4 ms·

Nice! Just not sure how cheap a mile deep bore hole is....

martijnarts 2y ago
Somewhere up to $5 million, according to this r/AskEngineering thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1dfzwxd/estimating_cost_for_deep_well_drilling_4_miles_or/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1dfzwxd/estim...
- themaninthedark 2y ago
  Not as high as I thought it might be, as long as it is less costly than the containment vessel that they are looking to replace it would be a net.
- daneel_w 2y ago
  Which as with everything else in construction these days ultimately ends up taking twice as long and costing thrice the initial estimate. Also, this is the cost for a bore hole. The cost for something with enough diameter to house a reactor will be some orders of magnitude higher.
  - martijnarts 2y ago
    The article mentions 76 cm width for the reactor they're designing, and oil wells can be up to a meter wide[0], so that price estimate would probably be similar then. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Drilling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Drilling
defrost 2y ago
1,600 m vertical depth through hard rock at hydrocarbon extraction bore widths is likely 120 days, onshore @ $15,000 US per day (perhaps) + casing costs + everything else. YMMV - figure pulled from Drilling Costs Estimation for Hydrocarbon Wells (2015) https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7569/jsee.2014.629520/pdf https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7569/jsee.2014.629... that's a rough $2 million basement estimation (sans casing + headwork) with many complicating factors that can easily blow it up.
- pjc50 2y ago
  Given Hinkley Point C is currently at US$58bn estimated and still not open, a mere $2m for a hole sounds very affordable. Could very quickly spend more than that in meetings.
  - defrost 2y ago
    That's the bare minimum for a single unadorned hole to that depth (? there's a lot of detail in the linked report, costs may blow up a bit as depth increases, that detail didn't leap out at me). It would cause me no great surprise if "a sufficient hole"; widened, maybe three actual close holes for down pipe, up pipe, and reactor vessel, with casings and head mechanics, came to $50 million. Your point stands, in the great scheme of capital projects of this scale the hole boring and fitting is cheap. Sixteen odd years ago I tracked, with a group, every global mineral exploration activity and subsequent development. When it came time to launch a mine, deemed to be feasible, and raise forward capital for building plant and processing our lower bounds cut off point was $50 million US - anything smaller than that was too small scale to bring to the attention of our subscribers. Capital costs for mining plants, power plants, oil and gas extraction run high - and the G20 costs for nuclear plants are fully in the billions.

Somewhere up to $5 million, according to this r/AskEngineering thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1dfzwxd/estimating_cost_for_deep_well_drilling_4_miles_or/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1dfzwxd/estim...

themaninthedark 2y ago
Not as high as I thought it might be, as long as it is less costly than the containment vessel that they are looking to replace it would be a net.
daneel_w 2y ago
Which as with everything else in construction these days ultimately ends up taking twice as long and costing thrice the initial estimate. Also, this is the cost for a bore hole. The cost for something with enough diameter to house a reactor will be some orders of magnitude higher.
- martijnarts 2y ago
  The article mentions 76 cm width for the reactor they're designing, and oil wells can be up to a meter wide[0], so that price estimate would probably be similar then. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Drilling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_well#Drilling

defrost 2y ago

1,600 m vertical depth through hard rock at hydrocarbon extraction bore widths is likely 120 days, onshore @ $15,000 US per day (perhaps) + casing costs + everything else. YMMV - figure pulled from Drilling Costs Estimation for Hydrocarbon Wells (2015) https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7569/jsee.2014.629520/pdf https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7569/jsee.2014.629... that's a rough $2 million basement estimation (sans casing + headwork) with many complicating factors that can easily blow it up.

pjc50 2y ago
Given Hinkley Point C is currently at US$58bn estimated and still not open, a mere $2m for a hole sounds very affordable. Could very quickly spend more than that in meetings.
- defrost 2y ago
  That's the bare minimum for a single unadorned hole to that depth (? there's a lot of detail in the linked report, costs may blow up a bit as depth increases, that detail didn't leap out at me). It would cause me no great surprise if "a sufficient hole"; widened, maybe three actual close holes for down pipe, up pipe, and reactor vessel, with casings and head mechanics, came to $50 million. Your point stands, in the great scheme of capital projects of this scale the hole boring and fitting is cheap. Sixteen odd years ago I tracked, with a group, every global mineral exploration activity and subsequent development. When it came time to launch a mine, deemed to be feasible, and raise forward capital for building plant and processing our lower bounds cut off point was $50 million US - anything smaller than that was too small scale to bring to the attention of our subscribers. Capital costs for mining plants, power plants, oil and gas extraction run high - and the G20 costs for nuclear plants are fully in the billions.