> They require more capital investment than solar or wind projects: $3,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt, compared with $1,700 to $2,100 per kilowatt for wind and solar. (However, a geothermal plant will produce between two and four times as much electricity as a wind or solar plant of the same capacity.) Solar/wind: 1.7k - 2.1k / kW → N Geothermal: 3k - 6k / kW → 2N - 4N Looks like an investment no-brainer.
I don't understand what that second sentence means. What do they mean by "capacity" if it's not electricity generation capability?
What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
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Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#12> They require more capital investment than solar or wind projects: $3,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt, compared with $1,700 to $2,100 per kilowatt for wind and solar. (However, a geothermal plant will produce between two and four times as much electricity as a wind or solar plant of the same capacity.) Solar/wind: 1.7k - 2.1k / kW → N Geothermal: 3k - 6k / kW → 2N - 4N Looks like an investment no-brainer.
I don't understand what that second sentence means. What do they mean by "capacity" if it's not electricity generation capability?
Capacity is the most they can produce at any given time. Solar only produces power during the day. Geothermal produces power 24 hours a day, without any regard for day or night. Therefore for the same “capacity” geothermal will produce more power per day because it produces for more hours a day at the same rate.
(This does not account for any complications such as the cost of that capacity or whether geothermal has other downtime to consider.)
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#13Does the widespread cooling of the planets interior have any possible consequences?
According to a quick web search, the internal energy potential of the Earth is 10^31 joules. Humans use about 5.8 × 10^14 annually.
That's around 170 trillion years if I did the math right.
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#14> They require more capital investment than solar or wind projects: $3,000 to $6,000 per kilowatt, compared with $1,700 to $2,100 per kilowatt for wind and solar. (However, a geothermal plant will produce between two and four times as much electricity as a wind or solar plant of the same capacity.) Solar/wind: 1.7k - 2.1k / kW → N Geothermal: 3k - 6k / kW → 2N - 4N Looks like an investment no-brainer.
Given the environment geothermalhydro is in and thus the equipment has to operate in, does it require more maintenance of the infrastructure? Presumably the steam would have different kinds of particles that could deposit accumulate and affect equipment (scaling)? Could be very manageable or could incur significant money to maintain. I don’t know, just asking.
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#15I worked on a mining project years ago where we had to dewater the mine of 90 degree Celsius water at 700L/s.
Always wondered whether we can use it for energy….
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#16They tried experiments fracking into hot rock in australia and went bankrupt proving the concept. Bit of a shame. More money got pumped into CCS which is demonstrably bloody useless, works for gas well life extension but not sequestration
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#17They tried experiments fracking into hot rock in australia and went bankrupt proving the concept. Bit of a shame. More money got pumped into CCS which is demonstrably bloody useless, works for gas well life extension but not sequestration
To clarify at least two companies circa 2003-2013 successfully proved Australian geothermal could generate power at the 1MW level via pilot plants .. and had no futher investment or interest to expand further.
Geodynamics writes off Cooper Basin geothermal assets https://reneweconomy.com.au/geodynamics-writes-cooper-basin-...
Petratherm Ltd: https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/00...
(now doing other exploration: https://www.petratherm.com.au/projects-overview/)
To quote GeoScience Australia (2013):
These learnings have come at a high cost ... in excess of $0.5 billion
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#18I worked on a mining project years ago where we had to dewater the mine of 90 degree Celsius water at 700L/s. Always wondered whether we can use it for energy….
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Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#19There are a lot of near-surface options for heating and cooling. They reduce electrical usage rather than generate it.
I worked on geo control systems for FL buildings. We'd pump water up from the aquifer, transfer heat from the building into it and dump it back. It starts getting cost effective above 10k or 15k sqft.
In northern states they do large closed loops wound over a large yard or field and buried just below the surface to capture daytime heat or pump heat into the earth. Basically a larger version of rooftop water heating.
There are a lot of variants of this but you get the idea.
Re: What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)
#20Make drilling cheaper. This would also help with water access. The biggest cost of small geothermal and water projects is always the drilling. Drill rig time is always a limiting factor.