[HN Gopher] Fusion tech is set to unlock near-limitless ultra-de...
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       Fusion tech is set to unlock near-limitless ultra-deep geothermal
       energy
        
       Author : bilsbie
       Score  : 26 points
       Date   : 2022-10-22 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (newatlas.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (newatlas.com)
        
       | Nomentatus wrote:
       | Using the search function at HN: There are several previous
       | discussions of Quaise tech, the most commented being 3 months
       | ago:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32342501
       | 
       | Those discussions clear up some confusions that are likely to
       | recur.
       | 
       | This particular New Atlas article has also been submitted more
       | than once, garnering a few comments.
        
       | 8bitsrule wrote:
       | Article overlooks the Sakhalin-I 2011 record well:
       | 
       | "The Odoptu OP-11 well reached a total measured depth of 40,502
       | feet (12,345 meters or 7.67 miles) to set a world record for
       | extended-reach drilling (ERD)."
       | 
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20110131190440/http://www.ordons...
        
         | fleetwood wrote:
         | ERD wells are very long (laterally) but not necessarily deep
         | (vertically). The vertical component is the important one when
         | assessing geothermal heat gradient. "Total measured depth"
         | includes the lateral component, and so can be misleading when
         | considering vertical depth. The wells you've referenced are
         | very long, but less than 3,000 meters in vertical depth.
         | https://www.drillingcontractor.org/erd-advances-push-limits-...
        
       | nasmorn wrote:
       | I am not convinced by the super aggressive timeline but I am also
       | rooting for them. It would be a massive step forward to a fully
       | renewable energy future. Right now it sounds like a battery
       | breakthrough article but maybe I am just overly cynical.
        
         | Loquebantur wrote:
         | You are. The physical principle of using microwaves for
         | drilling is a sound concept, the application, refitting coal
         | plants as geothermal, is a very good idea.
         | 
         | Predicting the future is always error-prone. Simply predicting
         | failure is a cheap cop-out.
        
       | tuatoru wrote:
       | Ah yes, the well known,reliable tech with full regulatory
       | approval that has been deployed for many years so we know all its
       | failure modes.
       | 
       | Set to unlock gullible investors' bank accounts.
        
         | inhumantsar wrote:
         | If you had read the article rather than just the headline,
         | you'd know that the tech they're talking about using is not
         | fusion but a tool for generating beams of millimeter wave
         | energy.
         | 
         | The connection to fusion is clickbait. The tool, a gyrotron,
         | was developed by the Soviets and is a well understood way to
         | heat up plasma.
         | 
         | The company in the article was spun out of MIT to create
         | drilling rigs which would use it to vaporize rock in places
         | where conventional drilling is too difficult, ie super deep
         | geothermal.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-22 23:02 UTC)