Next Generation Geothermal Technologies

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

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[@zaphodbeeblebrox1130]

neat !! 👍👍📓📓📚📚🌄🌄❤‍🩹❤‍🩹

[@thamiordragonheart8682]

For context with the microwave drilling system, the deepest hole in the world, the Kola Superdeep Borehole, is only 12km, so the idea of drilling to 20km is kind of insane. Not to say it isn't possible, just that it's a bit crazy and we're going to learn so really crazy stuff it it actually happens.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

I originally had a bit in the script about the Kola borehole! They started digging in the 1970s, which makes it so crazy they got so deep. And they did basically to see what happens when you dig a hole so deep. I took that section out though, because I wasn't entirely sure it is still the deepest (there are some oil and gas wells that may be deeper).

[@thekaxmax]

The non-physical drill bit will make a huge difference. And it is still the deepest

[@alanhat5252]

​@@EngineeringwithRosieI googled "deepest man-made hole" & Kola came up in all results which surprised me, I thought the Russians had surpassed it a while ago with microwaves or lasers.

[@hamjudo]

Kola was deep enough for geothermal in that particular spot. The necessary depth varies with regional geology. They stopped drilling at Kola for several reasons. One of those reasons was the intense heat. The 1970s vintage drill bits didn't last very long in the extreme heat. Which meant they couldn't drill very far before they had to pull the entire drill chain out to change the tip. If that were the only issue they probably could have come up with a solution. The rocks were hot enough to plastically deform. This caused issues as well, but the killer problem was budget cuts. They didn't have money for new engineering projects, like high temperature materials research.

[@briankuhl9314]

Canadian fan appreciates that Eavor was featured. Dito on the Drill comment.

[@jimthain8777]

I am also Canadian, and approve this comment.

[@ryuuguu01]

One of Eavor's big challenges is that it is based in Alberta. Oil country Canada. Great for drilling knowledge unfortunately the provincial government is actively anti-renewable. They stopped all renewable projects in the province for 9 months to draw up new environmental policies ( something they have never done for oil & gas) causing billions of dollars of wind and solar projects to be permanently cancelled and then their policy declared renewable energy to be too environmentally damaging to be used on much the land, although none these limitations would apply to oil and gas drilling. Not a big surprise they went to Germany for a commercial project. I mean what use would excess heat from a geothermal project be in a province where winter temperatures go down to -50º c (-58ºf).

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Oh dear I wasn't aware of that backstory to the move to Germany! I would have assumed that geothermal was a renewable tech that oil and gas fans could get behind! Certainly many of the startup founders in this space come from that background.

[@kevindruce8915]

I suppose Alberta needs to be impacted by climate change more for them to change their views.

[@pin65371]

​@@EngineeringwithRosiedon't listen to what that person said. Thr government of Alberta literally announced $50 million for a research facility to test different drilling processes to drive down the costs of geothermal. Eavor was involved in that announcement. It's actually getting tiring hearing people that don't actually know what is going on in Alberta trashing it. The oil companies are basically funding all the clean tech research and development in Alberta. Also that original project Eavor developed in Alberta was only possible due to government funding.

[@pin65371]

​@kevindruce8915 Alberta was one of the first places in North America to put a price on emissions. That money funds projects like Eavor. The oil companies also have been working at lowering their emissions for a while now. I've worked on a bunch of first of its kind projects that have lowered emissions. We also need to be realist here. Oil.and gas aren't going anywhere. The question is who do we want profiting from it? Canada or countries that are either currently at war with their neighbors and flexing their ballistic missiles that can hit targets at Mach 11 or building up their military to invade their neighbors? Venezuela is one of the other main heavy oil suppliers to the world and they have absolutely no environmental standards.

[@jimthain8777]

@@EngineeringwithRosie Traditionalist politicians (Conservatives) don't understand these new technologies, nor do they want to. Their donors are oil and gas, and they have blinders on for everything else. It is a sad state of affairs which we will likely be seeing on our federal level soon too. I believe you just removed similar politicians in Australia, so I'm sure you know what can be destroyed by these backwards traditionalists.

[@markbernier8434]

Rosie, for a follow on, perhaps some investigation into harvesting of lower temperature differential energy. For my property, if I had an infinite supply of water at even 35C I'd not need winter heat, nor hot water, hot tub and greenhouse would be legends. In a lot of applications I find myself turning electricity into low temperature heat so skipping all the conversion steps seems good engineering to me.

[@astrotrav]

As you point out, EGS will have difficulty competing with wind/solar in most markets. But it has a lot of potential for places like Alaska.

[@markbernier8434]

Also huge chunks of Canada.

[@bradforrester2417]

The only thing is - wind/solar are time and environmentally-sensitive resources, aren't always reliable, take up a ton of space, and MUST be complimented with expensive batteries to offset demand and night-time use. The battery storage use is at least good at handing fast peak responses to demand. However geothermal power is excellent at providing base load demand, covering the majority of the "area under the curve," and a solid alternative to say nuclear reactors which would normally handle all that heavy lifting. If geothermal technology can improve to the point where it's more viable in more areas, huge wind/solar/battery farms can be avoided, and so can all the regulations, expense, and time it takes to bring in a nuke.

