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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

#41

Post by simonebrunozzi »

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.

Quite the opposite. They use proven reactor tech, and they are now going straight to commercial, vs other startups that need to go supercritical first.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#42

Post by roarcher »

NonHyloMorph wrote: post #36

Might want to do yourself a favor and figure out the implied question behind 400(?) It's... not a lot of work. At least for me personally it rubs me the wrong way to name an important metric in Fahrenheit and then to give an estimate with a question mark for the proper SI unit.

Looks to me like the author wrote themselves an inline note and forgot to remove it before publishing.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#43

Post by Animats »

That's impressive.

But why are there no near-term products? If you can cut through granite and such this way, it ought to be useful for other cutting jobs. There should be useful tools, such as small units for drilling pipe holes through concrete and rock. Going for a 10km hole as the initial product raises the suspicion that the real product is the stock.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#44

Post by throawayonthe »

noja wrote: post #35
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…

What are the side-effects of regularly detonating nuclear bombs at that depth?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_nuclear_weapons_te...

seems it usually happened at lesser depths, and for ones deep enough to contain debris, the main effects were geological, from the actual explosion? not what i expected tbh

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#45

Post by swiftcoder »

Animats wrote: post #43

That's impressive. But why are there no near-term products? If you can cut through granite and such this way, it ought to be useful for other cutting jobs. There should be useful tools, such as small units for drilling pipe holes through concrete and rock. Going for a 10km hole as the initial product raises the suspicion that the real product is the stock.

> There should be useful tools, such as small units for drilling pipe holes through concrete and rock.

We already have cheap and effective mechanical drills capable of these tasks, and it's unlikely a brand new technology can compete with those on cost.

Unlike in the actual design niche, where mechanical tools are infeasible due to the temperatures involved.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#46

Post by moebrowne »

roarcher wrote: post #42
NonHyloMorph wrote: post #36

Might want to do yourself a favor and figure out the implied question behind 400(?) It's... not a lot of work. At least for me personally it rubs me the wrong way to name an important metric in Fahrenheit and then to give an estimate with a question mark for the proper SI unit.

Looks to me like the author wrote themselves an inline note and forgot to remove it before publishing.

I'd assumed that the question mark was supposed to be a degrees (°) symbol but got mangled somehow. 752F is exactly 400C

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#47

Post by rcxdude »

cyberax wrote: post #39
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…

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…

Would the fuel efficiency be sufficiently bad to make the fuel costs relevant to the cost of running the plant, though?

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#48

Post by rcxdude »

noja wrote: post #35
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…

What are the side-effects of regularly detonating nuclear bombs at that depth?

I'm not sure how this question would be relevant. Nuclear bombs are impractical for power generation and a nuclear reactor is not ever going to turn into a nuclear bomb.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#49

Post by rcxdude »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #41
rgmerk wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare to get approvals for.

Quite the opposite. They use proven reactor tech, and they are now going straight to commercial, vs other startups that need to go supercritical first.

I'm not sure that makes the approvals that much cheaper and easier. As I understand it, the slight differences between existing nuclear power plants that are for the most part the same design is already one of the reasons why they are so expensive to build.

Re: Millimeter wave technology drills 100 meters into granite

#50

Post by rcxdude »

tekacs wrote: post #17
audunw wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely an economic changeover point, I’m sure I read they will use conventional drilling down to a certain depth, before switching to MMW I doubt argon is the purge gas.

Yeah, they say in their launch video for Project Obsidian ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmrna_r_b3A ) that they'll drill the first 3km using conventional rotary drilling and mmWave beyond that. I'd be curious if anyone (perhaps the parent) knows why – my assumption is that it's more expensive and/or not as reliable to drill higher up with mmWave, not least because the ground might be uneven materials, etc., and t…

That's pretty much it. They're not going to beat conventional drilling on price at lower depths, so why bother with it?
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