You can have geothermal power everywhere if you drill deep enough

Post by kragen » Wed, Mar 02, 2022, 6:24 AM UTC

jholman wrote: post #310

kragen wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm surprised the difference in specific heat is so large! Maybe that's fairly humid wood? Because glucose is about 220 J/mol/K https://webbook.nist.gov/cgi/cbook.cgi?ID=C492626&Mask=2#The... and 180.2 g/mol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glucose , working out to 1.2 J/g/K, and aluminum is 24.2 J/mol/K and 27.0 g/mol, giving 0.90 J/g/K. My general rule is that everything is 1 J/g/K except water, which is 4.2.…

Reading your first paragraph, I was thinking "water. the answer is always water", when it comes to estimating the properties of life-stuff vs everything-else-stuff within a factor of 2. Not obviously, of course, but it's just such a powerful heuristic. Reading your second paragraph, I see you're familiar with the principle, and added a good heuristic to my stockpile, thank you.

Post by CRConrad » Mon, Mar 07, 2022, 10:51 AM UTC

kragen wrote: post #192

raducu wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if we get to temperatures that destory metals, isn't it enough? Why don't we drill to whatever is the termal limit, make a big cavity there, install radiators there and just heat the watter to that temperature and take it out to surface where we can heat homes. I know this is done in Bucharest for a water park (to much lesser depths because apparently we have hot springs near Bucharest). Do we need to reach magma…

This is about running your air conditioner, charging your Tesla, and molding your kitchen sink, not heating homes. Think Carnot efficiency, power density, supercritical steam, and shutting down gas pipelines. And the temperature to destroy steel under the immense mechanical stress of a drill string is surprisingly modest. Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams, but softening them is enough.