[@ryuuguu01]

I have an Ecoflow river2 ( much smaller) and used it during a storm power outage last week. It was handy to keep my phone charged to check on storm maintenance updates, and my computer running so I could keep working.

[@chrisconklin2981]

Well Done. A very good summary of the technology. You summarized five years of development in 15 minutes.

[@rickrys2729]

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) works to reduce costs and risks associated with geothermal development by supporting innovative technologies. As you mention this technology has potential but plenty of challenges to be economic.

[@raoulheinrichvonmerten4851]

Here in Australia we tried this in South Australia. It failed because the pipeline was not reliable. Web drilled and heated water was found and tapped . The pipe line was the problem. So not for everyone. Great idea though. Now in Australia superseded by sola and wind.

[@watsonnascimento2958]

You are on the right track! Keep going!

[@Scubongo]

Thanks Rosie. Great video. EGS is the future.

[@fishyerik]

With a closed loop it should be possible to let gravity work for you, pulling the working fluid down as a liquid, and returning it up as a gas. Instead of spending energy on transporting the heat carrier, some energy could even be extracted from gravity due to that difference in density between liquid and gas phase. That makes it possible to extract more energy than what's possible for a given amount of heat and temperature difference alone with a heat engine. That's potentially a huge advantage, especially when comparing to the low efficiencies in practice commonly achieved when working with a modest temperature difference and non-supercritical working fluid. If geothermal is used periodically when there's extra demand, heat flow over time becomes less of an issue. It's obviously easier to get a low cost per unit of energy from systems that extracts power 24 hours a day and 365.25-ish days per year. But the value of energy isn't constant, we can generate power at ridiculously low cost when we have sunlight, and really cheap when we have wind, so geothermal that can fill the gap between demand and whatever solar and wind can generate can be very valuable. It could be considered "self-charging" energy storage. In cold climates, where there's plenty of sunlight part of the year, and very little sunlight part of the year, and there's a lot of demand even for low grade heat that part of the year with little sunlight, geothermal systems that can deliver both power and low grade heat on demand can be extremely useful, even if the cost of that energy is higher than solar power when the sun shines, and wind power when it's windy.

[@nigels.6051]

Although you can use gravity it implement your pump, you can't extract energy from gravity unless you put the energy into the system first! The energy to power the pump must come from the heat source, which means that the hot fluid arriving at the surface will not be quite as hot as it could have been. You might as well use a normal electrical pump powered by a steam generator, powered by the heat from the hole.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Eavor doesn't pump fluid around, they use the thermosiphon effect instagram.com/p/DAY8OiZtTp4/?igsh=MThsNXRmbjcyeHIyMg==

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Eavor doesn't pump fluid around, they use the thermosiphon effect instagram.com/p/DAY8OiZtTp4/?igsh=MThsNXRmbjcyeHIyMg==

[@fishyerik]

@@nigels.6051 So where does the energy go, in your mind, from the liquid returning down? In a closed loop the mass moving up is exactly the same as the mass going down. That would mean the liquid returning down would gain the same amount of heat if your idea had anything to do with reality. Just as well have pump? Even if your alternate reality was reality, a pump is far from 100% efficient, and costs money, and adds complexity, and conversion from heat to power is also very far from 100% efficient.

[@nigels.6051]

@@fishyerik If you use a thermosyphon like Eavor then the liquid going down is heavier than that going up, the geothermal heat at the bottom heats the liquid, causing it to expand and reduce in mass, then gravity causes the heavier cold liquid going down to push the lightweight hot liquid up. But you do use some of the geothermal heat to expand the liquid, and that is where the energy comes from to drive the thermosyphon pump, you can't then use that energy for other things. At the Eden Project, they have an electrical pump at the bottom of the hole, which pumps the hot water up, which enables them to have a faster flow and extract more heat. You are correct that the pump isn't 100% efficient at pumping, but 100% of the wasted energy heats the water, which then comes back up warmer than it would otherwise be, the energy is not lost.

[@patrickmchargue7122]

Good news. I look forward to the further progress of this technology.

[@otto_schwarzkopf]

Constant output/ baseload is needed is increasing just for Internet and Data Centers. The growing consumption is getting sizable. Hope Eavor makes the progress they need.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

That's true and I expect there is a nice opportunity for partnerships there (I believe there are some already announced). But as I understand it, AI is only expected to account for about 4% of the total growth in electricity demand in coming years, so I don't think it will be enough to significantly smooth out demand curves.

[@QALibrary]

I remember they had to stop the geothermal drilling work by the Eden Project becuse they had too many tremors over a certain size. After a rethink and changes, they took 162 days to complete (I got the feeling it was meant to be only 30 days with another 30 days to plug it all in and get it working project) When they finished the well is 4, 871m TD (total depth) and 5,277m MD ~ they have a two-bore setup one injecting water and acting as a return and the other sucking up the supper heated hot water, making it the longest geothermal well in the UK.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Thanks for adding this interesting snippet!

