Found this article in the newspaper about geological energy. https://archive.is/6VbD7 Like fracking, but without the chemicals? I see why Trump/oil and gas industry support this. Seems like a...
This week, Fervo raised $1.89 billion in its initial public offering, more than what investors had expected even after a surge of interest from Wall Street. The company, whose stock now trades on Nasdaq, sold 70 million shares at $27 each, giving it an initial valuation of roughly $7.7 billion.
Geothermal has support across the political spectrum because it can produce electricity without any planet-warming emissions while operating 24 hours a day, unlike wind and solar projects. The Trump administration has also backed the technology, recently announcing $171 million for field tests.
Fervo drills pairs of wells that extend thousands of feet down into hot, dry granite. Then, using controlled explosives and high-pressure fluids, it creates cracks between the wells. Finally, Fervo injects water into one well so that it moves through those cracks, heats up to more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit and comes out the other well as steam that turns turbines to generate electricity.
Like fracking, but without the chemicals? I see why Trump/oil and gas industry support this.
Founded in 2017, the company expects its Utah power plant, called Cape Station, to start sending power to the grid this year. It will ultimately have the capacity to generate at least 500 megawatts of electricity — power that Fervo has agreed to sell to Google, Southern California Edison and others.
The theoretical potential is enormous. The United States has about 3,800 megawatts of conventional geothermal capacity, mostly in the West. Fervo has leased lands with the potential for more than 40,000 megawatts of capacity, the company said.
Seems like a meaningful amount of generation but it's still more expensive than natural gas.
Geothermal companies need to significantly lower costs of drilling and setting up their plants. In its filing, Fervo said Cape Station would cost approximately $7,000 for each kilowatt of electricity it produced. That would make it cheaper than new nuclear plants but still more than twice as expensive as natural gas plants.
Geothermal executives say those prices will fall quickly, as the industry becomes more efficient at drilling and optimizing wells, similarly to the way oil and gas companies have. That, analysts said, could lower geothermal costs to roughly the same level as natural gas plants in parts of the West over five to 10 years.
I regularly engage in delusional hopium, but this gives me reason to have hope.
If this is cheaper than nuclear and can provide baseload electricity at any time of day, it seems like a good alternative to gas in places where that's expensive, or where the states are taxing gas higher for emissions. If it's only 2x higher than gas, well, maybe it can reach parity soon as the analyists say.
Maybe it will be enough to stop the AI data centers from building more gas plants.
Man, the whole "let's blow shit up and fill it full of water" schtick just seems so unnecessary to me? So like, obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about really, but couldn't we just do a...
Man, the whole "let's blow shit up and fill it full of water" schtick just seems so unnecessary to me?
So like, obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about really, but couldn't we just do a heat pump? Or just like, use a controlled loop of contained water in conductive pipes that is transformed into steam by passing through the hot earth?
I mean, it is a heat pump. Well, a heat exchanger, but I assume that’s what you meant. Drilling + explosives is a lot more cheaper than trying to carefully put a radiator and pipes that deep into...
I mean, it is a heat pump. Well, a heat exchanger, but I assume that’s what you meant.
Drilling + explosives is a lot more cheaper than trying to carefully put a radiator and pipes that deep into the earth.
It’s also something we’re really good at because it’s how fracking works.
It seems like the simplest way to implement this? Why do you think it’s unnecessary?
I mean, they're using the ground as a pipe. It's not super clear what part seems unnecessary as the whole thing seems really practical and scalable. Plus we're talking about wells that are...
I mean, they're using the ground as a pipe. It's not super clear what part seems unnecessary as the whole thing seems really practical and scalable. Plus we're talking about wells that are thousands of feet deep. Why waste the cost and material to run thousands of feet of pipe when the ground will just do it for you? Plus small shifts in the ground over time would cause breaks in the pipe any way. And they're sending the water back into the ground after it comes out the other side of the turbine anyway so it's a semi closed loop. There's going to be some loses of water spreading out underground a bit, but I suspect the water loses will be pretty small or at least similar compared to other power generation processes. But with no fuel input which sounds like a really good deal to me!
To make geological energy widely usable at scale, I think they have to go very deep underground. That requires the fracking technology. It seems like the recent technology makes this cheaper than...
To make geological energy widely usable at scale, I think they have to go very deep underground. That requires the fracking technology. It seems like the recent technology makes this cheaper than before.
I don't see how it would be possible to build an artificial housing for the fluid that is conducting the heat. The rocks are already there, fracking basically creates the pipes without extra material costs.
Found this article in the newspaper about geological energy. https://archive.is/6VbD7
Like fracking, but without the chemicals? I see why Trump/oil and gas industry support this.
Seems like a meaningful amount of generation but it's still more expensive than natural gas.
I regularly engage in delusional hopium, but this gives me reason to have hope.
If this is cheaper than nuclear and can provide baseload electricity at any time of day, it seems like a good alternative to gas in places where that's expensive, or where the states are taxing gas higher for emissions. If it's only 2x higher than gas, well, maybe it can reach parity soon as the analyists say.
Maybe it will be enough to stop the AI data centers from building more gas plants.
Man, the whole "let's blow shit up and fill it full of water" schtick just seems so unnecessary to me?
So like, obviously I have no idea what I'm talking about really, but couldn't we just do a heat pump? Or just like, use a controlled loop of contained water in conductive pipes that is transformed into steam by passing through the hot earth?
I mean, it is a heat pump. Well, a heat exchanger, but I assume that’s what you meant.
Drilling + explosives is a lot more cheaper than trying to carefully put a radiator and pipes that deep into the earth.
It’s also something we’re really good at because it’s how fracking works.
It seems like the simplest way to implement this? Why do you think it’s unnecessary?
I mean, they're using the ground as a pipe. It's not super clear what part seems unnecessary as the whole thing seems really practical and scalable. Plus we're talking about wells that are thousands of feet deep. Why waste the cost and material to run thousands of feet of pipe when the ground will just do it for you? Plus small shifts in the ground over time would cause breaks in the pipe any way. And they're sending the water back into the ground after it comes out the other side of the turbine anyway so it's a semi closed loop. There's going to be some loses of water spreading out underground a bit, but I suspect the water loses will be pretty small or at least similar compared to other power generation processes. But with no fuel input which sounds like a really good deal to me!
To make geological energy widely usable at scale, I think they have to go very deep underground. That requires the fracking technology. It seems like the recent technology makes this cheaper than before.
I don't see how it would be possible to build an artificial housing for the fluid that is conducting the heat. The rocks are already there, fracking basically creates the pipes without extra material costs.