[HN Gopher] The time has finally come for geothermal energy
___________________________________________________________________
The time has finally come for geothermal energy
https://archive.ph/CR2KL
Author : riordan
Score : 83 points
Date : 2025-11-17 13:55 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.newyorker.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.newyorker.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://archive.today/CR2KL
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| I've always been curious why a cost-effective widespread
| implementation of geothermal energy has never been considered a
| holy grail of energy production, at least not in the public
| debate. Much of the discussion is so focussed on nuclear fusion,
| which seems so much harder and less likely to be reliable.
| xienze wrote:
| Probably because not everywhere on earth has the same easy
| access that Iceland has. The article mentions this:
|
| > There aren't gates of Hell just anywhere. A kilometre below
| ground in Kamchatka is considerably hotter than a kilometre
| below ground in Kansas. There is also readily accessible
| geothermal energy in Kenya (where it provides almost fifty per
| cent of the country's energy), New Zealand (about twenty per
| cent), and the Philippines (about fifteen per cent)--all
| volcanic areas along tectonic rifts. But in less Hadean
| landscapes the costs and uncertainties of drilling deep in
| search of sufficient heat have curtailed development.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| I think it mainly depends on how easy it is to access that
| energy. I went to Tuscany last year and to my surprise there
| were geothermal plants everywhere. I have never heard about
| these plants beforehand, but here they are in Italy quietly
| powering the countryside and heating greenhouses to grow basil
| all year around.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Drilling is one of those things which used to be extremely
| expensive but has very gradually come down in price. Thanks,
| ironically, to the oil industry. It's unsexy because there's no
| "silver bullet" waiting in the wings.
|
| It's also quite hard to find suitably hot rocks suitably close
| to the surface.
|
| Focusing on fusion .. I think that's a legacy of 60s SF, when
| the fission revolution was still promising "energy too cheap to
| meter".
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Plasma drilling is a recent development that looks promising
| for unlocking deeper wells for geothermal.
| rini17 wrote:
| Remains to be seen, it has serious trouble with water
| getting into the borehole.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| Many others here have talked about the difficulties of
| geothermal, which doesn't really get to the heart of my
| question: why the lack of hype around breaking down those
| difficulties? I appreciate that you took the time to comment
| on why it isn't so sexy, the SF argument probably has a lot
| to do with it.
| buu700 wrote:
| To be fair, that promise of fission made sense from a purely
| scientific and mathematical perspective, before running into
| the practical realities of how its externalities interact
| with real-world politics. Fission is expensive because in
| practice it turns out we care quite a lot about proper waste
| management, non-proliferation, and meltdown prevention.
|
| In a world where anyone could just YOLO any reactor into
| production with minimal red tape, consequences be damned,
| fission energy would actually be extremely cheap. Hence the
| optimism around fusion. The promise of fusion is an
| actualization of last century's idealistic conception of
| fission. It can be a silver bullet for all intents and
| purposes, at least once it's established with a mature supply
| chain.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| I fully understand that waste management of fission
| reactors is a Very Big Deal. But I still stand behind the
| argument that opposing nuclear power in the 70s and onward
| is possibly the biggest own goal the environmental movement
| has ever achieved.
|
| At worst, nuclear waste contaminates a discrete section of
| the Earth. Climate change affects literally everywhere. The
| correct answer would have been to aggressively roll out
| fission power 40-50 years ago and then pursue renewables.
| You can argue that other solutions would make fission power
| obsolete, but we would have been in a much better spot if
| it'd at least been a stepping stone off fossil fuels.
| Instead, we have 40-50 years of shrieking and FUD from
| environmentalists over an issue that can be kept under
| control with proper regulation. The US Navy has operated
| reactors for over 60 years without incident, proving it can
| be done with proper oversight.
|
| TL;DR nuclear has issues, but I'd take it over coal every
| day and twice on Sundays, at least until something better
| can scale.
| buu700 wrote:
| I agree. I think the correct environmentalist position at
| that time wouldn't have been to oppose nuclear, but to
| advocate for improvements, streamlined approvals of
| improved designs, and public investment or incentives.
|
| I wasn't really commenting on the merits of 20th century
| environmentalist movements, more raising the general
| point that fission power has inherent costs which weren't
| reflected by narrow 1950s analyses of how much energy was
| extractable from U-235. Operation of a fission plant
| requires much more capex and opex than it would if we
| didn't care about cleanliness (waste management),
| security (fissile material theft prevention), or safety
| (meltdown prevention).
|
| Fusion power is more complex to invent and practically
| depends on modern technologies that didn't exist 50 years
| ago, but once the first demonstration plants are
| operational, marginal costs to deploy and operate more
| should be much lower and ultimately become very low at
| scale.
| davidw wrote:
| A lot of housing politics from 'old school'
| environmentalist groups are a pretty big own goal as
| well.
|
| Denser urban living is pretty energy efficient, and
| forcing lengthy commutes on people because of NIMBYism is
| a huge waste.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| People want houses. Planners can either yell and stomp
| their feet about this or adapt to circumstances. It's
| like electric cars. People want cars. Better they have
| the ability to have an electric SUV or pickup, because if
| you try to force them into little tiny econoboxes or
| lecture them about how they should really be using mass
| transit, they're just going to flip you the bird and walk
| away.
|
| Similarly, better to have people be able to have
| reasonably energy-efficient houses than demanding they
| all live in apartments.
| davidw wrote:
| People want a place to call home. Those come in many
| shapes and sizes. Denser living does not mean a smaller
| living space. By building 'up', you can provide both.
|
| The only ones demanding anything are those who show up to
| try and stop apartments.
| spankalee wrote:
| Allowing people to live in apartments is not demanding
| that they do.
|
| Reversing the downzoning of the 70s - 00s is about
| allowing construction in cities again.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "People want houses."
|
| (Source needed.)
|
| Plenty of people in dense urban areas are happy with
| living in an apartment and, where I live, buying a condo
| in the city is at least as frequent as buying a house 20
| km away from it for the same price.
|
| Living in suburbia has its downsides - long commute, very
| limited entertainment and cultural possibilities, very
| limited choice in schools. Not everyone loves cutting the
| lawn etc. either, I surely don't.