[@mikeklein4949]

Thank you Rosie. This shows a lot more promise than SMR's in my opinion, with far less downside risk. The Eavor model in particular adds stability to enhance the cost effectiveness of solar and wind, which is already pretty substantial. Short term and seasonal variability being dealt with is huge.

[@DeveloperChris]

As a 10 year old I was fascinated by lost in space. Loved the robot in the first season. Things got a bit silly after that however one thing that stuck in my young brain was an episode where they had to drill for fuel. They set up a rig which looked like a laser Or maybe even a microwave drill on a tripod and bore through the rock to the fuel source. It was very forward thinking of the writers of the show. I liked the way it was played off as pretty ho hum technology and was just a set prop for the episode. A lot to think for a 10 year old.

[@fredericrike5974]

The "explanation" of radar in a Buck Rodgers comic from the early 1920's hit the research of the late thirties, early forties squarely on the head. Science Fiction has hit a number of things like that over it's history.

[@ryuuguu01]

Google and Berkshire Hathaway are partnered with Fervo. You don't get much deeper pockets than those 2 companies.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

I'm saving this bit of info for an upcoming video on how we're going to power AI. Thanks for the comment!

[@OstrichWrestler]

​@@EngineeringwithRosie The greed of those involved in AI and crypto won't allow them to let off the gas. A bunch of the models and monetization strategies are hitting walls and CEOs like Altman are trying to convince people to give him several trillion dollars to build out compute. Look at Georgia in the US. The numbers are obscene! A bunch of producers are planning on TRIPLING their production and they can only do it with gas. It gets worse too. Look for a Washington Post article by Evan Halper.

[@aenorist2431]

@@EngineeringwithRosie The correct answer would be "we are not, shut 95% of AI down like the useless garbage it is"

[@fredericrike5974]

@@EngineeringwithRosie Keep and eye on growing investment by Big Oil; this is two fold- every time you see a government agency up in arms, bet money there is a lobbyist for Big Oil involved. If Big Oil is a primary investor, they are much less likely to do the lobbyist/agency shuffle on you.

[@Joe-ij6of]

** ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED ** Infinite Money Glitch

[@scottstormcarter9603]

Excellent video

[@twelvebears1971]

I can’t think about how amusing it would be if a technology developed for nuclear fusion research ended up enabling an energy technology which rendered nuclear fusion energy redundant before it even happens.

[@13699111]

Thank you for your excellent channel

[@capebee4839]

I remember watching a documentary on geothermal in a town in Alaska I remember that the temperature was below 100 C They used a liquid that had a low boiling point and created steam at quite a low temperature This would make a lot more sites viable What stood out for me on this documentary was that the entire plant was run by one person A lady engineer. She provided power for the whole town If memory serves me correctly, it was a town of around 3000 people

[@andrew20146]

In cold climates where peak energy needs are in winter, (when solar performs worst) having geothermal waste heat be useable for district heating is another potential benefit.

[@alanmartin6708]

Drill baby drill! 😊❤

[@bobsinhav]

What if we use geothermal mostly for district heating and cooling?

[@ps.2]

They do it in Iceland. But district heating is distance-limited - you can't transport heat _as heat_ arbitrary distances, as you can with electricity. So you have to site your wells and power plant within (or very near) the population center you wish to provide heat to. And some population centers might be more welcoming than others when you propose to bring oil & gas drilling equipment into your city and build a big power plant on top of new, deep wells. Also, as Rosie mentions in the video, some of these new geothermal techs involve hydraulic fracturing, and there's _a lot_ of fearmongering out there (some of it justified) about fracking and earthquakes and water pollution. Some people don't want to live in the same _county_ as a fracking operation, let alone the same _city._

[@bobsinhav]

@@ps.2 So, we need long distance heat transmission, like 200-300km, up from a max of 100km today. Then, we can also harness waste heat from heavy industries and other sources, far away from residential area.

[@johnpoldo8817]

Here in Florida, most people use geothermal energy to heat swimming pools. At a short depth, we dig two wells. Instead of an air heat pump, we use water from wells and it’s more efficient than electric or gas.

[@nigels.6051]

How deep do you dig the wells? I guess the water comes up at swimming pool temperature, which is not really enough for other uses, but perfect for swimming pools?

[@johnpoldo8817]

@ I think the wells are 50-100 ft. Like all geothermal systems, it extracts heat from underground aquifers, using a compressor increases temperature to 104 degrees F for the spa and 85 for pool. Cold water is returned to a second well.

[@ErwinRabbelier]

Rosie, what is the effect on the temperature of the air layers when we extract heat from the earth's crust? Does the temperature rise as a result, or is this compensated by using no or less fossil fuel?

[@nigels.6051]

The heat is going to come out of the earth anyway, you are just redirecting it to come out in the location that you want it. You also speed the process up a bit, so for the first few years the atmosphere will be warmed slightly, but it will stabilise after a while. Of course if you cool the rocks deep down, they will shrink, and fracture, which will result in earthquakes... Iceland has a geothermal power station, currently evacuated and it has hot lava trying to break in through the walls - search for news on "Svartsengi geothermal power plant"! Maybe the lava is not caused by the power plant, maybe the power plant was located over the hot lava because of the heat, then again it is the only place in Iceland that currently has hot lava running around, and it is coming up from directly under the power plant... Seems to me that any really deep hole is going to get fractured and stop working before long, and these things are never going to be cheap to drill.

