Geothermal Energy Explained - A Not So Hot Solution?

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#geothermal #renewableenergy #undecidedwithmattferrell

[carholic-szqv]

this is actually a field where the oil industry can easily and cheaply improve the process.

[bradleymosman]

I love geothermal energy. There's just something about steam. As an engineer, I designed a series of valves for California Energy at the Salton Sea at a cost of $1.1 million. Also, some valves for a field in Guatemala, and in Indonesia. These were mostly of the flash steam type. I didn't directly encounter "hot rock" or binary systems. But they were definitely fascinating. Really enjoyed this video!

[EngineerFree]

Nice to see more content about geothermal energy. Thanks for sharing!

[petermatteson]

I worked organic Rankine cycle development, what you call binary system, design and development for several years and had exposure to a lot of this information and technology over a decade ago. The biggest issue was installation costs were less than predictable and that combined with coming to market as the 2008 financial collapse hit killed the momentum in the industry at that time.

[ryanvandyke]

The college I graduated from, Missouri S&T, actually converted the whole campus over to geothermal energy a few years ago. Quite the disruption on campus when they were installing everything, but has worked well since then! That campus has always had interesting solutions to its power needs. Around WWII, a coal fired power plant was built which was only decommissioned just a few years ago, just before the geothermal solution was installed.

[Manos_P_]

It's definitely a win win situation if you count the fact that all the people working on fossil fuels can actually work as engineers in geothermal plants. But definitely we need more investments from the governments in order to achieve a green electricity grid. Nice video, you have summarised so much information in 10min video

[kendman]

I think it’s an awesome way to switch from oil dependency. Also reduce the job displacement of people that work in oil drilling.

[idrisb]

Your tech vocabulary always makes you sound like an expert in whichever field you’re talking about. Great job! 👍

[snc]

A great option would be to use geothermal Climon and already drilled oil Wells. It would be easy to run pipe through an already drilled well just for heat transfer. There is a way to make it a closed system without producing CO2.

[allancook]

I have a bit of experience on geothermal. One of the biggest problems has been minerals in the fluids. In general the Earths geothermal gradient is 25-30 degrees C per 1000m so a 5-6000m hole can get you about 150C most places. The drilling industry can easily do that. So it is scalable. One of the best technologies I’ve seen is “Eavor Loop” since they isolate the system from the environment and eliminate the mineralized fluid problems. The fracked geothermal wells could work but would still have the mineralised fluid problem.

[DeneF]

This might sound very silly but if you stand back and think about electricity it's bonkers. I don't know what's more amazing? The fact that it exists, or the fact that we discovered it and then ran with it in so many ways. I just think it's a very amazing thing in the abstract. Great video as ever. Many thanks.

[sbukosky]

Not to be confused with residential geothermal. Using solar gains in land mass and water.

[johnredford]

Also have a look at the Alberta company Eavor, which wants to avoid the fracturing problem by having the drill holes connect to one another. They drill down in one place, bend by 90 degrees, and meet another well a mile away. The water is sent around a closed loop - down one well, up the other into a generator and then back across to the first well. There can be many horizontal legs to increase the surface area. They've tested it in Alberta and are now working on it in Germany.

[shalinkochar]

Spock and Captain Kirk could use their phaser weapons to vaporize rock. Surely, in 2022, we should be able to do something similar to drill 20km underground. Matt, time to do a video on the viability of Quaise Energy.

[jeffhodgson]

Dandelion is a geothermal company I've been following. Their Prime objective is heating and cooling for homes what is a fantastic way for people to get off fossil fuels like natural gas propane and heating oil and use the heat in the ground instead

[ericklingele]

Love your channel!! We installed 6 geothermal wells in our yard about 18 months ago. The effect has been to significantly lower heating and cooling costs, reduce hot water costs by 70%, and flatten summer and winter electricity demand (lessen the peaks). Our goal is to continue to drive down energy consumption this year and then be able to better match our demand to a roof top solar system.

[dexxienj]

Can you make something about Kenya?It's on the Rift valley which is very active for Geothermal with over 10 GW

[joelchristianson]

Impartial, thorough, easy to understand and brief. Thank you, Matt.

[gabrielwolffe]

I had an idea once to improve geothermal well drilling by using something I call a "Cavitation Vortex Drill." The idea is that when water moves across a boundary at high enough speeds, the pressure will drop enough for it to go from liquid to gas. The resulting bubbles then collapse, creating a shock-wave strong enough to damage rock or even metal. I figured if this phenomenon was strong enough to dig giant potholes in the Channeled Scablands of eastern Washington, it could dig deep into the earth's crust to where the heat is.
Normally the cavitation would destroy the drill nozzle in addition to the rock around it, but by making the water jet spin in a vortex, centrifugal force pushes the water against the sides of the hole, where it would also be moving fastest, and away from the nozzle at the center, where it would be moving slowest and causing less damage.
It would also be harder for cavitation bubbles to form at great depths due to the hydrostatic pressure, but this would be offset by the increasing temperature, and could be compensated by increasing the pump pressure, water temperature, or by the addition of abrasive particles in the pumping fluid.
My hope was that such a drill would make it less expensive to make deep boreholes, as the drill-head would not need to be replaced, nor would the drill shaft have to be rotated or oscillated, dispensing with complex drilling rigs; a long hose and a pump should do for the most part. And at certain temperatures, water will turn to steam no matter the pressure, so you could dig a very deep hole anywhere on earth and attach a steam generator for power. This would also remove the need to break up the surrounding rock (which is only to increase surface area for heat transfer at lower relative temperatures, as I understand it), and thus the additional risk of earthquakes.

[alberthartl]

You need to update this video to clarify that you are not talking about ground source heat pumps.
Then you need to include 3rd generation geothermal, AGS. This is the technology that Eavor is using in Alberta and Germany. It is a closed loop system that can be located almost anywhere. Quaise Energy, a MIT spin off, has an interesting drilling technology that could significantly reduce the cost of drilling the loops. It uses millimeter waves to 'melt' the rock. The surface of the bore hole is vitrified so no casing is needed. Even today AGS is less costly than nuclear, and Eavor's goal is to reduce the cost to 5¢ /kw.