|
| Of course, a lot depends on factors such as "is the
| transport authority willing to make public transport
| actually safe and nice". That requires keeping raving
| drugged lunatics out of it, plus paying enough money for
| it. AFAIK in the US, Republicans have an ideological
| problem with the "paying money for it" part and the
| Democrats have an ideological problem with the
| "suppressing antisocial behavior in it" part.
| pjc50 wrote:
| People want houses, but absolutely hate other people
| having houses.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Back then, it affected everyone in two ways, which were
| the things Greenpeace campaigned against: nuclear
| weapons, especially overland testing, and dumping waste
| at sea.
|
| Chernobyl took out Welsh farming for years, and in a few
| places decades, because it spread a thin layer of
| bioaccumulative poison over the whole of Europe.
| Animats wrote:
| > Drilling is one of those things which used to be extremely
| expensive but has very gradually come down in price. Thanks,
| ironically, to the oil industry. It's unsexy because there's
| no "silver bullet" waiting in the wings. It's also quite hard
| to find suitably hot rocks suitably close to the surface.
|
| That's basically it. Most geothermal plants today are in
| locations where there are hot rocks, maybe geysers, close to
| the surface. "Deep geothermal" gets talked about, because
| temperatures high enough for steam are available almost
| everywhere if you can drill 3,000 meters down. There are very
| few wells in the world that deep, not counting horizontal
| drilling runs.
|
| The economics are iffy. You drill one of the most expensive
| wells ever drilled, and you get a medium-pressure steam line.
| Average output is tens of megawatts.[1]
|
| [1] https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/GeoConf/papers/SGW/202
| 0/A...
| hluska wrote:
| The economics change when you're in oil country. My
| beautiful little province has oil wells drilled between 250
| and 2900 metres. Due to corporate 'issues' many of these
| wells are orphaned and remediation becomes a provincial
| problem. With deep holes and provincially owned electricity
| and gas companies, geothermal makes more economic sense;
| it's robbing a benefit from a big cost centre.
|
| I went to high school with two guys who are working on
| geothermal as a means to remediate orphan wells. I'm biased
| in their favour, but the numbers make a lot of sense.
| polotics wrote:
| There have been numerous trials that had to be stopped because
| of the triggered earthquakes... Geothermal is not so easy.
| microtherion wrote:
| Was going to mention that point:
| http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/en/knowledge/geothermal-energy-
| ear...
|
| The worst earthquake that was induced that way was 3.5, but
| given that one of the quakes happened in an area that had a
| catastrophic earthquake in the Middle Ages, some caution
| might be warranted:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1356_Basel_earthquake
| fuoqi wrote:
| Because unless you sit on top of a volcano, amount of renewable
| geothermal energy is minuscule. In most places on Earth it's
| somewhere around 40 mW/m2 (i.e. accounting for conversion
| losses you need to capture heat from ~500 m2 to renewably power
| one LED light bulb!). In other words, in most places geothermal
| plant acts more like a limited battery powered by hot rock, so
| unless drilling is extremely cheap, it does not make economic
| sense compared to other energy sources.
| piva00 wrote:
| I think OP meant technology for drilling becoming cheaper
| rather than the near-surface availability of it.
| dns_snek wrote:
| > In most places on Earth it's somewhere around 40 mW/m2
| (i.e. accounting for conversion losses you need to capture
| heat from ~500 m2 to renewably power one LED light bulb!)
|
| Ground-source heat pumps extract about 1000 times more power
| from ground loops, where does the difference come from?
| bluGill wrote:
| A number of sources. Often the air above - ground source
| relies on the ground being the average temperature of the
| year round air once you get deep. They also tend to run in
| heating mode half the year, and cooling mode the other
| half.
| 6510 wrote:
| There is a crazy amount of energy available everywhere but it
| is not in the interest of the very powerful very wealthy
| existing players. This isn't some grand CONSPIRACY. For example
| oil companies may construct energy investment portfolios that
| would quite sensibly acquire promising energy related research.
| They do a simple cost benefit analysis then chose to modestly
| further research it or shelve it. They turn it into valuable
| pieces of paper that accumulate value over time. What is there
| for them not to like about it?
|
| I like how David Hamel put it: We live in this thin sliver on
| the surface of the planet where it is reasonably peaceful. This
| is the tranquility! It's a good thing! If you go up or down by
| a mere few miles there is so much energy it kills you.
| nickcw wrote:
| Why not is explained in David McKay's book Sustainable Energy -
| without the hot air
|
| https://www.withouthotair.com/c16/page_96.shtml
|
| The problems are that rock isn't a good conductor of heat, so
| once you've cooled a bit down, you have to wait for it to warm
| up. Warming only happens very slowly at the rate of < 50mW / m2
| which limits the amount of power you can get out.
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| That's a really good point, and it does take the wind out of
| the sails. Isn't it possible that eventually we could drill
| deeper?
| cameldrv wrote:
| Couldn't you frac the rock like they do with oil and gas
| drilling or have a branching borehole?
| hackeraccount wrote:
| Harder absolutely but "less likely to be reliable"?
|
| If economically viable fusion was "cracked" what would the
| nature of it's unreliability even be?
| hcknwscommenter wrote:
| all the machinery used to obtain and maintain an economically
| viable fusion reaction. Having worked with particle
| accelerators and synchrotron rings, I'll tell you that stuff
| breaks down all the time.
| Iwan-Zotow wrote:
| Power flow is in general very low - ca 50-60 mW/sq.m
| roadside_picnic wrote:
| > a holy grail of energy production
|
| Since you're comparing it to nuclear, I'm assuming you mean
| _electricity_ production here, not energy production?
|
| It's always worth remembering that _electricity_ only accounts
| for ~20% of global _energy_ consumption (in the US it 's closer
| to 33%).
|
| I suspect people confuse these two because in a _residential_
| context electricity plays a huge part of our energy usage, but
| as a whole it 's a smaller part of total energy usage than most
| people imagine.
|
| But any serious discussion of renewable _energy_ should be
| careful not to make this very significant error.
|
| The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory publishes a great
| diagram of US energy use:
| https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/sites/flowcharts/files/2024-12/e...
| jimbokun wrote:
| What does "Rejected Energy" mean in that graph?
|
| Great chart, by the way.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Rejected energy means energy that is lost as waste heat
| without performing any work first. For example, a coal
| fired power plant may generate 3 megajoules of thermal
| energy from coal combustion but only deliver 1 megajoule of
| it as electricity. The other 2 megajoules are lost as
| useless waste heat.