[@ps.2]

Ultimately you're just speeding up the natural diffusion of heat outward from within the earth. So, today you're warming the surface a tiny bit, but 1000 years from now, or 50000 years, that volcanic eruption nearby will be a tiny bit less intense. However - the scale is absolutely miniscule, compared to the total inflow and outflow of heat at the earth's surface. Our surface temperature is dominated by sunlight heating the earth, and the earth then radiating heat out into space, roughly in equilibrium. The energy involved is on the order of *170 petawatts* (i.e., 170 000 000 000 000 kW), 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. (Global warming is almost entirely about this equilibrium, as greenhouse gases block some of the energy we radiate out into space, while blocking _far less_ of the energy coming in from sunlight. A warmer earth will radiate more energy outward, so eventually we'll reach a new equilibrium.) It would take … an awful lot of geothermal to approach anything like that scale.

[@tjmozdzen]

It's good news. Geothermal doesn't go away if you get a super volcano go off, or an asteroid hit. But better have those green houses ready to grow some food. It's a nice steady power and like you said, can be done in many places.

[@glyngreen538]

Indeed. Or more likely nuclear winter sadly, as climate change worsens and competing nations panic and get cross with each other.

[@anguscampbell1533]

There is a company called OTEC that harvests the heat from oceans also

[@texanplayer7651]

Instead of focusing so much on super deep super hot water to get steam hot enough to power a turbine for electricity generation, we should remind ourselves that more than two thirds of our energy demand is for low level heat, mainly for home heating, bath water, and for many industries that also require low heat like milk and egg pasteurization and some other chemical processes. That low level heat needs not exceed 80 or 90 degrees Celsius, and it is much more available and closer to the surface than the 300+ degrees Celsius of got steam we would need for electricity generation. Even if we drill just deep enough to get to 50 degrees Celsius hot water, we can still combine that with industrial level heat pumps to make them an order of magnitude more energy efficient than heat pumps today. I believe we could already have more than half of our energy demand covered by geothermal with the current technologies we have today. We just need a little more imagination on what energy actually is, and remind ourselves that energy does not always mean electricity.

[@thomasgade226]

Maersk is doing that in Denmark

[@dzhiurgis]

Why does NZ's energy mix website show geothermal produces co2?

[@nigels.6051]

I was wondering the same, so looked it up... Apparently most of the CO2 comes out of the ground, dissolved in the water, and is allowed to escape into the atmosphere, it seems the deeper the borehole, the more CO2 is likely to come up, which doesn't sound good for these new deep drilling techniques! High pressure water can absorb more CO2. Iceland is producing about 34gCO2/KWh from its shallow geothermal systems, while "Recent data from Italy (Mt. Amiata) and a number of sites in Turkey show that GHG emissions from geothermal power plants can be higher than 500 g/kWh and in some cases higher than 1000 g/kWh", which would make it worse than coal! I get the impression that people are playing with geothermal because they can manage to get grants and other money to fund their playing, I don't see a great future for geothermal, although it does work well in some places.

[@glyngreen538]

@@nigels.6051would this still be the case for the ‘closed loop’ system talked about in the video? I’d hoped geothermal might help with climate change so it would be a shame if it was actually bad for the climate.

[@nigels.6051]

@@glyngreen538 I guess you could keep the water at high pressure to keep the CO2 in solution, but then you can't put it through a steam turbine, you would have to put it through a heat exchanger, and use the heated water in the turbines, but that is what nuclear power plants do to avoid any radioactive stuff going trough the steam turbines. There is probably a solution, but it will make it more expensive, and it has to compete with wind + batteries, which is becoming cheaper. It does work well in Iceland, but the main reason for using it there is that Iceland is very cold in the winter, and the majority of the population has fairly shallow geothermal wells within 10Km of their homes, so they can easily pipe hot water through everyones radiators, and return the warm water under the roads to keep the roads warm and dry instead of covered in snow and ice. But Iceland is unique, being cold and sitting on top of both a spreading ocean plate boundary and on top of a deep mantle hotspot plume. This video is about Geothermal being used everywhere, which I very much doubt will ever become competitive with the alternatives. Iceland's geothermal is 34gCO2/KWh, which currently is very low, but if we are actually going to achieve net zero, even 34 becomes a problem, quite likely an expensive problem. I see UK wind currently at 13, and I imagine that will reduce to almost zero as we start using net zero steel etc. to build the turbines, it is going to be very difficult to be competitive with wind, and if you look at Iceland again, the number of geothermal bore holes they use, is about the same as the number of wind turbines they would need, which is cheaper, a bore hole or a wind turbine, I suspect the wind turbine, these days it is built in a factory and towed to site by a tug boat, no need for weeks of expensive drilling on site to reach your 20Km depth.

[@gab882]

i am curious how do they install the piping for closed loop geothermal at that depth, heat and pressure, how do they manoeuvre and spread out the pipes?

[@domtweed7323]

Geothermal (i.e. natural nuclear) is a relatively expensive option that's valuable because it can provide baselooad or even load-following: Like artificial nuclear, and less favourable hydro resources.

