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 reasonable 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.
I don't know anything about this topic but I find your comment helpful. That and the $$$ side of the equation. If I may ask, what do you mean on building an artificial housing? I don't know what...
I don't know anything about this topic but I find your comment helpful. That and the $$$ side of the equation. If I may ask, what do you mean on building an artificial housing? I don't know what that means or maybe to a place where I may get better informed.
Sorry, I cannot write well most days. As for the topic of geothermic energy, I am not so informed. However, I am reading that there are basically 2 ways: The old way. There are natural heat pools...
Sorry, I cannot write well most days.
As for the topic of geothermic energy, I am not so informed. However, I am reading that there are basically 2 ways:
The old way. There are natural heat pools near the surface, and we can take the energy very easily. Little or no drilling is required, so it is cheap. However, this can only be done in specific locations, such as Iceland.
The new way. Technically, there is underground energy everywhere on Earth. Therefore it could replace oil and gas industry for "baseline" load of electricity 24/7, when solar panels and batteries are not enough. However, it requires drilling very deep. This is very expensive and technically challenging, and slow. What is good, is that modern oil and gas industry has fracking technology that makes it cheap to drill deep. Fracking is hydraulic fracturing, using hydraulic (fluid) to fracture (crack open) rock. It is possible to use this fracking technology for geothermic energy, except without the nasty chemicals they use to extract natural gas. Just water (fluid) to transfer the heat back to the surface.
I am reading that some companies are trying an alternative method to drill even more cost-efficiently. This method is to use a laser to vaporize the rock, instead of fracking. I am skeptical of the laser technology.
I have first read about 'enhanced' geothermal energy from the USA Department of Energy. This contains many links to information about the process and tests. I have also read about it from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is advanced university for engineers in USA. Also, I have read about it from International Energy Agency, which I believe is more trustworthy than USA sources because it is not controlled by Trump.
I have read about alternative methods, such as laser, because I was first reading about nuclear fusion. The laser is trying to use nuclear fusion technology to become very efficient at creating lasers for drilling. I believe the company is called Quaise. I think that is interesting, but their website says they are 4 years away from a test in Oregon USA. However, Fervo is only 2 years away from an actual 500 MW power plant in Utah. Therefore, I am much more confident in Fervo.
what do you mean on building an artificial housing
I mean a rock is natural. A pipe is artificial. We use fracking to create crevices in the rock, then we fill the crevices with fluid to conduct heat to come back to the surface for electric purposes. It would be unnecessary to add a pipe in the crevice to "house" the fluid, because the rock is already "housing" the fluid.
However, pipes could still be useful. I believe this is the difference between "closed" (like circle) and "open" (like U) systems. In closed system, the desire is to contain all the fluid within pipes. I believe this is more expensive to install and maintain (because it is very expensive to drill), but maybe it is helpful for some geologies of rocks. In open system, such as system created by fracking, the small cracks in the rock help get the heat to the large crevice, so pipes may be unnecessary. In places with much underground water, perhaps the open system may be better, as the water will not seep away. In dry locations, perhaps the closed system may be better, to prevent the water from seeping away.
I am not an expert. I am simply interested in technology that supports the environment. I believe that geologic energy is the best solution to replace natural gas because it is using the existing fracking technology in a clean way.
The potential of geothermal energy is one of the handful of things that makes me a bit ‘climate hopeful.’ Some of the others: the rapid expansion of solar energy, battery improvements on the...
The potential of geothermal energy is one of the handful of things that makes me a bit ‘climate hopeful.’
Some of the others: the rapid expansion of solar energy, battery improvements on the horizon, and the increasing acceptance of the need for solar radiation modification.
It's a blanket term for any technique to block some amount of sunlight (and thus heat) from getting to the earth. The most researched and plausible form of it is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection...
It's a blanket term for any technique to block some amount of sunlight (and thus heat) from getting to the earth. The most researched and plausible form of it is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), which scatters particulates in the stratosphere - as many sources, from volcanic eruptions to ship emissions, already do. Volcanic aerosols have cooled us at many points over the millennia and pollution aerosols have been artificially cooling us for over a century (they peaked in the 80s). The acceleration of warming in the past decade, especially in the oceans, is suspected to be in part due to updated emissions limits on ships. Fewer aerosols = more heat getting through.
The blanket opposition of climate scientists and environmental groups to any research into it has softened a ton over the past decade. A number of environmental groups are now supporting research (though not deployment - which is a very good thing at this stage) and prominent climate scientist James Hansen joined that chorus last year.
