I worked on geothermal control systems a decade or so back. There are some less obvious applications for geothermal that reduce electric use (as opposed to generating electricity).
The systems I worked on were for cooling larger structures like commercial greenhouses, gov installations and mansions. 64° degree water would be pumped up from 400' down, run thru a series of chillers (for a/c) and then returned underground - about 20° or 25° warmer.
I always thought this method could be used to provide a/c for neighborhoods, operated as a neighborhood utility. I've not seen it done tho. I've seen neighborhood owned water supplies and sewer systems; it tells me the ownership part seems feasible.
In the nordics it is common to have ground source heat pumps (brine in closed circuit pipe or bore hole) that are run backwards in summer to cool the house while actually assisting in storing heat back in the ground to extract in the winter. It’s a bit like regenerative breaking on electric cars.
Shallow geothermal works fine for heating. And you can use the ground as a heat sink. But if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells. Fervo Energy claims to have found 270C at 3350 meters well depth. That's progress.
Here is an article that is a bit old but discusses the start of things [1]. It would be a bit ironic if fracking tech helped get us further from using natural gas. I think the reality will be if this gets established we will see rapid improvement as scale comes on line so if it is remotely economical now it will be massively better in 5-10 years. Of course the 'if' applies.
Oh, Fervo Energy again. They're trying to IPO, hence the hype.
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This isn’t really an evaluation of the company, just explaining how they had to use different financing approaches as they grew and derisked their technology (which makes sense).
Compared to some other new approaches for getting clean base load power, it seems like they’ve been pretty grounded and methodical.
It really is off-brand for this administration. They are only interested in energy sources you pull out of the ground, burn, and turn into CO2/pollution.
Pretty sure they’re interested in collapsing the cost of domestic energy production in a way that’s resilient to adversarial supply chain risk since energy production is the base of the economic pyramid - energy availability is upstream of nearly all economic output.
They have spent immense effort blocking huge amounts of domestic solar and wind production, even paying off developers to simply not build planned power plants.
Didn’t know there were significant domestic supply chains for wind, solar, and battery tech. Thought a lions share of that was ultimately coming from China.
It has exclusivity which might be enough, you can't own the sun (modulo Simpsons episode) but you might be able to "own" geological hotspots for this purpose, the same way you can "own" a coal mine or an oil well. Remember the goal here is to create poverty. I mean, obviously you say you want to create "wealth" but only in a relative sense.
The systems I worked on were for cooling larger structures like commercial greenhouses, gov installations and mansions. 64° degree water would be pumped up from 400' down, run thru a series of chillers (for a/c) and then returned underground - about 20° or 25° warmer.
I always thought this method could be used to provide a/c for neighborhoods, operated as a neighborhood utility. I've not seen it done tho. I've seen neighborhood owned water supplies and sewer systems; it tells me the ownership part seems feasible.
That’s going to be very dependant on location.
Here in NZ there are regions where water is boiling at surface level.
According to the below, 18% of our power is produced with it.
https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/rene...
https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-effic...
[1] (2023) https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geotherma...
Here's a more realistic evaluation of Fervo.[1]
[1] https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says...
Compared to some other new approaches for getting clean base load power, it seems like they’ve been pretty grounded and methodical.
He heard there was drilling involved
Have any sources I can learn from?
$$$.