[@syiridium703]

"Drill, baby, drill...with a microwave beam to make a futuristic geothermal power plant!" - that sounds much more awesome than the lame "classical" drilling.

[@solarheat9016]

In select locations, it works great for space heat and water heating.

[@rainerrillke5660]

Again, watching Rosie, I learnt about Geretsried, a project not too far away which isn't covered by the German channels I usually follow.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Huh they're not covering it? It's a Canadian company, perhaps that is why.

[@rainerrillke5660]

@@EngineeringwithRosie You said it in your video: It's not a ready-to-deploy technology, contrary to wind, PV and batteries. Press coverage is almost limited to Bavarian publishers. Some pilot projects are going on with green hydrogen lately close by so I might just have been blind.

[@bernardbergeron5523]

What I think should be of interest (well more than it is now anyway), is individual or local geothermal heatpump, mostly for temparate zone. And for hot climate, heat pump could use the heat for hot water rather than releasing outside.

[@ps.2]

Mayyyybe. But I'm skeptical. Even with newer technologies, I can't imagine it would be cost-effective to drill such deep wells just to supply a single house or building. As with so many technologies, it becomes economical as you scale up the operation.

[@Petch85]

Could geothermal be used both as electric production and central heating at the same time? I am thinking drill deep holes, have pipes with relatively high pressure, pump water through, get super heated steam, run it through a turbine that generates electricity. Then run the "cooled steam/hot water" through a heat exchanger, instead of a cooling tower. Then get hot 60 C hot water that can be used to heat homes. Maybe have a big insulated tank that can be used as a battery such that heat energy collected through the day can be used throughout the night. (assuming that peak heat consumption is doing the night, making it possible to use a smaller system than what is required at peak consumption)

[@alanhat5252]

they've recently completed exactly that in Denmark

[@Petch85]

@@alanhat5252 Can you give some hints for me to find that? Cause as far as I know there are only 3 geothermal plants in Denmark non of witch produce electricity, they only supplement central heating based on waste or wood chip incineration. (Thisted 1983, Amager 2005, 2013 Sønderborg) There have been given some permits (6 sense Sønderborg, as far as I can tell), but no plants have been build. (as far as i can tell) There is a 2020 report on competitiveness for geothermal in Denmark, but I think it concludes that geothermal is too expensive and recommends biomass boilers (I strongly disagree) and seawater heat pumps ( I assume powered by wind power). Honestly I don't even think they consider power production (it looks like the legislations says that heat and electricity has to be produced togetter, and that is holding back geothermal from being uses to generate heat only in Denmark 🤷‍♂) , I guess Denmark's plan is to produce power using Wind, solar and biomass incineration and relay on hydro power from Norway and Sveden for winter days without any wind. They also have connections to England, Germany and Holland, thus maybe they can buy wind power from England on some days where the wind i blowing in England but not in Denmark 🤷‍♂. I found the information on the danish energy agency's home page (Energistyrelsen, ens). They have a section on geothermal. I did not read alle the reports but I did not get the impression that geothermal had a bright future in Denmark. But I might have overlooked something.

[@nigels.6051]

@@Petch85 Iceland does electricity and hot water to a large area from the "Svartsengi power station" - easy to find info on that, it is currently being attacked by hot lava!

[@thomasgade226]

@@Petch85 see Innargi Aarhus

[@danielninedorf5502]

Geothermal has been in use since 1980-ish, the major problem has been the corrosive steam, where there is geothermal there is usually no cooling water.

[@alberthartl8885]

With Plasma or mmWave drilling the rock is vaporized and the wall of the borehole is vitrified. The transfer fluid is a closed loop. The chemistry of the fluid does not change because of the barrier of the vitrified rock.

[@alanhat5252]

5 minutes googling produced - Larderello, Italy, 1904 seems to have been the first producing electricity. France went large-scale immediately after the 1975 Oil Crisis. The Geysers, California, 1950s & then expanding with EGS (fracking) in the 1960s & '70s. Plus Roman, Greek & Arabic thermal-only (particularly cooling) for millennia.

[@fredericrike5974]

​@@alberthartl8885 This vitrification effect is not very thick around the pore hole and it isn't a non porous surface either; irregularities in form and substances encountered can and will create leaks into and out of that bore. This technique, as you defined it would not pass the present standards for non porous casing to run pat the known depth of fresh, non saline water sources. You have much of the right path, but some way to 100% case the bore needs finding.

[@Petch85]

I too is very excited by geothermal (no so much the fracking method though), it honestly seems like a no brainer, combining geothermal with wind and solar seems like a perfect match. How much money do we invest on this technology compare to other energy technology like solar, nuclear, fusion, etc ?

[@alanhat5252]

I don't see that much needs to be invested, all the research was done decades ago. Electricity was first commercially generated from geothermal in 1904 in Italy, the fracked wells in the video have been in use since the 1960s. The most recent development is the microwave drilling but even that is decades old. It's all stable, mature, established & well understood technology, it just needs someone to build more.

