Geothermal power may be about to kill the Nuclear Energy industry. Drilling costs are falling so fast, by 2027 it will be able to provide baseload electricity at the same price.
Enhanced geothermal systems for clean firm energy generation | Nature Reviews Clean Technology
Renewables+batteries have almost wiped out the nuclear industry, now geothermal power may be about to put the final nail in that coffin. New research published in Nature magazine shows drilling times are falling so swiftly, that by 2027 geothermal power will be able to deliver a levelized cost of electricity (US$80 MWh). That's price competitive with nuclear, but that's not the real killer for the nuclear industry.
Although some locations (like Iceland) are very suited to geothermal, many places are just fine too. Geothermal can be built widely all over the world - more crucially, it can be built quickly and to a dependable budget.
The nuclear industry's sole surviving argument was it could provide base load power - but so can geothermal. It will now be vastly more appealing to investors and governments than building new nuclear power, which may be an industry about to go into the last stages of its death spiral.
Why are we talking about wiping out nuclear when we should be talking about wiping out coal?
It's the same picture
Renewables+batteries have almost wiped out the nuclear industry
Lol.
Good. Nuclear is massively expensive and generates so much waste that remains extremely toxic for 24,000 years.
Geothermal is so obvious, we're sitting right on it.
I've got a geothermal heatpump at home and it's simply amazing.
Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) enable geothermal energy usage in unconventional areas by enhancing the subsurface permeability and increasing fluid flow, which is then extracted as a carrier of the thermal energy.
Is this fracking?
technical issues and concerns over induced seismicity have historically hindered the broader expansion of EGS.
Yeah, fracking…
I don’t know of recent advancements or how it relates to this application, but my understanding is that fracking is a bad idea.
Also, I’m astonished that anything costs more than nuclear.
Technically just a little bit different from fracking as used in the oil/gas industry, since it doesn't create new fractures in the rock, it only expands existing ones. However it carries basically the same risks with at most a difference in magnitude.
There's an interesting case in Switzerland where they tried to drill one over an historically active fault line, without first doing a seismic risk assessment.
Anyone have access to the full text? TY in advance!!
Cold fusion is just around the corner too.
And if you'll buy that, I have this really nice bridge on the south side of Manhattan that could be yours today!
I'm a huge nuclear energy advocate, but if there is an even better way to get baseline power to fill in the gaps between solar and wind I am all for it. My only question would be the downsides (if any) of using the earths core to power things.
Like if every country starts slapping these things down all over the place would it even start cooling the core in any meaningful way? Would that potentially lead to problems later?
My gut says no, but I would rather at least ask the question and get laughed at than never consider it and have it bite us in the ass later.
We are insignificant flecks of nothing compared to the molton core of the earth.
Abject nothing.
At one point, climate change was dismissed based on the same logic.
Its worth thinking ahead and doing the math.
I can't find where I read it, but I remember it being something like: if all of humanity consumed the same amount as an energy hungry American and then doubled it while getting all of its power from geothermal then we have almost tapped 1% of the crusts potential, rounding up.
I did some looking around. Looks like I was a factor of 10 off. As in- not 1% but 0.1% and that could be sustained for millions of years
https://www.contrary.com/foundations-and-frontiers/geothermal
https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/geothermal-faqs#%3A%7E%3Atext=4.5+billion+years.-%2CThis+heat+is+continually+replenished+by+the+decay+of+naturally%2Cessentially+inexhaustible+supply+of+energy.
There is also a great pdf over at www.worldenergy.org under their geothermal - world energy council that is a little old but still points out the math on just how immense the energy output of earth is. We could each run our own small AI data center on geothermal power and the earth would still have extra. And we are only talking about tapping into the very top of the crust.
That's sounds about right.
Earth is big big and we only occupy the tiniest outer layer.
Is that 1% replenished? If not then we would have problems in a short couple decade.
At what % does the crust start to experience cooling? What biological systems could be effected? What about tectonic systems?
Tons of real legitimate questions here.
I am very pro geo thermal. Been following Quaise drilling for a long time. The biggest downside to geothermal is that in the process of running water up and down, the water can come up with some green house gases, generally sulfur based compounds. Overall, not nearly as bad as the current options, but it’s not like geo thermal is perfectly green. We should still consider it over any fossil fuel and possibly nuclear.