|
| The 1 megajoule of useful electricity is also ultimately
| dissipated as low grade heat, but it can do work first
| (like generating light, or pumping water uphill).
| floatrock wrote:
| Only about 30% of the _energy_ in gasoline is converted to
| useful work in a gasoline car (the 'make metal box go
| forward' part). The remaining 70% is Rejected Energy (the
| steam you see going out the tail pipe in winter).
|
| Which (not sure if you did this intentionally or
| accidentally) brings up an interesting point on the parent
| comment and the LLNL sankey:
|
| > It's always worth remembering that electricity only
| accounts for ~20% of global energy consumption (in the US
| it's closer to 33%).
|
| That "global energy consumption" figure includes _a lot_ of
| Rejected Energy going out tailpipes and smoke stacks
| turning burnables into electricity. A secret bonus of wind
| and solar is if you produce electricity without burning
| things, you actually _decrease_ the energy demand! If you
| 're not losing 70% of your energy consumption to the
| Rejected category, you suddenly need a lot less total
| energy.
| hluska wrote:
| I live in a part of the world that is far below freezing
| for a significant portion of the year. Thus a large portion
| of my annual energy usage goes into not freezing to death.
|
| When I drive my daughter to school when it's -40 fucking
| degrees, a lot of the energy I use goes into heating my
| vehicle, swearing, moving and swearing. But this energy
| also leaks through my windshield, through my exhaust system
| and through my engine. This energy (heat) doesn't provide
| any benefit to anyone and just leaks out into the
| atmosphere (which we've already established is trying to
| kill me).
|
| That's rejected energy. Or when it's below -40, rejected
| motherfucking energy. :)
| mr_toad wrote:
| A IC car's heating system normally taps into the engine's
| cooling system, so that heat is mostly free. In a pinch
| you can actually turn the heater on full to help cool the
| radiator.
| iso1631 wrote:
| At home I use 15,000kWh of oil for heating each year (about
| 10kWh per litre, 1500 litres), and 8,000kWh of electricity
| (we use a lot more than the average household). For driving
| that's another 5000kWh a year if at 4 miles per kWh.
|
| So even in a residential context, electricity is only about
| 1/4 of the demand. Across the whole country it's less than
| 300TWh out of 1500TWh, under 20%.
|
| That excludes "imported energy" though, as in goods which
| used energy to make but were then imported.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| It always has been. Our problem is switching over existing
| infrastructure without asinine complainers ruining the
| revolution. We can't even declare total victory with LED bulbs
| over incandescent. The war to have solar plants over more coal is
| falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI. Pushback on geothermal
| will arrive, I guarantee it.
| velcrovan wrote:
| > falling back to coal thanks mostly to AI
|
| citation needed
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| https://fortune.com/2025/08/31/ai-data-center-boom-old-
| coal-...
| driggs wrote:
| There is an enormous push to build and power data centers in
| the DC / Northern Virginia region, and there's legislation in
| West Virginia right now requiring all coal-fired power plants
| to operate at at least 69% capacity at all times to support
| it.
|
| > "West Virginia has numerous coal plants that have powered
| this country for decades. We need these plants to remain
| operational," [WV Governor] Morrisey said. "... We will never
| turn our backs on our existing coal plants and we will work
| with the federal government to pursue new coal-fired
| generation."
|
| https://westvirginiawatch.com/2025/09/11/morrisey-shares-
| new...
|
| https://wvpublic.org/story/energy-environment/data-center-
| bi...
|
| https://www.wvlegislature.gov/Bill_Status/bills_text.cfm?bil.
| ..
| dalyons wrote:
| The only way new coal plants get built from today on is
| with massive lifetime subsidies, because they are
| uncompetitive. Ie, if they get built it's for dumb politics
| not economics
| Maken wrote:
| That sounds like they want to subsidize the coal industry.
| AI is just the excuse.
| parineum wrote:
| > The war to have solar plants over more coal is falling back
| to coal thanks mostly to AI.
|
| Also, due to solar not panning out at scale.[1]
|
| More seriously, coal is just cheaper and, with incentives being
| removed for green energy, it's the cheapest and fastest option
| to deploy. It's dead simple and well understood reliable power.
|
| [1]https://apnews.com/article/california-solar-energy-
| ivanpah-b...
| outside1234 wrote:
| The example you chose is of a mirror based Solar system,
| which yes, is an obsolete technology.
|
| Direct solar continues to be installed at greater amounts
| every year and coal is economically uncompetitive with basic
| anything (which is why it is collapsing), and especially
| against natural gas.
| glenstein wrote:
| You're exactly right and it raises a question for me. Why
| do energy generation topics bring people out of the
| woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use
| it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the utility
| of a given technology? This is the second one I've seen
| suggesting solar is doomed when they mean mirrors.
|
| On twitter I saw someone claim PV is useless for heat
| because non-PV solar water heating is just so much more
| efficient. Not even true (I think it's a approximately a
| wash, different advantages in different applications), but
| very strangely in the weeds on a specific topic. Much too
| narrow a factual context to substantiate general level
| claims about solar as an energy writ large.
|
| I think for whatever reason the missing the forest for the
| trees trap is really potent in energy discussions.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > Why do energy generation topics bring people out of the
| woodworks who cite some very idiosycratic one-off and use
| it to make out-of-proportion declarations about the
| utility of a given technology?
|
| They either have only read propaganda pieces from fossil
| fuel producers or are trying to create some of those.
|
| I would expect the number of people that honestly don't
| know anything but propaganda to be way higher than the
| number of people creating propaganda. But there's
| probably a selection bias due to HN being a somewhat
| large site with some influence on SEO and AI training.
| dalyons wrote:
| Wild take. New coal is not cheaper. There have been no new
| coal plants built in the US since 2013.
|
| That solar plant you linked is an obsolete experimental
| technology. Obsolete because regular PV became so much
| cheaper.
| parineum wrote:
| > New coal is not cheaper.
|
| I see yow it can read that way but it isn't what I said.
| Coal plants exist, either shuttered or running low loads
| due to financial incentives (not favoring them).
|
| Studies show solar is cheaper but businesses continue to
| choose coal. I think the entity who's entire existence
| depends on them making the correct financial choice is a
| much better indicator of economic reality than a study made
| by people who have zero stake (at best) in the game.
|
| I'm all for green energy but I also don't think people are
| stupid.
