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AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

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Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#11

Post by TrevorJ »

wcoenen wrote: post #5
TrevorJ wrote: post #2

It seems pants on head crazy that a mere 20 feet or so below the ground it's a livable and pretty comfortable temperature year round, virtually worldwide. And yet we spend an enormous amount of money, time and energy heating and then cooling our living spaces by almost any other means possible. Yes, the occasional home has geothermal, but the fact that it's still the exception baffles me. Heck, if you have a well or…

> Yes, the occasional home has geothermal The use of the word geothermal like that feels like a silly marketing thing to me. The "geothermal" you are referring to here, is just a ground source heat pump. A ground source heat pump is drawing heat from the ground, exploiting the huge (but not unlimited) thermal mass of the soil. That thermal mass is the same reason it has a stable temperature year round. Ground source…

I agree the term is technically incorrect but it's still used as such in the building/architecture industry AFAIK.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#12

Post by TrevorJ »

simonh wrote: post #10
TrevorJ wrote: post #2

It seems pants on head crazy that a mere 20 feet or so below the ground it's a livable and pretty comfortable temperature year round, virtually worldwide. And yet we spend an enormous amount of money, time and energy heating and then cooling our living spaces by almost any other means possible. Yes, the occasional home has geothermal, but the fact that it's still the exception baffles me. Heck, if you have a well or…

That's easy to say, but nobody is stoping you or anyone else that thinks that way from building yourselves a home deep underground. There's no real engineering challenge, we know how to dig very big, very deep pits, the problem is the costs are astronomical relative to conventional housing. Not to mention the huge energy cost and thus carbon footprint of that kind of construction. It's conceivable those costs might b…

Leveraging thermal energy != living underground, there are lots of ways to exchange the thermal energy without needing to dig a living space, etc.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#13

Post by TrevorJ »

retox wrote: post #9
TrevorJ wrote: post #2

It seems pants on head crazy that a mere 20 feet or so below the ground it's a livable and pretty comfortable temperature year round, virtually worldwide. And yet we spend an enormous amount of money, time and energy heating and then cooling our living spaces by almost any other means possible. Yes, the occasional home has geothermal, but the fact that it's still the exception baffles me. Heck, if you have a well or…

I'd say the overwhelming population of the earth does not want to live underground like a worm. The first level down might be OK for some if they still had access to natural sunlight, but everyone further down, especially to the depths that we would need to move tower blocks underground, would have a miserable existence.

We don't need to put the living space underground in order to leverage the thermal mass for heating or cooling.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#16

Post by simonh »

chatterhead wrote: post #14

"AltaRock estimates that just 0.1 percent of the planet's heat content could supply humanity's total energy needs for 2 million years." Ummm.. What?

There's a lot of heat down there, and more is continually being generated through radioactive decay and tidal forces.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#17

Post by Atheros »

TrevorJ wrote: post #11
wcoenen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, the occasional home has geothermal The use of the word geothermal like that feels like a silly marketing thing to me. The "geothermal" you are referring to here, is just a ground source heat pump. A ground source heat pump is drawing heat from the ground, exploiting the huge (but not unlimited) thermal mass of the soil. That thermal mass is the same reason it has a stable temperature year round. Ground source…

I agree the term is technically incorrect but it's still used as such in the building/architecture industry AFAIK.

It's possible for an entire industry to engage in fraud. We need not assist though.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#18

Post by danans »

mmWave geothermal is exciting because it can in theory allow for geothermal baseload power anywhere, not just places that have near surface volcanic heat like Iceland.

Big questions remain about it's technical and economic viability though.

So far I think they have only demonstrated melting a hole through a couple meters of rock, and as with all such things, the levelized cost is what matters in the end.

Re: AltaRock Energy Melts Rock with Millimeter Waves for Geothermal Wells (2020)

#19

Post by iso1337 »

TrevorJ wrote: post #2

It seems pants on head crazy that a mere 20 feet or so below the ground it's a livable and pretty comfortable temperature year round, virtually worldwide. And yet we spend an enormous amount of money, time and energy heating and then cooling our living spaces by almost any other means possible. Yes, the occasional home has geothermal, but the fact that it's still the exception baffles me. Heck, if you have a well or…

https://dandelionenergy.com/ is one company trying to scale this.

In general, Americans don't want to pay a huge cost upfront for some efficiency gains. Especially since traditionally fossil energy was cheap.

Also look at heat pump clothes dryers. They're a win in that you don't need a vent (and associated vent cleaning), but they cost more upfront.

Hopefully these are areas where the government can provide low interest rate loans upfront, since they are investments that pay for themselves over time.

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