[@Petch85]

@@alanhat5252 Knowing that it works does not make it usable on it's own. It is easy to produce a prototype. Think of it like a car. It is easy to make a prototype car, but it is very hard to make a car that can be successfully sold on the free market. Knowing how a car works does not help you build the extremely complex factory that can build millions of cars. You have to invest in the factory, supply chains, marketing etc. Before you can sell the car to people that could chose between your car and all the other cars on the market. (the devil is in the details) If it was easier to drill a hole in the ground than burning coal, people would do that. But there have already been invested a lot into coal since 1904 making it cheap and easy thus we have to invest into geothermal befor it can compete. (or make a CO2 tax)

[@harrygoldhagen2732]

This is excellent information! I'd like to suggest that you slow down your presentation speed and include breathing between sentences. For older listeners like me, this very rapid pace makes it hard to understand all you are saying, and makes it difficult to absorb this valuable information. Thanks!

[@philborer877]

Clever ending😊

[@gadlicht4627]

I've seen some work in using alternative fluids for solar thermal instead of water to collect heat and separately some odder coolants. Most melt way above geothermal temperature, there are water-based with nano-particles (increases heat conductivity by a lot and heat capacity by a little), ionic liquid-based ones, perfluorocarbon or halogen-based ones (toxic for the environment so has to be closed system) and combos. These could potentially extract more heat faster than water, so may open possibilities. You might be able to get away with a smaller hole, which means more surface area (and faster heating) or slower pumping making it economical in more places. IDK

[@gadlicht4627]

I also do not think this would revolutionize it all at once or anything, but may make it slightly better and add up with other changes

[@Harrythehun]

Unfortunately the test sites for geothermal in Sweden and Finland has failed. Due to many mentioned reasons.

[@johannesnm9706]

How much storage in lcoe+s?

[@wayne8113]

Thanks Rosie

[@pixelpusher220]

Are these not deep enough to have the rock close in on itself? The heat desired also causes the rock to 'flow'...as depth increases.

[@Luddite-vd2ts]

Perhaps cost comparison with nuclear power would be more valid, rather than wind, solar plus batteries? If geothermal gives constant power rather than variable nuclear is a more valid comparator, I'd say.

[@jasonbroom7147]

Next-level content, as always! You might slow your cadence a bit, as I think you sometimes mention something quite important without pausing to allow the viewer to grasp the point you just made. It's a bit like rapid-fire slapstick comedy, in a sense. I find it interesting that you paint the "always-on" availability of electricity generated by deep geothermal wells as a potential liability. I was fully expecting you to elucidate that position by stating that we could implement peak shaving on wind and solar whenever geothermal was meeting base load requirements, leveraging a relatively small footprint of storage to help meet periods of higher demand. Instead, you implied that wind and solar would (or should?) be prioritized over the constant availability of a geothermal source. I don't know if you are just that fervent in your support of those two technologies or if you were being somewhat disingenuous, but either way...that's a horrible idea. If geothermal can be made cost competitive, and I am one who hopes that it can, it would mitigate the need to proliferate and/or replace wind and solar, which come with a whole host of challenges. The one caveat I will mention is that I greatly favor some decentralization of generation, vis a vis individual homeowners installing some solar, along with microgrid implementations of solar. Wind turbines are the least attractive solution for a variety of reasons and I would be more than happy to see them supplanted entirely by a more reliable solution, like geothermal.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

It's not fervent support, it's market reality. When there is a lot of wind and solar power in the grid, electricity prices are zero or negative. Coal (and some other thermal) power plants can't ramp up and down quickly so they have to pay to generate at those times. Sometimes they pay as much as $1000/MWh to generate in Australia. It makes their economics extremely challenging, so of course if a technology can avoid that, they will. Not to mention the benefit of being able to capture high prices during shortfalls, e.g. If they can increase production in the evenings when the sun has set.

[@jasonbroom7147]

@@EngineeringwithRosie - The dual challenge of meeting intermittent demand with intermittent generation, which is exacerbated far more by renewables than coal, natural gas or geothermal, should not drive practices, prices or policies. In other words, I don't agree that electricity is "free" when solar and wind create enough of it, and I don't agree that any source of generation should have to pay to produce. Because of their geographical footprint, wind and solar should be supplemental, and paired with some kind of storage solution, not the primary source of generation. Insofar as the core temperature of the earth is never going to be impacted by geothermal endeavors, this should be considered another renewable energy source, but your response makes it seem like you are lumping it in with coal generation, simply because it provides a much more reliable and constant source of power. That is not just counterintuitive to the discussion, it's contraindicated to the needs being met.

[@salahidin]

so it's up to promising future geothermal plants to adapt to renewables' intermittent output and not the other way round?

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Well yeah, they'll need to operate in the electricity market that exists where they want to put plants. If there's a lot of variable renewables they'll need to deal with that.

[@salahidin]

@ 🙃

[@salahidin]

@ 🙃

[@DominikJaniec]

great news!

[@LindsayWhitehead-v9l]

Haven't we learned anything from the Superman movie?? The one with Russel crowe

[@gesilsampaioamarantesegund6692]

Why not associate closed loop with gyrotrons?