| quacked wrote:
| > We can't even declare total victory with LED bulbs over
| incandescent.
|
| The LED bulbs I have access to (whatever's in the aisles at
| Home Depot, Costco, etc.) fail much more frequently than the
| incandescent bulbs I used to buy, and produce an uglier light
| that is less warm even on the softest/warmest color settings.
|
| My suspicion is that incandescents were at the "end" of their
| product lifecycle (high quality available for cheap) and LEDs
| are nearing the middle (medium quality available for cheap),
| and that I should buy more expensive LED bulbs, but I still
| think that there are valid "complaints" against the state of
| widespread LED lighting. I hope these complaints become invalid
| within a decade, but for now I still miss the experience of
| buildings lit by incandescent light.
|
| The other thing with AI--the LED revolution was led on this
| idea that we all need to work as hard as we can to save energy,
| but now apparently with AI that's no longer the case, and while
| I understand that this is just due to which political cabals
| have control of the regulatory machinery at any given time,
| it's still frustrating.
| drcongo wrote:
| Maybe buy your bulbs somewhere else? I'm yet to replace any
| of the LED bulbs I've bought over the past 15 years and
| honestly can't even remember the last time a bulb failed.
| drcongo wrote:
| Actually, since posting this I've vaguely remembered a
| previous discussion on here about differences between LED
| bulbs sold in the US and those sold in UK/EU so maybe that
| explains it.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| Mine fail all the time. Cheap Amazon Basics, expensive
| Phillips.
|
| Do they fail more than incandescents? idk maybe not, but
| they fail much more often than their advertising would
| suggest.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > The LED bulbs I have access to (whatever's in the aisles at
| Home Depot, Costco, etc.) fail much more frequently than the
| incandescent bulbs I used to buy, and produce an uglier light
| that is less warm even on the softest/warmest color settings.
|
| LED lamps work just fine, you just need to pay more attention
| when you're buying them. Philips makes decent LED lamps.
|
| Make sure you're buying lamps with 90+ CRI, that will help
| with the quality of light. 2700K is a good color temp for
| indoor living room/dining room/bedroom lighting, 3500-4000K
| for kitchen/garage/task lighting.
|
| You also need to buy special lamps if you put them in an
| enclosed fixture, look for 'enclosed fixture' rated lamps.
| Regular LED lamps will overheat in an enclosed fixture.
| foobarian wrote:
| > uglier light that is less warm
|
| I figured out why this happens.
|
| The light color they call "daytime" is around 5000K, so I
| expected it to look like being outside in the sun; but
| instead I got a cold blueish vibe. The problem? Not enough
| power! I got the equivalent of a moonlit room.
|
| So I got this 180W LED lamp (that's actual 180W, not 180W
| equivalent) [1]. It's so bright I couldn't see for 5 minutes.
| I put two in my office on desk lamps. The room now looks like
| being outside, without the "ugly blue" tint, even though the
| product says it's 6000K. The days of my SAD suffering are
| over!
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0962X573M
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| [CITATION NEEDED] They do not. If you take the mean, median,
| and mode of the failure lifetime for LED bulbs sold at these
| stores and compare them to the failure times of incandescent
| bulbs, I also guarantee you are empirically wrong here.
| quacked wrote:
| I believe this is true for the LED technology compared to
| the incandescent technology as a whole, but I'm simply
| turning over bulbs at a far higher rate than I did in the
| incandescent days. Often the LED bulbs are failing within a
| year under normal usage patterns. It's possible that using
| modern LEDs in old fixtures is causing some kind of issue.
| rspoerri wrote:
| at some point we will figure out that because we took some much
| energy out of earths core that it stops spinning and causes the
| magnetic field to collapse ;-)
| Retric wrote:
| Not really how that works. Also earths core is being heated
| from nuclear decay and tidal effects. It's getting 10's or TW
| worth of heat until the sun expands and eats the earth.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_internal_heat_budget
| danans wrote:
| I think they meant that as a joke.
| fanatic2pope wrote:
| Thanks for that wikipedia link, it's fascinating!
| zdragnar wrote:
| The world's total energy consumption (most of which is fossil
| fuels) is currently estimated at 620 exajoules, or 17TWh /
| year.
|
| Assuming zero growth in energy consumption (hello AI),
| extracting even half of that seems like it would be
| consequential.
| Retric wrote:
| 10 TW * 1 year = 8,760 TWh / year. The current rate of
| energy production is ~42TW and slowly dropping over
| billions of years, so even after efficiency losses
| gathering 1% of what's produced is several times current
| energy consumption.
| dbeardsl wrote:
| I believe this is off by 5 or 6 orders of magnitude.
|
| Looks like it's more like 200,000Twh / Yr
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/energy-production-consumption
| anotherevan wrote:
| They've already made a move about that.
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298814/
| trollbridge wrote:
| People across the road from have geothermal, driven by a
| 1.5m-deep pond right near their house. Their heat never costs
| more than $100 a month in the winter.
| danans wrote:
| That's a different "geothermal" - the correct name is "ground
| source heat pump" or in your neighbor's case, a pond-source
| heat pump. Those exploit the temperature stability that occurs
| some small numbers or meters subsurface for heating in the
| winter and cooling in the summer.
|
| "Geothermal energy" involves drilling down to hot rock to tap
| intense heat to run a turbine that produces electricity.
| m463 wrote:
| wouldn't it be "natural geothermal" if the pond is a
| naturally occurring hot spring?
| danans wrote:
| It wouldn't work very well for cooling then
| yawaramin wrote:
| It's nuclear fission. It's always been nuclear fission (well, at
| least since the '50s) and it will continue to be until we
| commercialize fusion reactors. Everything else is nice to have
| but it's like NIH syndrome.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Geothermal is fission, and wind, solar, and batteries are
| fusion at a distance. In both cases, the failure scenarios are
| benign vs traditional fission generation. It's fine to keep
| striving for fusion humans control, but the problem (global
| electrification and transition to low carbon generation) is
| already solved with the tech we have today. It took the world
| 68 years to achieve the first 1TW of solar PV. The next 1TW
| took 2 years. Globally, ~760GW of solar PV is deployed per year
| (as of this comment), and will at some point hit ~1TW/year of
| deployment between now and 2030.
|
| Geothermal is a great fit for dispatchable power to replace
| coal and fossil gas today (where able); batteries are almost
| cheaper than the cost to ship them, but geothermal would also
| help solve for seasonal deltas in demand vs supply ("diurnal
| storage").
