Geothermal Energy News and Discussions

[wjfox]

Geothermal energy has traditionally been a rather niche power source, but recent advances in drilling technology and heat extraction methods have the potential to make it more mainstream.

See for example this blog from 2022:

https://futuretimeline.net/blog/2022/02 ... nology.htm






Geothermal has a major advantage over solar and wind, in that it can provide 24/7 baseload power, regardless of weather or time of day. And like those other renewable types, there are massive untapped reserves waiting to be exploited - enough to meet all of our electricity demand.

At present, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that with current technologies, geothermal power could meet approximately 3.5% of global electricity demand by 2050. But with advancements in technologies, such as Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), this potential could substantially increase.

Here's one promising development, announced today...

[caltrek]

Thermal Energy Networks: An Emerging Green Technology that Could Decarbonize Buildings and Provide Good Union Jobs
by Sarah Van Horn
January 9, 2024

Introduction:

(In These Times) In early 2021, an award-winning design for a “thermal energy network” caught the eye of John Murphy. The design was part of a proposal to decarbonize Empire Plaza in Albany, N.Y., and it featured a series of underground water pipes that balanced the heating and cooling systems of adjacent buildings.

As the International Representative of the New York State Pipe Trades Association, which represents around 25,000 workers across New York State, Murphy had been searching for an renewable energy solution for his members. In his seven years in the position, he has seen how some of the state’s current approaches to the clean energy transition — namely closing power plants without providing alternate jobs — have often left his members unemployed. Without work, they have typically been forced to travel out-of-state to find a job “just to continue their medical coverage, feed their families, and maintain a pension credit,” according to Murphy.

Further extract:

Thermal energy networks, also known as networked geothermal, provide a way to scale up the energy transition. The networks are a series of water pipes that rely initially on heat collected from narrow shafts known as boreholes dug hundreds of feet into the ground, where the ambient temperature remains a relatively stable 55 degrees. Their innovation, however, lies in the way they link together the heating and cooling systems of nearby buildings — forgoing the need to dig a borehole for every building and, crucially, providing the opportunity to transition multiple buildings at once.

“Thermal energy networks give us the chance to not just look house-by-house but block-by-block and neighborhood-by-neighborhood,” explained Allison Considine, senior manager at Building Decarbonization Coalition. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, “Thermal energy storage (TES) is a critical enabler for the large-scale deployment of renewable energy and transition to a decarbonized building stock and energy system by 2050.”

Read more here: https://inthesetimes.com/article/therm ... new-york

[weatheriscool]

Advanced geothermal drilling is 70% faster and 50% cheaper than 2022
By Michael Franco
February 14, 2024

Geothermal development company Fervo Energy has announced impressive strides being made at its Cape Station facility in southern Utah. The results could lead to a quicker and more widespread uptake of this super-clean energy production process.

In a publication announced at the Stanford Geothermal Workshop this week, Fervo said it has been able to drill a horizontal well in just 21 days. That's a 70% reduction in drilling time over its first horizontal well, which was drilled in Nevada in 2022 as part of a Google-backed effort known as Project Red. The company says this reduction in time has led to an additional reduction of costs, with the latest well coming in at US$4.8 million, down from $9.4 million.

The new record is one in a series of strides Fervo is making to produce affordable, usable, clean power through a process using an enhanced geothermal system (EGS). Last year, Project Red passed its 30-day well test and was able to produce 3.4 megawatts (MW) of power, roughly the energy used by 500 US households. In November, Google announced that the plant was fully operational and connected to the same grid in Nevada to which some of Google's data centers are linked.

Fervo is now developing an even larger project in Utah that aims to come online in 2026, and reach its full capacity for pumping out 400 MW of non-stop power in 2028. The wells it is drilling there are even hotter and over 2,100 feet (640 meters) deeper than those from Project Red, so the faster drilling time is even more impressive.

https://newatlas.com/energy/geothermal- ... eed-boost/

[caltrek]

International, Multidisciplinary Collaborations Key to Bringing Superhot, Clean Geothermal Energy to the World
March 25, 2024

Introduction:

(Eurekalert) CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Tapping into the heat below our feet as a form of renewable, clean energy has been attracting greater attention as the world moves toward alternatives to fossil fuels in the battle against climate change. A 58-page report released March 18 by the U.S. Department of Energy focuses on “the potential of next-generation geothermal power to transform the U.S. energy landscape.”

But there’s work to be done.

