ENERGY
Fusion tech is set to unlock near-limitless ultra-deep geothermal energy
By Loz Blain
February 25, 2022
https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep ... ave-drill/
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ENERGY
Fusion tech is set to unlock near-limitless ultra-deep geothermal energy
By Loz Blain
February 25, 2022
In 2018, MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center spun out a business called Quaise, specifically focused on ultra-deep geothermal using hybrid systems that combine traditional rotary drilling with gyrotron-powered millimeter-wave technology, while pumping in argon as a purge gas to clean and cool the bore while firing rock particles back up to the surface and out of the way.
The company has raised some US$63 million to date, comprising $18 million in seed funding, $5 million in grants, and $40 million in a Series A financing round closed earlier this month.
tuco wrote:It's surely not unlimited at least in theory and I am curious if anyone would know how to enumerate the limit? How much heat we can take before the core goes cold? Just to entertain the thought.
Cito di Pense wrote:What on earth about this report is supposed to inspire me to invest (either emotionally or financially) in such an enterprise? What persuades me that this is pure hype are simple facts about the mechanics of rock materials.
tuco wrote:I am curious what the actual number would be, say in gigawatts. That's how one gets investors interested .. it can produce as much electricity as xyz nuclear powerplants. 10^? really big right?
Macdoc wrote:
From a human scale of energy needs over time, unlimited if the boring technology works.
Matthew Houde, a co-founder and geologist, remains undaunted. He notes that for millennia the Earth has shown us that stable holes of incredible depth are possible. Volcanoes draw their power from far deeper.
hackenslash wrote:Cito di Pense wrote:What on earth about this report is supposed to inspire me to invest (either emotionally or financially) in such an enterprise? What persuades me that this is pure hype are simple facts about the mechanics of rock materials.
How many Theranos's will occur before we stop giving column inches to these cranks, let alone finance? This is somebody's pie-in-the-sky dream that's based on no science whatsoever. It's pure fantasy, and we're not even close to the technology to drill that deep yet. Not even in the ball park. Not even on the same continent as the ball park.
Honestly, this thread is in entirely the wrong sub-forum. Just because the energy is there doesn't make this any less pseudoscience. And that's speaking as somebody almost entirely ignorant of the mechanics of rock materials beyond a simple grasp of the variability of ductility at depth and pressure and a naïve view of temp increase with depth.
The whole bollocks about directed energy and lasers is the best bit of it all. This is Hyperloop level fantasy.
hackenslash wrote:tuco wrote:I am curious what the actual number would be, say in gigawatts. That's how one gets investors interested .. it can produce as much electricity as xyz nuclear powerplants. 10^? really big right?
1.21, by my calculations, admittedly made in a science-fiction film, but that's more appropriate than calculations done in a lab in this case.
One gets investors interested by getting them to believe. Whether you can actually deliver is another matter (c.f.Elisabeth Holmes).
Macdoc wrote:The company has raised some US$63 million to date, comprising $18 million in seed funding, $5 million in grants, and $40 million in a Series A financing round closed earlier this month.
tuco wrote:I am curious what the actual number would be, say in gigawatts. That's how one gets investors interested .. it can produce as much electricity as xyz nuclear powerplants. 10^? really big right?
newolder wrote:tuco wrote:I am curious what the actual number would be, say in gigawatts. That's how one gets investors interested .. it can produce as much electricity as xyz nuclear powerplants. 10^? really big right?
Lord Kelvin's 1862 musings on "The Secular Cooling of the Earth" give a starting point to which we must add radioactive decay and the modern science of materials to conclude that the Earth's internal heat source flows to the surface at a rate close to 50 Terawatts: wiki link.
Probably not the number you seek but it's a guide to further guesses...
Despite its geological significance, Earth's interior heat contributes only 0.03% of Earth's total energy budget at the surface, which is dominated by 173,000 TW of incoming solar radiation.
hackenslash wrote:
...
There are some challenges in getting the energy down to the surface, and I estimate at least some significant dispersal, but it's fairly straightforward to use a laser as a carrier wave to transfer the energy down to collector stations on the surface for distribution.
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