|
| https://reneweconomy.com.au/it-took-68-years-for-the-world-t...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/data/2030-global-renewable-target-t...
|
| I also love geothermal for district heating in latitudes that
| call for it; flooded legacy mines appear to be a potential
| solution for that use case.
|
| _Flooded UK coalmines could provide low-carbon cheap heat 'for
| generations'_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45860049 -
| November 2025
| yawaramin wrote:
| Failure scenario in modern fission reactors is also benign.
| Reactors are designed to lock down to prevent any leaks.
|
| We deploy solar PV _capacity,_ this doesn 't mean we actually
| get that much power from the deployments. Nuclear fission
| provides reliable, baseload power, and doesn't require huge
| battery arrays to compensate for the sun setting or winds
| calming.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Enough renewables are deployed annually to replace the
| global nuclear fission fleet, year after year, even when
| accounting for capacity factor derating (to make a like for
| like comparison). The race is over, and renewables (with
| batteries) won. If you can find someone unsophisticated to
| invest in a fission reactor that takes billions of dollars
| and 10-15 years to build, more power to you. There will be
| no need for it by 2035-2040 when it prepares to send its
| first kwh to the grid.
|
| (and to stay on topic for this thread, geothermal is a
| component of this when geothermal potential exists, cost is
| competitive, and dispatachability is a requirement to push
| out fossil generation in concert with renewables, hydro,
| legacy nuclear, battery storage discharge, and demand
| response)
|
| https://www.google.com/search?q=baseload+is+a+myth
|
| https://cleantechnica.com/2025/11/15/coal-killing-sodium-
| ion...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/q3-global-power-
| rep...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-
| electricity-e...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-
| electricity-e...
|
| https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/economic-
| aspec...
|
| https://www.lazard.com/research-insights/levelized-cost-
| of-e...
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-pv-prices
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/battery-price-decline
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/solar-panel-
| prices-...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44513185 (lfp battery
| storage cost citation in 2025)
| yawaramin wrote:
| > If you can find someone unsophisticated to invest in a
| fission reactor that takes billions of dollars and 10-15
| years to build
|
| Unsophisticated investors like the Chinese government?
| 'Nearly every Chinese nuclear project that has entered
| service since 2010 has achieved construction in 7 years
| or less.'
|
| https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/chinas-
| impressive-...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| They dabble in nuclear, but it is not their focus. China
| can do what the developed world cannot because they are a
| command economy with less expensive labor, which will
| only last for a bit longer due to their structural
| demographics. Unless the developed world no longer has
| labor regulations, developed world wages, and capital
| based allocation systems, my statement stands with
| regards to investment. If capital and labor does not
| matter, certainly, anything is possible (Paraoh demanding
| pyramids, for example).
|
| Your citation comes from an organization with pro nuclear
| bias.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakthrough_Institute
|
| _Can China Break Nuclear Power's Cost Curse--and What
| Can the US Learn?_ -
| https://rooseveltinstitute.org/blog/can-china-break-
| nuclear-... - September 17th, 2025
|
| _China built more solar power in the last 8 months than
| all the nuclear power built in the entire world in the
| entire history of human civilisation. And even if you
| adjust for utilisation rate to compare against nuclear
| utilisation China built more solar power generated per
| hour than all the nuclear power currently in operation
| generate in an hour - and did so in 12-18 months_ - https
| ://bsky.app/profile/climatenews.bsky.social/post/3lggqu..
| . - January 23, 2025
|
| _China is installing the wind and solar equivalent of
| five large nuclear power stations per week_ -
| https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-07-16/chinas-
| renewa... - July 15th, 2024
|
| _Nuclear Continues To Lag Far Behind Renewables In China
| Deployments_ -
| https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/12/nuclear-continues-
| to-la... - January 12th, 2024
|
| _Nuclear Energy & Free Market Capitalism Aren't
| Compatible_ -
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/11/06/nuclear-energy-free-
| mar... - November 6th, 2023
|
| https://x.com/MoreBirths/status/1910780131318374524 |
| https://archive.today/iu9jx (China demographics citation)
| yawaramin wrote:
| If France-a country known for its strong labour laws and
| unions-could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any
| Western country can do it.
|
| Even if the Western world lags behind due to labour
| regulations, the cost still pays off in the long run due
| to overall less complex infrastructure and stable, AC
| baseload power. You are thinking only about the cost of
| building. What about the cost of maintaining all that
| infrastructure? Huge solar and wind farms spread out over
| vast areas, essentially destroying the local ecology?
| NPPs have a relatively tiny footprint.
|
| Every cited source has a bias. You think 'Clean Technica'
| is unbiased? Come on.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| > If France-a country known for its strong labour laws
| and unions-could transition to nuclear in the '70s, any
| Western country can do it.
|
| France had to nationalize EDF because they could not
| afford the costs associated with their nuclear fleet. The
| 70s are 50 years in the past, and are not what the future
| will look like.
|
| This is also why Spain plans to retire its remaining
| nuclear generators, and go all in on renewables.
|
| _EDF fleet upkeep will cost over 100 billion euros by
| 2035, court of auditors says_ -
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/edf-fleet-upkeep-
| wil... - November 17th, 2025
|
| _French utility EDF lifts cost estimate for new reactors
| to 67 billion euros - Les Echos_ -
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/french-utility-
| edf-l... - March 4th, 2024
|
| _Explainer-Why a French plan to take full control of EDF
| is no cure-all_ -
| https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/07/07/edf-
| nationalistion - July 7th, 2022
|
| _Spain's Nuclear Shutdown Set to Test Renewables Success
| Story_ -
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-04-11/spain-
| s-n... | https://archive.today/4fB7K - April 11th, 2025
| ("Spain is a postcard, a glimpse into the future where
| you're not going to need baseload generators from 8am to
| 5pm" with solar and wind providing all of the grid's
| needs during that time, said Kesavarthiniy Savarimuthu, a
| European power markets analyst with BloombergNEF. Still,
| she said, there is a reasonable chance this goal may take
| longer than expected and "extending the life of the
| nuclear fleet can prove as an insurance for these
| delays.") (My note: As of this comment, Spain has 7.12GW
| of nuclear generation capacity per ree.es, and assuming
| ~1GW/month deployment rate seen in Germany, could replace
| this capacity with solar and batteries in ~28-36 months;
| per Electricity Maps, only 17.25% of Spain's electrical
| generation over the last twelve months has been sourced
| from this nuclear)
|
| Tangentially, Europe has enough wind potential to power
| the world, for scale.
