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Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

thinkgeoenergy.com

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Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#101

Post by cyberax »

UltraSane wrote: post #51
cyberax wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an extremely stupid idea. Your whole water column is going to be contaminated with fission products. And you won't be able to get any reasonable amount of power out of that contraption. And even if you are stupid enough to actually do this, the fuel efficiency will be terrible. Your only negative feedback for fission is the Doppler effect and thermal expansion. So you will only be able to utilize a tiny percenta…

The water column is isolated fron the fuel. The weight of the water column just allows for a cheaper enclosure. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2419/ML24191A372.pdf

So it's a regular reactor BUT IN A MINESHAFT!! The reactors yearn for the mines!

It's even _more_ stupid!

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#102

Post by UltraSane »

willis936 wrote: post #84
UltraSane wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of places with very little seismic activity.

And how many of those places have we dug 100 mile deep holes in and verified nothing has changed? It doesn't take a long look at fracking research to see that this line of reasoning doesn't hold.

100 miles deep? What are you even talking about?

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#103

Post by mrguyorama »

MadnessASAP wrote: post #18
anakaine wrote: post #5

From the thesis: https://www.proquest.com/openview/624989df3cdd8055a6cee9affc... "For the application in EGS drilling, this device uses a metallic waveguide to carry the millimeter wave (MMW) beam to a standoff distance from the crystalline rock. Argon gas is used as the waveguide fill medium due to its ability to stay transparent to MMW’s at such deep depths and thus higher pressures [12]. Purge gas is also used to…

You don't need a significant flow of argon, just enough to keep unwanted gasses out of the waveguide. It's possible there exists a material that is transparent to mm waves, airtight, and can survive the conditions at the bottom of the hole. In such a case they could cap the waveguide and prevent any gas leakage. I'm quite sure Quaise is well aware that Argon isn't cheap and are already exploring multiple avenues for…

You DO need significant flow to extract the "Drilled" material.

This is such a sketchy company. Their "Demo" video doesn't demo anything.

At least this is progress though. In previous hype videos they just pretended you don't need to extract anything!

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#104

Post by [deleted] »

willis936 wrote: post #83
UltraSane wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mile is much deeper than the water table is almost everywhere. It is normally solid bedrock. So you can just fill the hole with concrete and dirt.

How does this look in practice? You need the water to transfer the heat, so in response to a disaster that has already poisoned the water table you need to extract the water, put it somewhere, and backfill with concrete, all while you've already poisoned miles of water table and fighting from spreading further and damning all workers involved? For what gain?

[deleted]

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#105

Post by UltraSane »

cyberax wrote: post #101
UltraSane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water column is isolated fron the fuel. The weight of the water column just allows for a cheaper enclosure. https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML2419/ML24191A372.pdf

So it's a regular reactor BUT IN A MINESHAFT!! The reactors yearn for the mines! It's even _more_ stupid!

No. Being at the bottom of a mile deep hole in bedrock makes a very effective isolation.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#106

Post by UltraSane »

pphysch wrote: post #89
UltraSane wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please explain exactly what you think can go wrong.

Seismic activity collapses the well, trapping the nuke underground, pressure find a way to escape via polluting a "faraway" aquifer, or it doesn't escape and you have a man-made volcano in the works

Not a plausible scenario. The entire point is that by putting these a mile deep that they will self seal if they meltdown. They can't create a volcano because they are only 15MW. If the reactor cracks the radioactive fuel can only contaminate the water at the very bottom of the shaft because it is a mile deep.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#107

Post by UltraSane »

willis936 wrote: post #83
UltraSane wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A mile is much deeper than the water table is almost everywhere. It is normally solid bedrock. So you can just fill the hole with concrete and dirt.

How does this look in practice? You need the water to transfer the heat, so in response to a disaster that has already poisoned the water table you need to extract the water, put it somewhere, and backfill with concrete, all while you've already poisoned miles of water table and fighting from spreading further and damning all workers involved? For what gain?

How exactly will it poison the water table? A mile is in bedrock much deeper than the water table and any radioactive material will stay at the bottom because it is heavy.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#108

Post by cyberax »

leonidasrup wrote: post #61
cyberax wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can then build a primary school on top! And use the water from the well for heating directly. What could possibly go wrong!?!?

For example in Finland there is research done for nuclear district heating. https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/fourth-finnish-m... "Feasibility of small modular reactors for decarbonizing district heating systems: a case study of the Helsinki metropolitan area" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002954932... Haiyang’s District Heating Project in China https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/carb…

The USSR built a nuclear district heating system in Gorky (now Nizhny Novgorod) but never commissioned it because of the general anti-nuclear sentiment at that time.

It's certainly possible and not even very hard (by nuclear standards) because the reactor can operate at ambient pressure.

The biggest issue is inefficiency and cost of district heating except for places like Finland. It's now cheaper to install heatpumps instead.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#109

Post by cyberax »

UltraSane wrote: post #105
cyberax wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's a regular reactor BUT IN A MINESHAFT!! The reactors yearn for the mines! It's even _more_ stupid!

No. Being at the bottom of a mile deep hole in bedrock makes a very effective isolation.

Isolation from _what_? If you reactor melts down, it will contaminate the water column above it. And by having it inside the shaft, you won't be able to do any maintenance on it.

It's a stupid idea designed to filter out investors who are stupid enough to fall for it.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#110

Post by [deleted] »

Dibby053 wrote: post #94
baron816 wrote: post #32

I really like what https://www.deepfission.com/ is trying to do. They have the absolute simplest model for nuclear fission that I can imagine. They’re digging one mile (1.6 km) holes dropping low enriched nuclear fuel to the bottom, and filling them with water. The pressure from the one mile column of water is perfect for the reactor. From there, it’s basically a geothermal well. No need for an expensive containment…

>They have the absolute simplest model for nuclear fission that I can imagine Agree. What I don't understand is: why has it never been done before? They can't possibly be the first to come up with this idea, which doesn't seem to rely on any novel technology.

[deleted]
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