Basically it's one of the only plausible, deployable-at-scale geoengineering solutions to cool the planet. It wouldn't fix climate change but would buy time and delay tipping points while we decarbonize. We know it works, we know we could do it, but we don't yet have a full understanding of how it would affect things like rainfall patterns. Scientists are coming around because we're quickly entering a world where the risks of not doing it are greater than the risks of doing it.
Plus, as Hansen has explained, 'we shouldn't do any geoengineering' doesn't really add up when that's what we've been doing for almost 200 years. That's what climate change is!
I see. I have not heard of that before, except in science fiction. I will read about it. I would be worried that we would use too many aerosols and accidentally cause all the plants to die due to...
I see. I have not heard of that before, except in science fiction. I will read about it.
I would be worried that we would use too many aerosols and accidentally cause all the plants to die due to lack of sun, and create a famine. Many of my friends are farmers, so it would be bad for them. Also, I would die.
Also, even without a famine, I would be worried about breathing in more toxic particles and getting lung cancer. I believe this is the health problem with diesel cars and part of why we are switching to electric.
However, maybe it is worth doing in small quantities, until there is no need to burn coal and oil anymore.
I hear you - and I encourage you to read the resources I linked, which go over these concerns in detail. First, even extreme levels of stratospheric aerosol injection wouldn't necessarily reach...
I hear you - and I encourage you to read the resources I linked, which go over these concerns in detail.
First, even extreme levels of stratospheric aerosol injection wouldn't necessarily reach the level of global dimming that we experienced (and thus survived) in the 1970s and 1980s. A lot of the research into SAI is into where and at what altitude to deploy them precisely to get maximum cooling benefit with minimum side effects, including effects on crops and photovoltaics.
Second, while the most understood particle for SAI is sulfur (similar to volcanic eruptions and diesel emissions) there's another branch of research into finding alternative substances that have the same benefits (cheap, easy to scatter, block solar radiation) with fewer of the negative effects. One substance of promise is calcium carbonate, which would sidestep a lot of the pollution concerns.
Plus all of these effects would be much less in a scenario where SAI is being responsibly used to cool things slightly (i.e. keep us under 1.5 or 2C for some decades) rather than being overused (to totally undo all warming indefinitely).
Ultimately it's a question of drawbacks. We've missed our shot to avoid 2C+ of warming through emissions cuts alone, so we're stuck choosing our least bad options. A world with changed rainfall patterns and a bit of global dimming may be preferable to societal and ecological collapse of runaway warming.
Plus the technology is already out there - many countries could deploy it at some scale within a few years - so research is necessary now before some desperate country in a rapidly warming region throws caution to the wind in the 2030s or 2040s. Essentially 'don't do it' isn't an option. There are already some idiotic and dangerous tech startups threatening escalating deployment without oversight.
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 reasonable 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.
I don't know anything about this topic but I find your comment helpful. That and the $$$ side of the equation. If I may ask, what do you mean on building an artificial housing? I don't know what that means or maybe to a place where I may get better informed.
Sorry, I cannot write well most days.
As for the topic of geothermic energy, I am not so informed. However, I am reading that there are basically 2 ways:
I am reading that some companies are trying an alternative method to drill even more cost-efficiently. This method is to use a laser to vaporize the rock, instead of fracking. I am skeptical of the laser technology.
I have first read about 'enhanced' geothermal energy from the USA Department of Energy. This contains many links to information about the process and tests. I have also read about it from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is advanced university for engineers in USA. Also, I have read about it from International Energy Agency, which I believe is more trustworthy than USA sources because it is not controlled by Trump.
I have read about alternative methods, such as laser, because I was first reading about nuclear fusion. The laser is trying to use nuclear fusion technology to become very efficient at creating lasers for drilling. I believe the company is called Quaise. I think that is interesting, but their website says they are 4 years away from a test in Oregon USA. However, Fervo is only 2 years away from an actual 500 MW power plant in Utah. Therefore, I am much more confident in Fervo.
I mean a rock is natural. A pipe is artificial. We use fracking to create crevices in the rock, then we fill the crevices with fluid to conduct heat to come back to the surface for electric purposes. It would be unnecessary to add a pipe in the crevice to "house" the fluid, because the rock is already "housing" the fluid.