| nagisa wrote:
| The options in the '70s were much different from those of
| today. And for France specifically what they have
| underground (lots of uranium, no oil, no gas & no coal)
| strongly suggested exactly one way forward.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Wind and solar existed in the 70s as well.
|
| Plus, Germany invested 500 billion Euros in its energy
| transition and is STILL heavily dependent on coal.
| cbmuser wrote:
| >>Your citation comes from an organization with pro
| nuclear bias.<<
|
| Go and throw all your money into renewables stocks and
| ETFs if you're so convinced.
|
| I bet you're not doing that because you realize that the
| industry isn't doing well and it's nuclear power nowadays
| where all the money goes.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Personally, I've invested ~500k EUR in a Portuguese
| Golden Visa fund invested in renewables (IRR is ~7-13%).
| Macro speaking, renewables investments keep hitting new
| records. I am convinced, and if you are not, I would
| strongly suggest consuming more data, because you appear
| to have a potential blind spot in your mental model on
| this topic.
|
| https://about.bnef.com/insights/clean-energy/global-
| renewabl...
|
| https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-28/whi
| te-...
| cbmuser wrote:
| >>Enough renewables are deployed annually to replace the
| global nuclear fission fleet, year after year, even when
| accounting for capacity factor derating (to make a like
| for like comparison).<<
|
| Wind and solar do not replace conventional power plants
| and never will.
|
| Heck, Germany tried that on the small island of Pellworm
| and failed and yet some people think this will work out
| for the whole country.
|
| It does not work.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Nuclear is great, but it does require wheelbarrows of cash,
| and we don't have a solution for waste products.
| yawaramin wrote:
| Things are more expensive when we keep reinventing the
| wheel and trying to do new things instead of just reusing
| proven designs. Remember that solar power also used to
| cost wheelbarrows of cash back in the day. When you do
| something repeatedly, it becomes less expensive over
| time.
|
| Nuclear is actually the leader in waste management. No
| other energy source has as complete a story. Eg what
| happens to solar panels when they EOL in 25 years? They
| go into landfills and leach toxic chemicals into the
| ground. These chemicals, like lead and cadmium are toxic
| _forever._ They have no 'half-life' in which their
| toxicity reduces.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Solar panels are recycled at almost 100% of total
| materials. Redwood Materials (founded by Tesla's former
| CTO) has already established a supply chain to ingest and
| recycle EV and stationary storage batteries at scale. The
| problem is that the hardware is lasting longer than
| expected, and meaningful recycling volume does not yet
| exist.
|
| Conversely, ~95,000 metric tons of nuclear waste in the
| US does not have permanent storage or recycling
| solutions, as of this comment, and there is no plan for
| long term storage or recycling. Nuclear generation is
| experiencing a negative learning curve; we keep spending
| more the more we attempt to build it.
|
| (solar PV panels have a 25-30 year service life, at which
| point they will still produce power at ~80-85% initial
| rating, batteries have a 15-20 year service life, with
| sodium ion chemistries estimated to have up to 50 year
| service life assuming once daily cycling)
|
| https://www.epa.gov/hw/solar-panel-recycling
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/articles/beyond-
| recycling-...
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/solar-energy-panels-
| recycling
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/09/nuclear-power-energy-
| radioac...
|
| https://www.gao.gov/nuclear-waste-disposal
|
| https://decarbonization.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-
| all...
|
| (nuclear power accounts for about 10% of electricity
| generation globally, as of this comment)
| yawaramin wrote:
| > Solar panels are recycled at almost 100% of total
| materials.
|
| That's very clever wording. If someone glances at this
| sentence they might interpret it to mean that almost all
| solar panels are recycled. But your own citation tells a
| different story: https://e360.yale.edu/features/solar-
| energy-panels-recycling
|
| > Today, roughly 90 percent of panels in the U.S. that
| have lost their efficiency due to age, or that are
| defective, end up in landfills because that option costs
| a fraction of recycling them.
|
| Let's compare to spent nuclear fuel, which we know for
| sure does not end up in landfills. I am talking about
| _today,_ not some hypothetical utopian future. _Today,_
| NPP spent fuel is safely sequestered while solar panels
| are dumped into landfills.
|
| > nuclear waste in the US does not have permanent storage
| or recycling solutions
|
| It does, it's just not built yet because it doesn't make
| sense to do it now. In a few decades, maybe a century we
| will have commercialized fusion reactors. Once we do, we
| switch to fusion completely and build the deep geological
| repositories or whatever other solution makes sense then.
| Or we can even recycle the spent fuel-the only thing
| stopping us from doing that now is misguided US politics
| (as usual).
|
| > we keep spending more the more we attempt to build it.
|
| It's capex. We are investing in nuclear technology. If
| you have a proven design and build the reactors at scale,
| the costs will flatten or decline, which is obvious to
| anyone who knows about economies of scale.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Look at Electricity Maps and realize that France is the only
| large industrial country where electricity generation is
| permanently carbon-free and cheap.
|
| https://particulier.edf.fr/content/dam/2-Actifs/Documents/Of.
| ..
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Yes, but unfortunately that is because it is coasting on
| decades old labor and capital investment that will not be
| made again. It is not permanent, as it will cost tens of
| billions of euros to continue to operate those generators
| reaching the end of their service life.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Norway, Iceland and British Columbia are other examples and
| are more carbon-free than France is. The latter isn't a
| country and the former don't count as "large industrial"?
| klabb3 wrote:
| Ive been very pro nuclear my whole life, but a part of me is
| disheartened by the mega projects that commercial fission
| deployments have become (even if the reasons are bad) that's a
| problem that nerfs traditional fission. If nuclear remains both
| political, extremely bureaucratic and requires public
| investment, it just won't be the solution, and not because the
| tech or physics is bad, but the decision makers & investors can
| no longer organize large infrastructure projects effectively
| (except maybe China). This is not unique to nuclear.
|
| Having smaller scale local power generation, whether it's SMRs,
| solar, wind or geothermal, there's a huge advantage in terms of
| economy, investment, and politics.
