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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

#111

Post by pphysch »

UltraSane wrote: post #106
pphysch wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I thought the whole point was that the reactor would deliver heated water to the surface for utilization...? But it will magically stop trying to do that if the main shaft is obstructed and there is a separate egress?

Or are you also burying the turbine and power lines a mile deep?

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#112

Post by bronson »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #75
Someone wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They’re digging one mile (1.6 km) holes dropping low enriched nuclear fuel to the bottom, and filling them with water. > When the fuel is used up, they can leave it where it is since it’s below the water table. To do both, they’ll have to guarantee that that column of water stays isolated from groundwater for a long time after the fuel is used up. Reading https://www.deepfission.com/faq , they answer that question…

>I don’t think those are good answers. Steel and concrete are what we use above ground so..... >They say what they want to do, but almost nothing about how they’ll do that, and try to avoid making hard statements on the what by using “is expected” and “is intended”. They say nothing about how because those are trivial problems in the well (and oil) drilling industry.

> those are trivial problems in the well (and oil) drilling industry.

Ah yes, an industry well known for its adherence to safety standards and never having surprising blowouts.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#113

Post by irq-1 »

rgmerk wrote: post #33
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…

That sounds like an absolute nightmare to get approvals for.

They got an executive order to ease the regulation...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43911648

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#114

Post by bronson »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #76
notrustincloud wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

below and penetrating the water table with the potential for short and long half-life transuranic fissile products and a path of least resistance for any runaway conditions which is directly to an uncontained well head... with the extra bonus of installation proposed in 'spent' hydrocarbon bearing regions which implies reduced density substrates with all the tiny seismic outcomes and risks. perfectly safe /s

I greatly dislike this sort of "doesn't work perfectly everywhere by default therefore doesn't work" take. The steam engine didn't replace all the mules at once. It should be pretty trivial to pick and choose geologies and depth where it is safe. Maybe that's a lot of places. Maybe that's a few. But it should be trivial regardless.

> it should be trivial regardless.

So should nuclear fission reactors. The concept is absurdly simple.

In practice, however ...

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#116

Post by willis936 »

UltraSane wrote: post #102
willis936 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

100x one mile deep holes. It's in the deck you linked for a 1 GWe plant.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#117

Post by cyberax »

stavros wrote: post #55
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!?!?

[flagged]

With this proposal? There are very few things that will NOT go wrong.

I'm very pro-nuclear, but these kinds of projects are just scams.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#118

Post by westurner »

hangonhn wrote: post #30
westurner wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why mmwave instead of ultrasonic? FWIU 28 kHz shreds the quartzite in granite?

Isn't the idea here to gasify the rock by essentially microwaving it? With ultrasound, wouldn't you still need to remove the leftover rocks?

[Thermal fracturing or spallation, meant to displace or weaken the material for excavation] does gasify some of the water and minerals, but excavation is still necessary.

I started designing a combined unit for this (mmwave + ultrasound) with TLA+ and Rust, but don't have any use for drilling and tunneling myself.

I got into this because a bronze scepter of certain dimensions might carry a 28 khz resonance for ~30s, which - with nanodiamond drilling sand from e.g. pyrolyzed ash and sand - could explain the observed ancient copper core drilling speeds.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#119

Post by JumpCrisscross »

leonidasrup wrote: post #91
Asooka wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To do both, they’ll have to guarantee that that column of water stays isolated from groundwater for a long time after the fuel is used up. I wonder if just letting the water gradually dissolve the uranium might not be fine, actually. If it is done far from wells and rivers used for drinking water, then the small amount of radioactive minerals that slowly seep out might not pose a danger. I can't find any studies to…

Of the all the radioactive elements in a nuclear reactor, uranium is one of the least dangerous (is very weakly radioactive, but it's toxic, it's a heavy metal). It's all the radioactive fission products (many have short half-life and in process of decay produces lot of ionizing radiation) and trans-uranic elements (because they have very long half-life and produce a bit small bits of ionizing radiation for very long…

On the upside, the half life of those byproducts is measured in days to decades (15 years for Pu-241, 88 for Pu-238, 30 for Cs-137 and 139 days for Po-210).

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#120

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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.

You're describing everywhere with mines and a stable seismic environment. Arizona comes to mind.
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