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Probably because gyrotron drilling is still experimental whereas Eavor is already building a commercial facility. I expect they don't want to wait and don't want to deal with the headache of adding an untested technology to the mix.

[@derloos]

I saw a comment in a discussion of closed-loop geothermal to the effect that the calculated rate of heat extraction in such systems' advertised performance may be greater than the heat diffusion between the neighboring layers of rocks, i.e. they expect to pump the heat out of the well quicker than the extracted layer of rock will be able to restore its heat content from the other layers of rock further away from the well. I hope there are competent people on here who can comment on whether it's absolute tosh or not.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

There's a section on the Eavor website or maybe their KZbin that goes into that in some detail. It's definitely not an unfounded fear, it needs to be designed around.

[@derloos]

​@@EngineeringwithRosie The og comment presented it as an inherent flaw that couldn't be "designed around". Probably overblown, I'll go check their website, thx.

[@nigels.6051]

They are certain to pump the heat out faster than it returns to start with, eventually they will reach equilibrium, it is just a question of what temperature they achieve at that point. It does limit the power output, and also limit the number of power plants you can build within an area, the area cooled by the time equilibrium is reached will be quite large. It is always going to be possible to extract some heat, but it is definitely a finite amount, and not huge.

[@SolAce-nw2hf]

One problem that I am having with geothermal is that we are extracting heat from the planets reserves and eventually dump it into the atmosphere after going through a turbine. Will this contribute to global warming?

[@alanhat5252]

No, it's safe. The nuclear reaction at the planet's core is producing huge amounts of energy which is being dumped, geothermal is just altering the route a miniscule amount of it is taking to escape.

[@nigels.6051]

@@alanhat5252 But you are cooling the planet, or at least the crust of the planet, which will cause it to contract, and the result of that is maybe not so safe?

[@theelectricwalrus]

Nice cameo from the kid

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

He loves "helping". I'm counting down the days until he can help me out with camera work 😂

[@thamiordragonheart8682]

I do wonder why flexibility is important for geothermal. The reason flexibility is useful is because right now wind and solar have the lowest marginal cost of energy (additional cost for each additional kWh), so you don't want to spend expensive fuel when you could be using wind and solar instead, and then you have to quickly bring your other power sources online when the wind and solar aren't there. Grid-scale batteries make economic sense for basically the same reason, the cost of storing a kWh is less than the marginal cost of producing it by burning gas in a peaker plant. Geothermal, like wind and solar, has a near-zero marginal cost of energy, so turning off the geothermal when you have lots of wind and solar doesn't actually improve your marginal cost of energy,. Wind and solar are always going to be easier to start and stop than steam, so if the steam is just as "practically free" as the wind and solar, why not just turn off the wind and solar? I think nuclear is kind of similar to geothermal in this respect since the fuel cost is such a tiny part of the overall operating cost.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

It isn't simply "turning off" the geothermal when you don't want to use it. That can be done with traditional geothermal (or it can be used to charge a battery). What Eavor and Fervo are able to do is to actually store energy underground. When they "turn off" fluid is staying longer underground and getting hotter, and pressure is building up. Then when it's turned back on, you can get more than the "baseline" power out of it for a while. It is not 100% efficient (you won't get as much energy as if you ran at constant output 24/7) but it does improve the economics of the project significantly.

[@thamiordragonheart8682]

@@EngineeringwithRosie that is interesting and makes more sense if they're actually managing to shift some of the generation. I had assumed that the water was in the reservoir long enough to get most of the way to the rock temperature already and couldn't get much hotter. I assume the mechanism is that there's enough heat flux to vaporize a certain mass of water per second, and because the steam is well above the boiling point of water at normal operating pressure, you have some room to add more water and increase the pressure in the reservoir until it's saturated, and then you can use the extra steam for peak capacity later. And I assume you need closed-loop or fracking geothermal so the steam doesn't have an escape path as the pressure builds.

[@briankuhl9314]

@@thamiordragonheart8682 The key physics concept is that with increased pressure steam (or water) can store more energy by getting hotter. Remember that on everest water boils a 70 C, vs 100 C at sea level air pressure, that's 30 C less energy you can store in the same volume of water. So as long as the underground pressure can increase more heat can be absorbed. And later more energy extracted. With the traditional porous rock, the pressure just dissipates, the maximum pressure is limited and thus no ability to increase water pressure and temperature over the normal operating conditions.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

@@thamiordragonheart8682 " I assume you need closed-loop or fracking geothermal so the steam doesn't have an escape path as the pressure builds." yes exactly, that's the key point. I had to have it explained to me by one of the Princeton researchers working on this aspect of Fervo's tech before I got it. I am hoping I'll get a chance to tour the German Eavor site, and if/when I do that video I'll spend more time explaining how it can work as a battery since it's a common question in the comments.

[@takaela]

having dumped all our summer heat into the lake, our university is looking to pull winter heat from the rock... someday... now if they could only keep the thermostat in my office working...

[@peterbreis5407]

Strictly speaking Geothermal is not "renewable".

[@nigels.6051]

Once you take the heat out of the hot rocks, they are then going to be cool rocks, there is a limited amount of heat there. However, the heat will slowly be renewed naturally, exactly the same as with solar or wind. Strictly speaking the sun, which powers both solar and wind, is a finite resource, it is not renewed.