| yawaramin wrote:
| Nuclear has broad bipartisan support, and the Trump
| administration is heavily into it, so I wouldn't count it out
| just yet. If the various Green parties of the Western world
| ever come into power though, we are cooked.
| thinkcontext wrote:
| It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to build
| commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over budget in
| time and money. China is having success but even they are not
| projected to have nuclear account for more than single digit
| percentages of their generation.
|
| Maybe SMR's, thorium, 4th gen, etc will work out, but maybe
| not.
| ahmeneeroe-v2 wrote:
| The US Navy consistently builds reactors on-time and in-
| budget
| mr_toad wrote:
| There's something to be said for a standardised design with
| replaceable parts.
| cbmuser wrote:
| >>It could be but the US and EU have so far been unable to
| build commercial fission reactors without going 2x+ over
| budget in time and money.<<
|
| The EU also forgot how to build airports and train stations
| on budget and on time.
|
| Should we stop building airports and train stations?
|
| As for nuclear power plants: Germany and France built most of
| their reactors on budget and on time.
| flowingfocus wrote:
| Instead of drilling deep, there is also an intersting case for
| storing cheap solar energy as hat in piles of dirts in the summer
| to power turbines in the winter:
| https://austinvernon.site/blog/standardthermal.html
| patall wrote:
| The Berlin one also had some promising news today:
| https://www.adlershof.de/en/news/successful-tests-on-undergr...
|
| We have to see if and when any of them goes into production,
| but the technology seems very interesting
| dwa3592 wrote:
| The problem is how do you remove the incumbents. Oil lobby is
| pretty strong. Imagine what would happen to car lobby once we
| have teleportation.
| adverbly wrote:
| Drill baby drill!
|
| Seriously this would be such a dream!
|
| Turns out that the best battery is literally 10 feet away* - and
| you don't even need to charge it!
|
| *if you want to make steam its a few thousand, but for heating
| and cooling its literally just 10 feet!
| blacksmith_tb wrote:
| Well, heat pumps are awesome, but ground-source is overkill for
| many places where the air temps don't fall too low (and it's a
| lot harder to drill holes behind your house).
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Baseload _generation_ is useless in 2025. It 's in the name; it's
| called "base load", not "base generation".
|
| Base generation was a cost optimization. Planners noticed that
| load never dropped below a specific level, and that cheapest
| power was from a plant designed to run 100% of the time rather
| than one designed to turn on and off frequently. So they could
| reduce cost by building a mix of base and peaker generation
| plants.
|
| In 2025, that's no longer the case. The cheapest power is solar &
| wind, which produces power intermittently. And the next cheapest
| power is dispatchable.
|
| To take advantage of this cheap intermittent power, we need a way
| to provide power when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't
| blowing. Which is provided by storage and/or peaker plants.
|
| That's what we need. If added non-dispatchable power to that mix
| than we're displacing cheap solar/wind with more expensive mix,
| and still not eliminating the need for further storage/peaker
| plants.
|
| _If_ non-dispatchable power is significantly cheaper than
| storage and /or peaker power than it's useful in a modern grid.
| That's not the case in 2025. The next cheapest power is natural
| gas, and it's dispatchable. If you restrict to clean options,
| storage & geographical diversity is cheaper than other options.
| Batteries for short term storage and pumped hydro for long term
| storage.
| masterj wrote:
| Modern geothermal is dispatchable. It's a really good
| compliment to wind and solar https://climateinstitute.ca/safe-
| bets-wild-cards/advanced-ge...
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| But is it usefully dispatchable? Nuclear can be made
| dispatchable but it's not usefully dispatchable because the
| costs are fairly similar whether the plant is on or off.
|
| Like nuclear, I believe geothermal has high capital cost and
| low running costs, suggesting that it isn't usefully
| dispatchable.
|
| But that's too simplistic. A big limitation of geothermal is
| that rock has poor thermal conductivity. So once you remove
| heat it takes a while for it to warm up again. If you're
| running it 100% then you need a large area to compensate.
| OTOH, if you're running it at a lower duty cycle you likely
| need less area.
|
| So if you know the duty cycle in advance, then you can likely
| significantly reduce costs. Yay!
|
| But that also means that you likely can't run a plant built
| for low duty cycles continuously for 2 weeks during a
| dankelflaute. It's likely great for smoothing out daily
| cycles, but not as good for smoothing out annual cycles. That
| means it's competing against batteries, which are also great
| for smoothing out daily cycles, and are very inexpensive.
| hluska wrote:
| That's a lot of words to admit that geothermal has its
| place.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| That wasn't the conclusion, though. The conclusion was
| that dispatchable geothermal is competing against daily
| cycling batteries, a competition it's likely to lose on
| cost.
| XorNot wrote:
| In 2025 the power consumption of my state (NSW, Australia) on
| any given day will be greater then 5 GW.
| https://www.aemo.com.au/energy-systems/electricity/national-...
|
| This "there is no base load" idea is a ridiculous myth
| trivially disproven: every grid on the planet has continuous
| demands on it and they're quite significant (5 GW is about 50%
| the day time peaks).
|
| It doesn't matter what the cost is, because later this evening
| or tomorrow morning I can guarantee you the same thing: my
| state will need at _least_ 5GW of power to literally keep the
| lights on.
| jamescrowley wrote:
| Baseload is traditionally about generation, not consumption.
| And baseload generation only makes sense when it is the
| cheapest option.
|
| When solar and wind produce at near-zero marginal cost,
| running inflexible baseload beside them just forces cheaper
| generation to switch off, driving up system costs.
|
| What the grid needs is dispatchable capacity - batteries,
| hydro, gas peakers (if we must) and demand shifting - that
| can plug the gaps when cheaper forms of generation cannot.
| cbmuser wrote:
| It sounds great in theory but doesn't work in practice.
|
| Just compare Germany to France.
| bluGill wrote:
| You misunderstand the point though. Sure there is always 5GW
| of demand - but we don't need generation that always supply
| 5GW cheap since wind/solar is much cheaper for base load.
| What we need is non-base load generation that can jump in at
| a moment's notice when needed because wind/solar isn't
| enough. Previously we would use those peak plants from when
| there was 6GW of demand (or whatever), but now between those
| peak plants coming down in price and wind/solar being so
| cheap we don't want that 5GW from plants that cannot adjust
| to load anymore - we are getting the can't adjust to load
| from wind/solar.
