[HN Gopher] Geothermal Ahead of Schedule
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Geothermal Ahead of Schedule
        
       Author : ChuckMcM
       Score  : 23 points
       Date   : 2023-07-19 21:05 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | jbm wrote:
       | I remember a lot of pushback in Japan about geothermal power and
       | the impact it would have on hot springs in general. I wonder if
       | this drilling method would affect their concerns?
        
       | hiddencost wrote:
       | Still need to prove scaling.
       | 
       | "
       | 
       | On the costs front, in 2022, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm
       | announced the Enhanced Geothermal Shot, a target to reduce the
       | cost of EGS by 90% to $45 per megawatt hour by 2035. Fervo's
       | costs for the Nevada project are "significantly higher" than that
       | target, Latimer said, in part because it's a first-of-a-kind
       | project, but he said he expects next year's EGS cost forecast to
       | "decline rapidly."
       | 
       | "
        
       | morning_gelato wrote:
       | Here is a white paper released by Fervo that describes what
       | they've done in more detail:
       | https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/5704/
        
       | jandrese wrote:
       | Exciting, but I always take pronouncements like this from new
       | startups with a huge grain of salt.
        
       | ChuckMcM wrote:
       | This is a tweet thread from the CEO, the article is here (but
       | paywalled)
       | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-18/fervo-ene...
       | and what it shows is something that readers of this site should
       | be very familiar with; technology advances impact adjacent
       | markets "invisibly."
       | 
       | My interest in PDC bits and the advancements in drilling related
       | to how much simpler it would be to add fiber to the metro area by
       | drilling horizontally 500' below street level (essentially no
       | obstructions). The missing link there is lining the drill tube
       | dynamically and going horizontally through water (for example) is
       | not straight forward.
        
         | jjulius wrote:
         | >... the article is here (but paywalled)...
         | 
         | https://archive.is/0htYW
        
         | nocoiner wrote:
         | Is there a reason why you favor 500' below ground level? My
         | naive initial reaction is that seems like tremendous overkill
         | in 99% of applications. Presumably in the vast majority of
         | urban areas, 50' would be more than enough to avoid any and all
         | obstructions.
         | 
         | I suppose once you decide to do something more than shallow
         | trenching, then the marginal cost of additional vertical feet
         | is fairly minor, but even in, say, NYC it seems like 500' is
         | way, way more buffer than you'd need in the worst case scenario
         | (I have a vague recollection that the very deepest subway line
         | is around 200' underground, and that's primarily due to a
         | specific quirk of geography - a hill surrounded by two
         | valleys).
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-07-19 23:00 UTC)