In a paper* presented last month at Stanford University, a geothermal scientist with 16 years in the field described the gaps in research and development that must be tackled before the resource can potentially power the planet. That said, “the tools to solve the scientific and engineering challenges are available. It’s a matter of international and multidisciplinary collaboration, system integration, and demonstration projects,” said Trenton T. Cladouhos.

Cladouhos, who recently joined Quaise Energy as Vice President of Geothermal Resource Development, coauthored the paper with Owen A. Callahan of En Échelon Geosolutions. The work was presented at the 49th Stanford Geothermal Workshop, an annual gathering of geothermal experts from across the globe, which Cladouhos said was “the biggest ever.”

He continued, “the industry is busy unlocking geothermal’s potential at all temperatures and places. It’s never been a better time to be in the geothermal industry.”

Read more of the Eurekalert article here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1039007

*To read the referenced paper: https://pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/db/Geo ... douhos.pdf

[weatheriscool]

World's biggest geothermal power purchase agreement now in the bag
By Michael Franco
July 04, 2024
https://newatlas.com/energy/fervo-geoth ... agreement/

Just a year ago, Fervo Energy successfully demonstrated the effectiveness of its horizontally oriented geothermal system. Now the company has landed a massive contract for providing its clean, virtually endless power to the California grid.

It's only been one year since Fervo Energy unveiled a novel concept in geothermal energy harvesting at its Project Red pilot plant in Nevada. Instead of drilling vertical bores that deliver water into the hot rocks lying beneath the Earth's surface, it used techniques from the oil and gas industry to break up rocks, drive water through them horizontally, and collect the resultant steam to drive turbines at the surface.

The company said that its new method was set to change the geothermal landscape because it could work in many locales – not just those where hot rocks are close to the surface like in Iceland and New Zealand. And a new contract proves that it was right.

[weatheriscool]

Supercritical geothermal power: Limitless promise or impossible dream?
By David Szondy
August 06, 2024

https://newatlas.com/energy/supercritic ... mal-power/

Supercritical geothermal power holds the promise of meeting humanity's energy needs for millions of years, but how practical is it? A new analysis by Karthik Subramanian of Lux Research suggests that it may lie somewhere between improbable and impossible.

At first glance, geothermal power seems like a brilliant energy source. It's clean, there's enough heat in the Earth to power civilization for any foreseeable future, and all you have to do is drill down to tap it.

[firestar464]

Geothermal power is vying to be a major player in the world’s clean-energy future

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03621-w

[weatheriscool]

[wjfox]

[wjfox]

This robot worm digs for geothermal energy in your backyard

January 17, 2025 - 11:19 am

Four billion years ago, Earth was a fiery, tumultuous world of molten rock, volcanic eruptions, and toxic skies, with searing heat and the constant threat of asteroid impacts.

Thankfully, our planet has cooled off a bit since then. Nevertheless, the Earth still radiates vast amounts of geothermal energy. It’s a clean, limitless, always-on power source lying beneath our feet — we just have to dig for it. Or get robots to do the hard work for us.

Borobotics, a startup from Switzerland, has developed an autonomous drilling machine — dubbed the “world’s most powerful worm” — that promises to make harnessing geothermal heat cheaper and more accessible for everyone.

“Drilling will become possible on properties where it would be unthinkable today — small gardens, parking lots, and potentially even basements,” Moritz Pill, Borobotics’ co-founder, tells TNW.

At just 13.5 cm wide and 2.8 metres long, the compact boring robot can silently burrow just about anywhere. It could make geothermal a viable backyard energy source.

https://thenextweb.com/news/borobotics- ... gy-startup



A 3D render of Borobotics’ geothermal drilling rig. Credit: Borobotics

[wjfox]

Earth's heat to power 10,000 homes in renewable energy first for UK

5 hours ago

The UK's first geothermal power plant is set to go live, providing a completely new type of renewable electricity using hot water from underground.

On Thursday morning, the Cornish plant will be switched on after nearly two decades in development which required Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL) to drill the deepest on-shore well in the UK.

The water, super-heated by rocks, will help drive turbines to generate electricity for 10,000 homes, but will also provide the UK's first domestic supply of lithium - a critical mineral used in green technology.

The British Geological Survey said it was a "major step forward" for geothermal but high drilling costs could make replicating the project difficult.

[...]

The site will only produce 100 tonnes of lithium - enough for batteries in 1,400 EVs annually - but GEL said it plans to scale this to 18,000 tonnes annually.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cewzg77k721o

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[weatheriscool]