on this.
- TSiege 3y agoThank you for the clarification every source I found solely reported the number but not the rate
- beej71 3y agoThis is more on the scale of how much sailboats slow the Earth's rotation, or how gravitational slingshots change the Earth's orbit.
- ChrisArchitect 3y ago[dupe] More: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38896432