I'll take a little sulphur over the radioactive poisoning from coal plants any day of the week.
The technology for drilling deeper is getting better fast. There was a breakthrough by using microwaves to vaporize rock. It's a triple duty method that cases the walls with glass rock, pressure from vapor pushes the condensed dust upwards and removes the material.
It eleminates the need for drilling sludge, excessively long metal rods etc. It's still cheaper to drill conventionally for 3km but to reach the 10km for EGS it's a lot cheaper. Drilling conventionally becomes exponentially more expensive with depth
What about the fact that baseload power is much talked about in the media and among lay people, but academics have known it to be a myth for over a decade at least?
I may be wrong here but I believe a lot of the heat at the core is generated from nuclear decay. so it should be self replenishing, not to mention the scale of which is probably insignificant.
hey, maybe we take enough away it stops a few volcano's exploding :)
I think the biggest issues is access to heat and permeability of the rock containing the heat. According to Google the earth's temp rises by 25°C for every km down, so you'd probably want to go at least 4 km down to get enough heat to boil water (in my experience, it isn't 25 degrees hotter 1km down, but you get the idea. ) your also need to consider the pressure of the water and the heat you might lose as you lose pressure coming back up.
You also need to create a circuit where you pump cool water in one end and hot the other. So you can frack the rock like in a gas well, but that can cause seismicity and affect the local hydrogeology which other industries and the towns may rely on. This would enable the water to pass through the rock to soak up the heat.
I guess you'd also need a supply of water as you'd doubtless lose some water as it passes through the circuit, though I'm not sure what the retention losses are actually like and would depend heavily on the local geology
My gut says yes. You subtract energy from a system. That energy did something, had a function. Now its not doing that thing anymore.
Same goes with wind: how much wind energy can you remove from the climate and ar which point does it affect the climate system? Handwavium. Never red a serious investigation about it.
Solar: same. That energy we're now converting into electricity, didn't that had another function? Is it cool we're using it differently now?
Coal and oil: that has been answered! Releasing the stored energy captured in those, expelling the contaminations and radiating of the excess heat did something!
You've never seen anything about solar and wind because it's a zero sum game. Both are dependent on the light and heat output of the sun, which is estimated to burn for more than 4 billion years more. So, basically it comes down to earth's ability to retain the light/heat of the sun versus the sun's output on the grand scheme of things. And on the local side (the energy consumer) it comes down to the first law of Thermo dynamics: Energy can't be created or destroyed, only reformed and/or transferred. So basically, since the amount of energy is set by the dynamic of the sun Vs isolation, for humans it equals out, because all we do is reforming energy and transferring it.
So then, how about geothermal and fossil energy (and nuclear)? Well, for both of them, they are stored energy. Fossil is stored sunlight from 500 million years ago, as in stored in chemical compounds created by the life that existed at that time by eating plants that harvested the sunlight by photosynthesis. (The same things our silar panels are doing after all).
For geothermal it becomes a bit more complicated, as it is part chemical energy of the matter that makes up the earth, and part kinetic energy left overs from the creation of the planet. Only very well isolated by the crust.
And here is the crux of the question: how much energy is stored in the core and will human intervention be able to change anything in the equilibrium of the core? In a way I want us to be able and in a way I don't. Because if the human outtake of energy is miniscule it won't matter and then the problem is moot. However if we are able to affect the core, we could possibly charge the core and its ability to deflect the solar wind, which might come in handy...
Regardless, for all of them, they release more energy into the atmosphere than the sun put there and thus will affect the energy equilibrium. But that is probably such a small problem that it might not do any difference in total. What is it they say? 1% of the energy that hits the earth from the sun would supply all our energy needs? So probably not that much of effect.
There has never been a serious investigation into how much wind or solar you need to remove from the climate system before causing a noticeable impact, because it isn't a serious concern. There is probably some theydidthemath type content to show how ridiculous the idea is.
With me not being climatological, climate change caused by our greenhouse gasses is trapping energy from the sun as heat, heating things up. Some of this energy becomes wind. So using wind power and solar power is helping rebalance the system.