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America's Geothermal Breakthrough

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Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have spent immense effort blocking huge amounts of domestic solar and wind production, even paying off developers to simply not build planned power plants.

Didn’t know there were significant domestic supply chains for wind, solar, and battery tech. Thought a lions share of that was ultimately coming from China. Have any sources I can learn from?

If you install solar panels, you have 10 years or more of lifetime to develop your domestic supply chain for replacements. This doesn't sound like a problem.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't, and there certainly won't be if we keep blocking the industry at every turn. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point but I don't see how this is relevant. Blocking a developer that wants to buy wind turbines from another country and install them in the US does not make domestic energy cheaper or make domestic supply chains more resilient. It's a one-time import, once it's installed the wind is domestic an…

Seems fairly measured to say that it’s not in the interest of the U.S. to build its economic foundation (energy production) on top of a technology it’s incapable of producing without the assistance of a country that’s been fairly open about its plans to take kinetic action against the US sometime in the next 48 months. Help me understand.

So if something goes wrong between the US and China, the US has 10 years to develop it's own supply. It's not like existing panels and batteries are going to suddenly stop working.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#34

I worked on geothermal control systems a decade or so back. There are some less obvious applications for geothermal that reduce electric use (as opposed to generating electricity). The systems I worked on were for cooling larger structures like commercial greenhouses, gov installations and mansions. 64° degree water would be pumped up from 400' down, run thru a series of chillers (for a/c) and then returned undergrou…

Framingham, MA has a geothermal system using ground source heat pumps like what you are describing

https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geother...

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#36
post #11

[flagged]

Yes. North America.

United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (formerly NAFTA)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E...

https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-i...

https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-st...

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems fairly measured to say that it’s not in the interest of the U.S. to build its economic foundation (energy production) on top of a technology it’s incapable of producing without the assistance of a country that’s been fairly open about its plans to take kinetic action against the US sometime in the next 48 months. Help me understand.

So if something goes wrong between the US and China, the US has 10 years to develop it's own supply. It's not like existing panels and batteries are going to suddenly stop working.

Fair point. But, simultaneously:

* I’m skeptical of the U.S. being able to develop domestic supply chains for this under current conditions

* “Kinetic action” does imply large swaths of U.S. infrastructure will in fact “suddenly stop working” and need to be rebuilt to maintain capacity

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There aren't, and there certainly won't be if we keep blocking the industry at every turn. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point but I don't see how this is relevant. Blocking a developer that wants to buy wind turbines from another country and install them in the US does not make domestic energy cheaper or make domestic supply chains more resilient. It's a one-time import, once it's installed the wind is domestic an…

Seems fairly measured to say that it’s not in the interest of the U.S. to build its economic foundation (energy production) on top of a technology it’s incapable of producing without the assistance of a country that’s been fairly open about its plans to take kinetic action against the US sometime in the next 48 months. Help me understand.

Really a couple of key points. The first is that the US isn't "incapable" of producing renewable energy infrastructure, we've just largely chosen not to for various reasons and are certainly capable of doing so if there was a good reason to.

But the second and more important point is that relying on another country to produce renewable energy technology is not analogous to relying on another country to supply your actual energy. If I bought solar panels from China and tomorrow a US-China war started, my solar panels keep producing energy just fine. I might have imported the panels from China, but that's not where the actual energy is coming from. Sure, eventually I'll need to replace them, but that's not for decades. Assuming a conflict with China lasts long enough to prevent me from ever buying Chinese solar panels again, that's plenty of time to develop US capacity to produce them. And in the meantime, my solar panels keep importing energy from the Sun, which I'm told is very hard to blockade, embargo, or tariff.

Renewable energy tech actually has another major advantage over fossil fuels in a conflict situation. As the current Middle Eastern unpleasantness has demonstrated, fossil fuels are a global commodity and their price everywhere is impacted by restriction on their trade anywhere. Sufficient domestic production of fossil fuels may prevent a country from literally running out in a war, but that's unlikely to actually keep the country's economy healthy. China obviously isn't sitting on top of a fossil fuel producing region the way Iran is, but it seems pretty obvious a US-China war will dramatically impact fossil fuel energy prices given that blockading fossil fuel trade will be an obvious weapon in such a conflict.

When it comes to the impact conflicts have on the price of your energy, you might be better off relying on your Chinese solar panels than American oil. Especially if you can replace them with American solar panels when the time comes. China clearly understands the strategic value of renewable energy, which is why they've invested so much in becoming the major source of that technology.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#39
post #9

I worked on geothermal control systems a decade or so back. There are some less obvious applications for geothermal that reduce electric use (as opposed to generating electricity). The systems I worked on were for cooling larger structures like commercial greenhouses, gov installations and mansions. 64° degree water would be pumped up from 400' down, run thru a series of chillers (for a/c) and then returned undergrou…

Shallow geothermal works fine for heating. And you can use the ground as a heat sink. But if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells. Fervo Energy claims to have found 270C at 3350 meters well depth. That's progress.

I think this looks interesting, but still very early stage. The “150 GW revolution” sounds more like theoretical potential, not something we will see soon in real deployment.

Main problems: drilling is still expensive, managing induced seismic activity is not trivial, permitting can take long time, and you also need transmission infrastructure. Also not yet proven that companies like Fervo can scale this in reliable and low-cost way.

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