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America's Geothermal Breakthrough

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Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#51

Post by mschuster91 »

gambiting wrote: post #27
quickthrowman wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

District heating and chilled water is uneconomical for single-family homes. It does work well in medium to high density areas.

I don't know how economical that is, but just as an anecdote - the town I'm from in Poland has district heating to all single family homes, town of about 20k people. And coincidentally, I now live in the UK and a new estate near me has district heating to all the houses they are building, not apartment blocks. So it must make some sense to someone, or they wouldn't be outfitting 100+ houses this way.

At least in parts of Eastern Europe (especially the former GDR) district heating systems were introduced as a response to the oil crises of the 70s, resulting price shocks and the transport of coal to households being very labor and resource incentive [1].

[1] https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/schauplaetze/Windkraft-und-Erd...

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#52

Post by hunterpayne »

readthenotes1 wrote: post #6
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #2

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…

Isn't that similar to how neighborhood heat pumps work? https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-effic...

Heat pumps require a specific temperate differential to work. So they work in zones with are a bit hotter or colder than you would like and so require moderate amounts of heating or cooling. They don't work in temperate zones nor in very hot or cold places. So Santa Fe or Minneapolis for example they work but Mexico City or San Francisco they don't. If you are in a place where they work and that isn't too dense or has earthquakes, go for it. If not, don't. There are businesses that will help you understand when they do and don't make sense. Those businesses don't sell heat pumps though (the businesses that sell things will almost always tell you it works, even when it doesn't, for example PV in the UK doesn't work).

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#53

Post by nusl »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #48
pedalpete wrote: post #47

According to google, this would be almost 30% of total US energy production (135gw-150gw) and nearly 5% of total US energy consumption. But what is the "breakthrough" if there is one? The article doesn't really suggest any breakthrough that is unlocking this potential energy? Or maybe I'm looking for a technological breakthrough where there isn't one.

4th paragraph of TFA: > Several companies are now building upon existing techniques for accessing geothermal resources by integrating enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) into operations. While conventional geothermal systems produce energy using hot water or steam, pumped from naturally occurring hydrothermal reservoirs trapped in rock formations underground, EGS use innovative drilling technologies, such as those used…

So it basically says nothing useful other than try to generate hype and make them look good.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#54

Post by tzs »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #23
burkaman wrote: post #22

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?

The incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act greatly increased US domestic battery production capacity. It went from 7 GWh per year in 2023 to 70 GWh per year in early 2026 and is expected to reach 1400 GWh per year by the end of the decade.

Domestic solar cell manufacturing was also growing rapidly, although I believe that may have slowed due to Trump.

I don't know about wind turbine production because I can't convince the !@#$%&?ing search engine to tell me about manufacturing rather than installation.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#55

Post by hunterpayne »

pedalpete wrote: post #47

According to google, this would be almost 30% of total US energy production (135gw-150gw) and nearly 5% of total US energy consumption. But what is the "breakthrough" if there is one? The article doesn't really suggest any breakthrough that is unlocking this potential energy? Or maybe I'm looking for a technological breakthrough where there isn't one.

There isn't one. They are trying to politically pressure a utility to build some geothermal plant. But utilities have engineers who will tell their bosses that this plan doesn't work. So the companies selling the geothermal plant are trying to politically pressure the utility to do yet another thing that they know won't work. PG&E for example has several geothermal plants which have been economic disasters and were and are being shutdown.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#57

Post by triceratops »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #21
ryandrake wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Pretty sure they’re interested in collapsing the cost of domestic energy production in a way that’s resilient to adversarial supply chain risk since energy production is the base of the economic pyramid - energy availability is upstream of nearly all economic output.

Saying solar power is dependent on China because panels come from China is like saying fracking is dependent on China because some pumps and drilling equipment come from China.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#58

Post by triceratops »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #23
burkaman wrote: post #22

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?

I thought a lot of manufactured goods come from China. Including many of the tools and equipment for drilling oil. Is oil not a secure energy supply either then?

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#59

Post by triceratops »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #26
burkaman wrote: post #24

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.

Did Saudi Arabia wait until it could manufacture oil drills before it started exploiting its oil?

Solar panels are oil drills. The oil is in the sky. If your supplier stops selling you oil drills you have several years to find another supplier or start building your own.

Re: America's Geothermal Breakthrough

#60

Post by triceratops »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #31
r3trohack3r wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More like 25 years.
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