However, pipes could still be useful. I believe this is the difference between "closed" (like circle) and "open" (like U) systems. In closed system, the desire is to contain all the fluid within pipes. I believe this is more expensive to install and maintain (because it is very expensive to drill), but maybe it is helpful for some geologies of rocks. In open system, such as system created by fracking, the small cracks in the rock help get the heat to the large crevice, so pipes may be unnecessary. In places with much underground water, perhaps the open system may be better, as the water will not seep away. In dry locations, perhaps the closed system may be better, to prevent the water from seeping away.
I am not an expert. I am simply interested in technology that supports the environment. I believe that geologic energy is the best solution to replace natural gas because it is using the existing fracking technology in a clean way.
Very interesting and informative, ty sir.
That is awesome. Super cool to see companies pushing the boundaries.
The potential of geothermal energy is one of the handful of things that makes me a bit ‘climate hopeful.’
Some of the others: the rapid expansion of solar energy, battery improvements on the horizon, and the increasing acceptance of the need for solar radiation modification.
What is solar radiation modification?
It's a blanket term for any technique to block some amount of sunlight (and thus heat) from getting to the earth. The most researched and plausible form of it is Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), which scatters particulates in the stratosphere - as many sources, from volcanic eruptions to ship emissions, already do. Volcanic aerosols have cooled us at many points over the millennia and pollution aerosols have been artificially cooling us for over a century (they peaked in the 80s). The acceleration of warming in the past decade, especially in the oceans, is suspected to be in part due to updated emissions limits on ships. Fewer aerosols = more heat getting through.
The blanket opposition of climate scientists and environmental groups to any research into it has softened a ton over the past decade. A number of environmental groups are now supporting research (though not deployment - which is a very good thing at this stage) and prominent climate scientist James Hansen joined that chorus last year.
Basically it's one of the only plausible, deployable-at-scale geoengineering solutions to cool the planet. It wouldn't fix climate change but would buy time and delay tipping points while we decarbonize. We know it works, we know we could do it, but we don't yet have a full understanding of how it would affect things like rainfall patterns. Scientists are coming around because we're quickly entering a world where the risks of not doing it are greater than the risks of doing it.
Plus, as Hansen has explained, 'we shouldn't do any geoengineering' doesn't really add up when that's what we've been doing for almost 200 years. That's what climate change is!
Here are some good starting points to learn more:
https://cicoes.uw.edu/2023/03/01/efforts-to-block-sunlight-get-boost-from-prominent-scientists/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
https://www.edf.org/studying-impacts-solar-radiation-modification
https://srm360.org/article/stratospheric-aerosol-injection/
I've long considered making a more comprehensive topic on Tildes about this stuff. Maybe some day.
I see. I have not heard of that before, except in science fiction. I will read about it.
I would be worried that we would use too many aerosols and accidentally cause all the plants to die due to lack of sun, and create a famine. Many of my friends are farmers, so it would be bad for them. Also, I would die.
Also, even without a famine, I would be worried about breathing in more toxic particles and getting lung cancer. I believe this is the health problem with diesel cars and part of why we are switching to electric.
However, maybe it is worth doing in small quantities, until there is no need to burn coal and oil anymore.
I hear you - and I encourage you to read the resources I linked, which go over these concerns in detail.
First, even extreme levels of stratospheric aerosol injection wouldn't necessarily reach the level of global dimming that we experienced (and thus survived) in the 1970s and 1980s. A lot of the research into SAI is into where and at what altitude to deploy them precisely to get maximum cooling benefit with minimum side effects, including effects on crops and photovoltaics.
Second, while the most understood particle for SAI is sulfur (similar to volcanic eruptions and diesel emissions) there's another branch of research into finding alternative substances that have the same benefits (cheap, easy to scatter, block solar radiation) with fewer of the negative effects. One substance of promise is calcium carbonate, which would sidestep a lot of the pollution concerns.
Plus all of these effects would be much less in a scenario where SAI is being responsibly used to cool things slightly (i.e. keep us under 1.5 or 2C for some decades) rather than being overused (to totally undo all warming indefinitely).
Ultimately it's a question of drawbacks. We've missed our shot to avoid 2C+ of warming through emissions cuts alone, so we're stuck choosing our least bad options. A world with changed rainfall patterns and a bit of global dimming may be preferable to societal and ecological collapse of runaway warming.
Plus the technology is already out there - many countries could deploy it at some scale within a few years - so research is necessary now before some desperate country in a rapidly warming region throws caution to the wind in the 2030s or 2040s. Essentially 'don't do it' isn't an option. There are already some idiotic and dangerous tech startups threatening escalating deployment without oversight.