[@peterbreis5407]

@@nigels.6051 All a matter of time. Keep extracting heat from the deep rocks and they will cool. I'm not against geothermal if, a big IF it proves economical. It will be a stopgap in the march to less polluting energy sources. Trouble is it is looking like it is all too little, too late. Trump just got re-elected and he will sabotage everything environmental because he is The King of Stupid.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

That is semantically true, but then nothing is strictly "renewable" if you consider that the sun will eventually die. It is typical to call geothermal renewable and I don't like to invent terminology on this channel where a standard term already exists.

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

I was trying to make a trump point at the end when I said "drill baby drill". Much of the geothermal industry comes out of oil and gas expertise and personnel, perhaps for this reason it's a clean tech he might get behind?

[@peterbreis5407]

@@EngineeringwithRosie Just me being me. Teutonic stickler for accuracy. 😀 Thanks very much for your posts Rosie. You are a model of concise hard facts and commonsense. 👍👍

[@serversurfer6169]

Quaise seems to mostly be a new drilling technology. Is there a reason it couldn't be used to do the boring for a closed loop system, reducing the cost of the latter? Seems that closed loops would also offer good storage potential. 🤔

[@narvuntien]

I am excited about it in tropical regions in the world as they have tough seasonal issues for Wind and Solar. Indonesia most importantly but also other places in Eastern Africa (other than Keyna that was metioned) and central americia. Indonesia recently make some bold targets for renewable energy that some people believe must be a miss speak but it might well be possible.

[@grantlouw3182]

The deepest drill hole to date is ~12km and they want to go to 20km. It would be easier to send people to Mars and back.

[@johnpoldo8817]

Fortunately, our new US administration will allow much greater fracking than the old one. I don’t care if it’s for geothermal power or oil.

[@fredericrike5974]

Whoa! Rosie! The reason that petro wells are required to have a "casing" to shield the well bore to some 2000" is to protect the fresh, non saline water sources that exist shallower. All the water so far found below that level- some millions of wells worth- clearly demonstrate this- is salty water; that could be sodium chloride or any of dozens of metal bearing salts, all of which can be bad for any living organism. The same casing rules will apply to geothermal wells or some very new discoveries/tech will have to occur. I'm going to ask you to either walk it back or give us the "engineering skinny" that illustrates your statement. Rosie, to date, I have felt you made a strong point of dealing with the facts and had left the conjecture to others; what you said flies in the face of over a hundred years or drilling experience all over the world- including in Australia. PS; What has Eavor done to protect the interface barrier 7 km underground for the erosive and transfer of those same pollutants to the "closed loop" liquids? If they directly contact the active, hot rock, there will be transfer of those same materials. Potentially less, but still an ongoing problem. What is wanted is a near perfect way of sealing the walls of the bore hole to prevent the contamination, but to transfer the heat to the working fluids- and I haven't seen any of that, have you? Rosie, you have some well earned engineering skills; but how much petrochemical engineering, down hole engineering do you have? Your comments above also show a limited knowledge of the fresh and salt water production depths, so geology wasn't on your program either. I don't have these degrees, but I do have a lifetimes calluses working around it and a few years as a teaching aid for contract company that did training in advanced and developing oil field technologies. Gal, you need to hit some books- your sisters at Marathon Oil would eat your stuff in a heartbeat.

[@SocialDownclimber]

Geothermal is really cool, but in terms of viability for the next 30 years, I think it is below fission and above fusion : ( Not a good spot.

[@Canuck_Retro_Gaming]

thanks for waisting my time

[@EngineeringwithRosie]

Any time

[@Froggability]

Is Rosie aware of global warming gas emissions from Geothermal? In NZ at least. 6-700g CO2e / kwh. Less than fossils. But added up over time = greater emissions than coal or gas, since we use coal very little but geothermal at 20%

[@nigels.6051]

I see 38g CO2e / KWh for geothermal, which does seem high compared to hydro and wind, and I don't understand why it is that high? But you are saying up to 700g in NZ, how could it possibly be that high?

[@5th_decile]

I think fossil fuels combined with mature CCS has more potential than geothermal (when it comes to the clean energy potential of techniques which concern drilling into the earth). The energy output from oxidation of C-H and C-C bonds is not easily beaten. Also, we need that CCS-knowhow to decarbonize recently commissioned coal infrastructure (up to 1000 GW capacity, not counting steel industry) in time, not speaking of cement and so on.

[@absolute___zero]

Nope, not the way, still too expensive. The day geothermal will go mainstream, like solar today, is that the robots will dig it automatically without any human intervention. But for such robotics to be available we need AI, but AI is not ready. For AI to be ready we need cheaper chips, not going to be soon as right now the law of Moore has flipped: the cost of chip design doubles every 18 months. Conclusion: stop investing into geothermal, invest in AI instead, a robotic "mouse" could dig 5 km down the Earth while you are watching TV.

[@thekaxmax]

Depends where and what for. A start up here was looking at being profitable with geothermal until they got messed up internally. The tech is fine.