/sci/ - Science & Math

1. Set up free market for electricity
2. Charge reasonable price for carbon pollution (e.g. $40 per 1000kg)
3. Allow people to buy from whoever is cheaper.

Why aren't we doing this?

>b-but.. muh fusion

>b-but muh moon bases.

Because of big oil.

And raccoon's.

>>5307791
Oh yeah, they just go to every investor in the world and bully them into not investing in other kinds of energy.

why wouldnt the steam cause backpressure in the water delivery pipe

You've got to dig down tens of miles to get geothermal heat in most parts of the world. It has a lot of potential in volcanically active regions like Iceland and Hawaii, but not everywhere.

Because there are some places on earth that are not igneous provinces, you icelander who always smells like rotten shark.

>>5307805

>Because drilling 10,000 meters in places like in the middle of the ocean is impossible.

>mfw

>>5307801

5km anwhere underground will be about 167 Celsius, which is sufficient enough for this Geo thermal. we currently can dig down to 10km.

Get on my level nigguuuaah.

Hey guys, OP here.

Let me just pour a tons of desalinated water into the ground in a developing nation, with all of its extensive infrastructural plumbing.

>>5307866

>USA

>developing nation

First of all, your steam cools as it travels upward. Then there are pressure issues. And building materials that can withstand a high temperature for long. And dealing with the temperature gradient and consequent electrical potential.

And finally, you just don't get a very efficient heat transfer. What good is limitless power if it costs you a million bucks to get 1000 W?

>>5307825
How much further do you suppose you'd have to drill before you reach somewhere sufficiently hot enough to generate commercial quantities of steam?

>>5307968
You forgot to mention that the materials need to be extremely corrosion-resistant to handle decades of use, driving up the costs.

Luckily for me, I live near the largest geothermal power plant complex on earth. I'm sure there are other places along the pacific rim that could exploit their vulcanism for energy.

Geo Thermal will pervail

Why don't you spend a few weeks meticulously studying the actual engineering and economic challenges of geothermal energy?

You're little better than those who "dream of fusion by using helium-3 as fuel, mined from the moon" if you don't.

Taking into account all of the various expenses of construction and maintenance, geothermal is already installed and operating everywhere in the US that it is economically viable. We don't go full geo for the same reason we don't go full hydro, there are only so many places you can dam up to generate hydroelectricity, and likewise there are only so many places with geothermal potential where the cost/benefit analysis works out in favor of doing so.

>>5307767

First, the really deep hole -- it isn't a trivial issue to locate an appropriate and tectonically inactive site, and also drill to the depth needed.

Second, I don't really understand why, but the system is supposed to be fairly complex to manage, in practice.

Third, it might be a little unwelcome today to dump steam into the atmosphere.

>>5308102
It woud most likely be a closed loop, i can't imagine pouring constant stream of water from somewhere down there.

Geothermal on a large scale will cause the inner crust to freeze at an increased rate. This has the potential to cause earthquakes from the material contracting as it cools.

>>5307796
one way valve

>>5308124

>>5308102
exactly with the correct liquid.. you can circulate it in a closed pipe / loop and only extract heat to a second loop which makes steam.. same as any other power plant like say coal for instance

problem isn't turbine
but magnet
electric is generated by variation in magnetic field

How do you create permanent magnet?
What if we run out of magnet? Then we don't have electric anymore.

From what I hear iceland gets most of its energy from Geothermal. If that can't be done in america can we simply build deeper holes?

Because this method is better.

>1. Dig really deep hole

>2. Use electricity generated from fossil fuel to pump water down in really deep hole

>3. Steam mixed with various gases (including greenhouse gases) in the earth return to the surface

>4. Steam turns turbine, other gases are expelled polluting the air

>5. Ground cools over time lowering productivity

>6. Sinkholes and minor earthquakes occur

Are you faggots want to kill the earth?

Medium size dykes are responsible of many earthquakes. Imagine doing this over the years... Killing the ozone seems more reasonable than killing the magnet layer that protect us from radiation.

>>5308197
what the fuck are you saying

>>5308212

Chubby lesbians.

>>5307825

>trying to recover steam from below the ocean, pumping it through thousands of meters of ice cold water
>yfw

>>5308161
So much stupidity and ignorance in such a short post.

From what I understand, this is most viable near volcanic regions, and areas closer to the fault lines.
But would there not stand to be a large scale of damage in place of earthquakes and such that occur frequently around these regions?

>>5307794
No they just bully the politicians into giving them tax breaks and subsidies, even though they're making record profits. The supply of oil has been built up massively but the price of gas remains high.

>>5307834

It doesn't matter what CAN be done, it only matters whats economically feasible.

The appearance of every piece of technology on the open market is restricted by cost, not existence.

>>5307767
TROLL PHYSICS :DDDD

heat travels really slowly in rocks. after a day it will absorb all the heat of the rock and start working at a really slow rate.
you need an underground hot water stream or magma channel ( won't it solidify after few days turning the hot part away from your hole? i don't know).

as a result few places are elegible for that so this count as a good limited renewable energy source. it's the same as the actual geotermic energy production, but it cost more because you have to dig deeper and provide water yourself, still profitable in some cases but it won't cover a significant % of energy production.

