Geothermal Power Everywhere: Tech Advances Rapidly

Geothermal energy is everywhere, just right under our feet. So could it be the solution to climate change? I used to think it was just too difficult and expensive to make much sense in most places, but some recent advances have made me rethink. Let’s have a look.

🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜

#science #sciencenews #tech #technews

[stefanhennig]

But of course, any news about drilling is ground-breaking news, right?

[orionspur]

Closed loop geothermal is the ultimate clean energy, and it is literally right under your feet no matter where you are. I really, really hope it takes off this time.

[steveb]

When I first heard of this tech two years ago, (Quaise Energy) I did a deep dive into it and have been talking about this for 2 years on X, but my reach is limited. So glad to see you focus a video on this. I hope the new geothermal gains traction and voices like yours will go a long way toward this. Thank you!

[russellpengilley]

Hi from the side of Menengai Caldera in Nakuru, Kenya.

There's a few geothermal for electrical grid projects underway here, something for direct input to cement production and an expansion of the existing Olkaria facility in nearby Naivasha.

It's already a significant part of the electricity mix in what is a pretty clean grid.

[DanildFlamme]

at 2:25, "They claim that this way they'll be able to drill 20 km. deep in just 100 days".
That would be a new record for how deep we have ever drilled.
The Kola Superdeep Borehole is only around 12 km. deep, so we are talking almost double the depth.
If they manage, it will be truly exciting, but I will believe it when they actually accomplish it.

[johanlahti]

many houses here in sweden use geothermal closed loop heatpumps with compressors to extract the heat. but a simple household hole is only about 200-300 meter deep

[workingclasscook]

My little hometown uses geothermal in their downtown so the sidewalks don't get icy in the winters. Klamath Falls Oregon isn't well known, but geothermal has been a thing there since the 90s, after looking it up I discovered that apparently geothermal has been used there as far back as 1900, mind blowing.

[rolypoly]

This is my favorite baseload option. No real downsides once the kinks are worked out. Small footprint. Constant power with no emissions.

[smartsnco]

I was a planning engineer on two geothermal power facilities, each 100 MW, in Indonesia. When they were commissioned I felt a real sense of pride that I had contributed to “greening the planet”. I hope there will be many more built.

[hiltonian_]

One of the apparent benefits of the microwave drilling is that it melts the rock and creates a heavy glass-like tube around the drill hole. The claim is that this would last for decades. It’s a gamble we should take.

The beauty part of the Quaise system is that we could repower any thermal plant; coal, natural gas, or nuclear.

[jarichardsutube]

THANK YOU Sabine for covering this VERY IMPORTANT Topic...! 🙂👍👍

[williamlloyd]

Served at Naval Air Station (NAS) Keflavik in 1979-80. The entire NATO base was heated by the hot water heating loop from the local geothermal electric power plant. Wastewater from the power plant formed the Blue Lagoon.

[edweeks]

I wish the people and companies pursuing Geothermal well. In 1979 while finishing up a BS in Mechanical Engineering I worked at a Geotech testing facility. We tested permeability of the rock (mostly sandstone from promising geothermal sites). Using different drilling fluids while simulating insitu conditions (hot and high pressure). Standard drilling fluids (Betonite) tended to bake and just plugged up the pores. The potassium based fluids we tested were very good at not restricting flow but were incredibly expensive. Current drilling techonogies were also not up to the downhole conditions. I wrote a paper on what I saw as challenges to Geothermal at that time and tried to point out where more money and research were going to be needed. One professor claimed I was anti-Geothermal. I haven't seen a lot of progress on the laser drilling although it was being tested back in the 1970's. You can blame big fossil if you want but that is not the only problem. Also, I'm not sure about the most recent installations but most existing Geothermal Power Plants are binary cycles meaning that the brine temperature can't really get water to useful steam conditions so the hot brine is used to heat a fluid with a low boiling point (iso-butane was popular and still is). There is some disagreement with how harmful iso-butane leaks are to the environment. Very deep holes will work, if you can afford to get there.

[branetraveler]

I agree with you about thermal energy from drilling. Why this isn’t done almost everywhere has always stumped me. The excuses about drilling being too expensive is just that, an excuse. Most holes in the earth are drilled using concepts that would be understood thousands of years ago. Serious R&D would no doubt accelerate the process and bring down the cost substantially. I cannot believe that perfecting fusion energy is less complex than finding a cheaper way to drill holes in the earth.

[herbieschwartz]

Geothermal energy is available now. The dream of fusion energy is, has, and always be 30 years in the future.

[vulpixie__]

my impression was that closed loop systems were so rare bc the pipes that would b under the most stress (thus most likely to need fixed) were those at the deepest point, so any repairs would essentially entail digging up the entire system (and at that point u might as well just replace it).

even the simplest open loop system has the potential to only require repairing half of it at a time

[hiddenbunny]

Geothermal heat vs Geothermal power generation are two separate things due to the pressure and temperature required. Currently, geothermal power generation needs high-pressure steam for steam turbines hence the great depth for drilling, while even the ground source heat pump (few meters down if horizontal orientation) is also called "geothermal". Also potentially, if fracking is causing people nightmares, good luck with this one.

[NSResponder]

It was at least two years ago that I heard about the US DOE funding several projects aimed at generating power from depleted oil wells. Some of them are surprisingly deep.

[chrishall]

Open loop systems, like those I worked on in Mexico, have the problem of groundwater recharge, or more precisely, the lack thereof. You basically have to pump the water back down the well to prevent depletion of the aquifer and to avoid serious environmental issues. There is also a big issue with corrosion. Feasible closed loop systems appear to be using horizontal drilling technology from the oil and gas business. Similar spinoffs are in places like Saskatchewan where existing fracking sites are being exploited for helium and lithium.

I'm very skeptical about a 20km deep well. There aren't many metals that have the appropriate strength required at the proposed temperatures that are a) affordable and b) totally non-reactive. Also, in passing, I note that we're not sitting on a ball of molten anything, except for a few places on Earth where the presence of water and the release of pressure causes melting. Virtually all the crust and mantle are solid. Only the outer core is liquid, and that's a LONG way down.

[pin]

Alberta just announced a research facility for geothermal. Its really one of the ideal places to test since we have so much data available already from decades of oil drilling along with having the equipment local to drill and the qualified workforce to do the drilling.