380. Cracking the Geothermal Nut - EAVOR can build geothermal heat and power plants anywhere

EVAOR has pioneered closed-loop Geothermal technology that unlike conventional geothermal can be built anywhere. This just might be the missing link that can provide baseload electricity and heat in the green energy revolution. The company is building a full-scale heat and power project in Germany that will provide enough electricity for 8,000 homes and enough heat for 120,000 homes. They already have other projects under development in Europe and other locales.
#geothermal #renewableenergy #climateaction #green #cleanenergy #electricity #sustainable

[stickynorth]

Very cool/hot to see this technology progress beyond theoretical and pilot plant scale to actual commercial-sized ones... So much potential here especially at that price point...

[raoulheinrichvonmerten]

We tried that here in Australia. South Australia . I thought it was such a good idea I bought shares in the company. They drilled down but then ran into problems drilling at that depth. Then pulled the plug on the project. I still think it’s a better way to make energy than nuclear, solar or wind. But in Australia we have closed our minds to it.

[ryuuguu]

I like this but am disappointed ( but not surprised ) that the Alberta government did not work on getting a full sized power plant built in the province.

[ohwingman]

This type of geothermal has been around for a fairly long time. The difference is the use of horizontal drilling to expose more surface area to retrieve the heat. There is a hotel in Edmonton that has been running on geothermal for about 20 years now so yes, it does work and the amount of energy derived is quickly replaced by the surrounding rock. If it was possible to drill to the earths core the temperatures would meet or exceed 5, 200° Celsius (9, 392° Fahrenheit).

[alberthartl]

Eavor has completed a deep bore in New Mexico which reached 250° C rock. They are in competition with Quaise Energy to get to 400° C rock. It is necessary to get to super critical temperatures for efficient electricity generation. Plasma or mmWave drilling techniques allow them to vaporize the rock and vitrify the wall of the bore.

[backacheache]

So could they do it at the sites of old coal-fired powerplants so as to re-use the site, grid-connection, equipment and provide (some) jobs?

[williamlloyd]

Spent 1979-80 serving at the Naval Air Station (NAS) Keflavik. Really like the fact that our heating was from a hot water loop and electricity from the geothermal power plant.
PS — the Blue Lagoon was just pulling off the road, short walk across lava field and using some rickety stairs.

[peterkeogh]

Emissions free baseload power plus no radioactive waste to process and store.
You don’t need to be a genius to see the benefits of this technology.
Aussie politicians take note!

[tibsyy]

Great news! Europe for national security reasons have to be energy independent! Clean anergy is an additional benefit!

[Soothsayer]

I am waiting for them to do their IPO so that I can pick up some stocks.

[danielstapler]

The German plant produces 8 MW of electricity even at 100X, 800 MW of production is still on the small side.

[beautifulgirl]

High temperatures that struck the southwestern US, Mexico and Central America recently, were 35 times more likely and 1.4C hotter “because of the warming from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas”, the Associated Press reports. A rapid attribution study by researchers at World Weather Attribution explored the impact of climate change in the on-going heat that has killed “at least” 125 people so far. Climate change also led to unusually high night time temperatures that were up to 1.6C warmer than they would have otherwise been – and made “unusual evening heat” 200 more times more likely, it continues. The article adds that “doctors say cooler night temperatures are key to surviving a heatwave”. The researchers examined the five-day maximum temperatures across North and Central America in May and June for their study, the Guardian reports. It notes that tens of millions of people have endured dangerous heat recently as a “heat dome” has engulfed Mexico – with the conditions spreading north into Texas, Arizona and Nevada and south into Belize, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. BBC News explains that the study is based on the scientists comparing events today against models of what would have been likely to occur in a world without human-induced global warming. Such a level of heat would have been a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in 2000, but today the average person should experience such an event ten times in their life, according to the New York Times.

[rondipippo]

ORC working fluids are usually refrigerants or hydrocarbons. Standard usage in hundreds of geothermal binary units around the world. 2-component mixtures are also possible. Thermal efficiencies range from about 5-18% depending on the resource temperature.

[mossyslopes]

How secure would these working fluids be in their 'closed loop'? I'm guessing that they would be something akin to refrigerant ? If this was to scale and roll out how safe would ground water aquifers be? This looks promising - read of similar systems but they involved fracking and were prone to exhausting potential of their locations after a period of time

[danielr.kennedy]

GENERATE not create electricity-please!

Regardless, long time supporter of inclusion of geothermal in our energy mix.

Good to see progress!

[chunglin_tang]

Does this require a relatively geologically stable area to work well? How well does the closed loop resist effects of earthquakes?

[timothykeith]

Can any of the new heat pump technology be used to concentrate the heat for higher temperatures?

[matthewbaynham]

But can they lower the drilling rig down a old coal mine?

If you look at somewhere like South Wales, there are plenty of old coal mines that are no longer in use, however these old coal mines are still massively deep holes.

If you start your geothermal drilling from the bottom of a coal mining shaft, then you've just given yourself a couple of kilometers head start. Meaning lower cost.

[perryallan]

While this is a great technical achievement over the short term... I wonder about the long term life of the underground pipes which are obviously threaded together (threads tend to leak over time...).

The other major issue is efficiency of the process. They are talking of boiling a fluid, running it through a turbine, condensing it back to liquid, and reboiling the fluid. This is the thermodynamics Carnot Cycle. Fluid cycle efficient is defined as "e" = 1- (Tcold/Thot) in absolute temperature (K or R). K = C + 273.15 (and I will avoid using English units which would use F and R)

I know that several lower temperature non-water fluids have been studied... but, the elephant in the room is the potential efficiency of such a low temperature system.

For example: A modern steam cycle power plant has an overall efficency in the 34-39% range. Now the actual Carnot steam/water cycle efficiency is in the range of 64-69% and the rest is lost by other power plant equipment inefficiencies.

Example for a 1980's era USA power plant I worked in (1005 F, 2400 PSI - using a 60F summer river to condense the steam back to water: power plants are more efficient in colder weather, and more modern power plants operate at higher temperatures which increases efficiency): 1005 ==> 540 C. 60 F ==> 15.5 C (540 C steam using a cooling source of 15.5 C)(summer river water in northern climates) has a Carnot efficiency of 1- (288.65 K/813.65 K) = 0.645 ==> 64.5 % Carnot efficiency.

Yet the overall power plant efficiency was only about 34% as there was about a 30% efficiency loss in the boiler and assorted power plant equipment.


So if you take 250 C as your Thot, and assuming you have the same cooling water source (15.5 C in the summer) you get a Carnot efficiency of 1- (288.65 K/523.15 K) = 0.448 ==> 44.8 % Carnot efficiency.

There is still going to be a lot of power plant equipment that will eat up a fair amount of power. I expect another 20-25% loss of efficiency. So we are likely looking at 20 - 25% efficiency for the process.

The cost of building power plants and systems is pretty fixed... so it makes it more difficult to get payback on the investment with lower efficiencies.

Another factor is that you need a very large collection field to be able to extract thermal power at a constant level for many decades (or forever) for what would be considered even a very small power plant. That gets very pricey. Of course, you can build a smaller field and draw down the ground temperature in 5-10 years - and every drop in temperature lowers the thermal efficiency possible.

How often is the underground piping field going to need to be replaced? A huge questions.


While I hope it can be made to work... There are a lot of obstacles yet to overcome.

Have a great day,

[tomkelly]

This sounds like a brilliant plan! I wonder if like a small scale geothermal rig for a home, could they send heat back down the hole in summer if a district heating and cooling system is set up? Could the well cool off if it wasn't recharged?