3 ms·
I thought the big limitation was how much heat could be drawn from around the borehole? i.e. The earth isn't that conductive to move much heat from the surround
by xnx 1y ago
I thought the big limitation was how much heat could be drawn from around the borehole? i.e. The earth isn't that conductive to move much heat from the surrounding material after operating for awhile.
- pfdietz 1y agoI believe Fervo Energy is doing a scheme with two boreholes, one for sending down water, the other for bringing it back up. The two wells will be connected by a fracture zone. There's another company, XGS Energy, that's working on a single well system of the kind you're describing. Their trick is a highly thermally conductive material that can be injected into fractures around the borehole to increase its thermal conductivity. Since the rock near the borehole contributes much of the thermal resistance, this will not have to be injected too far to have a significant effect. https://jpt.spe.org/hot-rock-slurry-developer-of-emerging-geothermal-tech-readies-for-field-tests https://jpt.spe.org/hot-rock-slurry-developer-of-emerging-ge... https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250326123552/en/XGS-Energy-Secures-Additional-%2413-Million-to-Accelerate-Advanced-Geothermal-Deployment https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250326123552/en/XGS... Fervo's advances in drilling technology would go well with this other company's technology.