| cbmuser wrote:
| We're trying that in Germany while we're still heavily
| dependent on coal while our electricity prices are twice as
| much compared to France.
|
| I'm sorry, but wind and solar may be cheap, but they don't
| provide cheap electricity 24/7.
| jamescrowley wrote:
| which is why dispatchable power is required - not coal?
| jmward01 wrote:
| The right answer is 'yes to all the above'. Yes, we need solar.
| Yes, we need wind. Yes, we need batteries and, yes, we should
| be looking at geothermal. Solar has shown us, again, how
| artificially holding back a technology for decades has massive
| costs. Investing a few billion into geothermal right now is
| cheap and can only lead to a more durable energy infrastructure
| in the future. There are all sorts of benefits to a rich
| ecosystem of power generation. Solar and batteries may be
| amazing but global supply chains can be disrupted. Similarly,
| having multiple solutions means that niche use cases have more
| options and a larger likelihood of finding an acceptable
| solution. So, yes to all of the above. We are big enough to try
| them all.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > Solar and batteries may be amazing but global supply chains
| can be disrupted.
|
| Solar and batteries aren't consumables, so they're not
| particularly vulnerable to supply chain disruption. If we
| lose our supply of batteries, we'll have ~10 years or so to
| find an alternate supply. We won't be able to do new
| installations during the disruption, but existing
| installations don't stop working.
|
| Unlike a fossil plant when the supply of fuel is disrupted.
| iso1631 wrote:
| One thing which is needed too is spinning load, the grid
| depends on having enough inertia to maintain the frequency.
| Flywheels I assume would do that.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Inverters and batteries (or any other DC source) are also
| very good at doing this.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Not grid following inverters, or "any DC source", as we
| saw in Spain in Summer
| jamescrowley wrote:
| Nothing to do with the blackout in Spain -
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/what-caused-
| iberian-... - voltage surge and various thermal power
| generators failing to provide the voltage correction
| services they were being paid for
|
| But yes, grid following alone does not provided the
| required stability - synthetic inertia etc needed
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, if you don't install grid stabilization inverters,
| they don't supply grid stabilization.
| iSnow wrote:
| This is being done and it's called synthetic inertia. Just
| with capacitors and batteries instead of spinning motors.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Caterpillar provides some really neat small scale flywheel
| UPS - used in places like hospitals where it would be very
| bad to lose power. They last long enough for the diesel
| gennies to start up.
| defrost wrote:
| Ignore the clickbait headline here: _Australia's Solar Boom
| Is Breaking the Grid - Or Is It?_
|
| It's a sub 15 minute actual grid engineering for lay public
| explainer video (I know, I'm not a video fan either)
|
| A better duller title might be: _How Australia 's Grid is
| being adapted to Solar Boom_ 00:00
| Introduction 01:23 The Problem with Too Much Solar
| 03:29 Batteries Change the Economics 05:40 What the
| Grid Actually Needs 07:04 A Cautionary Tale - The
| 2025 Iberian Blackout 08:21 Australia's Secret Weapon
| - Experience with Weak Grids 10:08 The Genius
| Technical Fix - Grid-Forming Inverters 12:25 The
| Perfect Partner - Batteries 12:58 From Mechanical to
| Software-Defined Stability 13:42 Conclusion - Fixing
| the Grid Before It Breaks
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qavFbOpt4jA
| cbmuser wrote:
| Or just build out nuclear like France and pay just 20 Cents per
| kWh.
|
| https://particulier.edf.fr/content/dam/2-Actifs/Documents/Of...
| danw1979 wrote:
| Yes please from the UK, where it's 27 euro cents per kWh
| currently.
| testing22321 wrote:
| The two nukes that recently came on line in the US were so
| over budget and timeline that all customers now pay a
| "surcharge" on their bill to pay for it.
|
| Western counties building nukes is so expensive it makes the
| cost of electricity go up.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| P.S. this is a response to the original title, which has since
| changed making my comment look off-topic.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Suitable locations for pumped hydro are very limited, it is a
| comparably rare resource.
|
| A lot of mountainous places are dry, and a lot of wet places
| are flat.
|
| Of the remaining places, some are so unique that they cannot be
| destroyed by industrial construction (National Parks etc.)
|
| For example, the main ridge of Krkonose (Riesengebirge) on the
| Polish-Czech border has a lot of wind and rain and deep
| valleys, but it is the only place south of Scandinavia with a
| Scandinavia-like tundra and many endemites surviving from the
| last Ice Age. Any attempt to construct pumped hydro there would
| result in a national uproar on both sides of the border.
| rconti wrote:
| Iceland's hot water was a culture shock to me in 2 ways:
|
| 1. The host at our apartment encouraged us to leave the windows
| cracked and the heat on for good air circulation.
|
| 2. The hot water (at the taps) has a sulfer smell, because it's
| (also) piped geothermal water. My host explained they also had a
| water heater upstairs in their home because they preferred
| "heated cold water" over "hot water", which is a funny
| distinction to those of us who do not have the latter.
| euroderf wrote:
| When heating is dirt (heh) cheap, it doesn't cost much to do
| things like put big hot tubs and heated pools outdoors, like
| they do in Reykjaviks swim halls. It's really nice.
| davidw wrote:
| That Newberry Crater one is really close to where I live and...
| it'd be so amazing if it came to fruition. It sounds almost 'too
| good to be true'.
| garbageoverflow wrote:
| I was wondering how feasible it would be to reuse abandoned oil
| pumps for geothermal energy. A closed loop system [1] would
| probably be the most appropriate, with energy generation by
| spinning of a turbine by steam that gets recycled. I don't have
| the expertise and was wondering if someone can share a bit of
| knowledge with the rest of us.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-loop_geothermal
| anotherevan wrote:
| Purely as an aside, I had the pleasure of visiting Iceland in
| August and it was great. Truly beautiful, rugged land.
|
| Another way they've utilised geothermal energy is with large,
| sophisticated greenhouses which allow growing of many produce
| they would otherwise import. I only had the opportunity for a
| brief visit but a lot of it looked hydroponic with really
| interesting monitoring and control technology. (Plus the biggest
| bees this Antipodean has ever seen! These suckers were so big
| they didn't buzz, they rang the doorbell.)
| boringg wrote:
| Sorry the time had not come for geothermal. It will always be an
| expensive niche market. Will there be more? Sure but its ever
| going to fly globally.
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