Holy shit this makes so much sense.

>tilting at windmills

you are going to cool the earth's core with that, and fuck up the magnetic field
everyone will die from gamma radiation

>>5309443
It...doesn't work that way. Good troll though. But seriously, do you people realize how immense the world is? We're not going to be making a dent with geothermal power plants just bleeding off some of the thermal energy from volcanic regions. There is a LOT of energy down there. You're not even going to change the average in a small area by even a degree.

The issues with it are just corrosion and how complicated it is to keep the system working long term. Sediment gets brought up with the steam because you're pumping it through fractures in the rock and that sediment destroys the pipes relatively fast making it a pain in the ass to maintain. Once we get it working with reasonable maintenance in the areas where the magma is higher up we can worry about the deeper areas but we have to solve the problems first before we tackle making it viable for everywhere.

TL;DR Be patient, we're fixing the problems and getting it to work.

>>5307773
oh god so much this. i love you, anon.

>>5309475
>Of course the planet is so big and there is so much we can't have an impact. ... It not like we could mine up enough subterranean carbon to mess with the composition of our atmosphere. Or produce so much light at night we can't see the most of the stars for some regions. Or a single well places nuke can make the magnetosphere wobble a bit. Or a single country can build a dam so large that the weight of the water moved depresses part of the tectonic shelf and changes the earths center of gravity and changing local gravity by 200×10^(-8)ms^(-2) messing with some delicate satellites. Or produce a compound in such amount that it erodes the ozone. Or many other things. ... Yes humanity can not affect this planet we live on at all it just to big and we are to small and weak. Good thing or else we could be able to mess up our environment to the point it hurts us. I am certain such Geo Thermal Energy will allow us to move massive amounts of energy with no effect to the system.

>Near Limitless energy source
Hah
You DO know it's only viable in certain geographic locations, right? And even if you COULD somehow harness ALL of Earth's geothermal power, it still wouldn't be enough to support humanity's growing demand for very long?

>>5308155
I'm all for this. :) Nuclear all the way.

>>5307777
>MFW he actually kinda sounds like that

>>5310941
The heat in Earth is still being replenished by decay of radionuclides. Also, there's a two magnitude difference between heat depletion and CO2 saturation.

the cost of this technology is extremely expensive. It's like solar power...
>why don't we built a solar cell on every roof in the world? Every house will be self-sustaining. FREE ENERGY

If you are going to drill a hole 5km deep then dump water down it to boil, why not dig a hole 5km deep and put a turbine at the bottom to extract power from 5km of water, boil off the water to let it return to the surface?

Because you can't boil enough water to be economical. You would need to dig down 5km then hollow out a massive area to dump your water into to increase the surface area, then have a insulated return pipe to release the steam.

And after a few years you lose most of your output because you have cooled the surrounding rocks off.

The only way it works is if you have a huge area of cracks that water seeps into that heat it over a large area. Which makes it limited to geography rather than anyone with a drill rig. Even then you don't get a huge amount of output.

The largest geothermal plant in the world is 303 MW and is in Iceland. The largest hydro dam 22,500 MW. Largest nuclear plant (with many reactors) is 8,212 MW.

>>5311009
it'd still be cheaper than the national debt

>>5311009
If they were a bit more efficient than plants then I'd see tons of commercial uses.

one question:

why don't use abdandoned mines?
the old house i bought uses a gravity heating system which means the heat source is at the lowest point in the building, water egts heated, rises, goes through the radiators, gets colder, sinks back to the heat source(loop).
so why not use old mines as heat source and put a bunch of stirling engines on top of it connected to some generators?

>>5310990
That's exactly what the difference I'm talking about it. The number is on a different scale entirely. For us to make the same kind of an impact that we have on our atmosphere we'd have to use energy at a much higher rate than we are currently. Albeit eventually we'll have to use more moderation with it to meet our needs but by that time we'll have moved offworld or developed a different, more efficient system.

>>5309475 Here

>>5307773
That's exactly what they did in Norway, now take a look at the prices. They are even higher than they were before and the distribution is worse. Basicly the companies signed an agreement and do no push downt he prices. I agree that we should have free market for most things, but some things like hospitals and medicine should be state-owned.

>>5311214
I have a better use of abandoned mines

http://www.pnwscuba.com/tripreports/bonneterremine.htm

>near limitless?

Actually it isn't. Good geothermal zones that make commercial sense to invest in are hard to come by.

Also their output declines significantly over time. A cursory glance at Wikipedia would give you this information. I'm not talking about solidifying the mantle, because we cannot drill anywhere near that deep. The localised hot zones we drill into and use cool very rapidly after only a decade of use.

This is part of the reason geothermal isn't used much.

>>5307866
who said you'll have to use desalinated water + you can use the then distilled water for watering

>>5307958
Don't take it personally but on some specific domains, USA really looks like an underdeveloped country.

Hey guise!
lets just put a geothermal power plant on top of a volcano! No need to drill! the heat is already at the surface! and because the earth is massive, the magma that flows out of the volcano will just be replaced by the earth anyway! infinate heat source for steam guise!

>>5307796
>>5308130
It would. The difference in work comes from the fact that the steam has more volume at that pressure coming out than the water going in.

Same goes for gas-phase engines, like the Brayton cycle.

>>5310941
Compare the size of the aptmosphere to the size of the inside of the earth and then repeat that post. There is not enough water on earth to make any noticeable difference to it.

>dream
I pity your incompetence.

>>5308197
> killing the magnet layer

Wait. What?

>>5312363
Don't you get a mad neutron flux in all proposed fusion reactors, that transmutes the reactor materials into radioactive isotopes, forcing you to replace the whole thing every couple of years? Doesn't sound very economically feasible...

Digging deep holes is a lot more difficult than you make it out to be, and some of those holes have to be quite deep for grid-level generation.

Tell me how fusion is better than thermal because you faggots who think water in the earths crust will cool down the earth are complete tards.

>in this thread
>how does a gravitational nuclear energy work?

>>5312594

>tfw Iceland have it easy

>dig a hole
>place building on hole
>something happens
>building collapses
>lose one zillion dollars

This is my guess as to why investors don't invest in big geothermal.

>>5312594
Speaking of digging deep holes... did anyone see Total Recall? They had an elevator going through the Earth. I cringed.

>>5312599
Its not the mantle that we'd cool.

The heat in the crust isn't replenished regularly. Geothermal plants decrease massively in output very quickly. You can cool down a hotspot in the crust around a bore hole very quickly (we're talking half a decade) - this is what makes geothermal an unviable commercial form of power generation.

It's also really expensive to dig holes.

>>5312789

He probably thinks we can dig down to the mantle to tap that heat. Because he's a mook.

but what happens when the water runs out?
can we make water with science?

>>5312807
After years and years of digging I think we got to the point deep enough that the drill bit kept melting so they abandoned drilling further.

>>5311294
Only econfag on sci here, you are wrong

>>5307767
>Near Limitless energy source

The "hot" rocks under a geothermal plant actually cool off, requiring the plant to shut down and either wait for them to heat back up, or relocate if they don't heat back up.

Also it doesn't work everywhere. You need to find a hotspot in the first place.

>>5312511

I assume he means that the water would cool down the crust and somehow disrupt the field.

>>5307991
vulcanism

>>5307773
>implying that neoliberalism works

>>5307767
Apparently the heat transfer rate of the rocks limits the holes ability to stay hot and efficiently heat the water. Also if you only care about geothermal being better than fusion you are wrong but for your comment on hellium-3 moon bases I can tell that you don't know very much about fusion so explaining why its amazing would take too long.

This book has a lot of good information on every energy source you might find a lot of relevant information it:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf

>>5313223


I really want to believe in Fusion and I still think it's the holy grail of energy production. But, I also think it's going to take time to get to that point. In the meantime I believe we need a technology bridge that will temporary indulge our power consumption needs until we get to the point of fusion, with out fucking up the earth beyond recognition with archaic fossil fuels. I'm okay with nuclear fission also, but, there will always be too much controversy about it because of greenies.

-OP

>>5313479
One of the coolest things about nuclear power is the fact that once you have enough neutrons floating around you could employ fission and fusion in the same reactor at the same time. A lot of people in the scientific/engineering community actually think that the technology bridge that you are talking about could be going from fission power to, hybrid fission fusion power, then to fusion power.

>>5307773
We have something like that here in Australia. Not entirely sure what the price is though.

I places like Iceland geothermal is viable because the mid atlantic ridge runs through the country and you have easy acces to geothermal springs. In other places you can't just simply drill a hole to the mantle.
There is a project that aims to drill to the mantle but even through thin crust, it will take like 15 years or something.

>>5308084
this

>hi retard here
so why we pour so much of preciouse water to get heat from unreliable source and so much piping and fucking bullshit maintence and stuffs

when
>solar panels

>>5312620
That whole movie was ridiculously bad

>>5314245
Wel the original isn't exactly a paragon of cinema.

The main reason it's remembered is due to the three breasted woman who's on screen for only three seconds!

>>5314713
It seems you haven't seen the version where Benny fondles her tits, which adds several seconds to the total, upping the bongo-index of the film high enough to make it a lot better than the remake.

Also, who the fuck makes a ballistic tram that is open to air??? Dat air pressure and resistance.

>>5314721
Well I must say I enjoyed the SFX of arnie's face exploding, though it seems fairly dubious that that would occur. I'm pretty sure that was total bullshit.

Also who makes a dome glass wall so weak a gun can blow it open. Why no bullet resistant glass?

>>5314721
>bongo-index

Ha!

On topic - why can't we develop beam power for space solar - that's the future.

They do use geothermal energy in Island.
Why do people think that if it isn't being done by the US then it isn't being done?