If you drill just a few miles into the crust of the earth...

The issue with current geothermal energy is that it relies on water to move turbines. To get water that hot you need to find places with a lot of groundwater and confining rockbed on top of the groundwater, so that in can circulate and get super heated.

So locations suitable for geothermal energy are about as rare as places with geysers.

Geothermal energy is very commonly used in place like Iceland but the way it is now it cannot just be setup everywhere. But there are small scale household geothermal systems, that I think can be used anywhere, but I don't know much about them.

Unless someone comes up with a way to use the temperature difference between the surface and sub-surface. One idea is a Stirling engine, but Stirling engines are difficult or some shit.

>water to move turbines

My friend had an idea to pile-drive an I-beam into the side of a magna chamber in the ocean (hawaii or some shit). the I-beam is made out of the same material as a magma probe so it doesn't get fucked. You put a dome over the ocean end (which is sticking out) in order to regulate the amount of water you throw on the hot nipple to prevent it from cooling the magna immidiately surrounding the other end too fast. Then you use the same dome to generate the steam power, which then harmlessly floats to the surface.

No sterling silver required.

When we suck out the heat of the Earth it will lose its I internal energy and stop spinning, therefore it'll stop orbiting the Sun and fall down the space

Before I started my degree I would have said your friend is an idiot and his idea is retarded.

Now that I have been exposed to a lot of seriously considered and proposed geoengineering ideas. I have realized there is nothing inherently wrong with middle-school tier ideas, as long as the are within the laws of physics.

My previous assumption of
>if it is such a good idea they would have done it already
is not valid. Such an assumption is actually counter-productive to the advancement of technology.

When I wrote 'water to move turbines', I skipped in a lot of steps in between. Just trying to be concise.

>My previous assumption of
>>if it is such a good idea they would have done it already
>is not valid.

Is my post not displaying?
Those were just two examples of dozens of hits.
The thread following it goes on like this is all a new concept.

Thank you for your response, glad to know that there are people out there who feel the fire.

So many x-planes and stuff were all based on semi-wacky ideas that may have seemed impractical at first. Now, ideas must always be practical and WILL always produce unforeseen hurdles but that doesn't mean that reasonable things shouldn't be tried or considered.

>few miles
You mean ~3900 miles or 6,371 k to be precise
The furthest we have drilled is 12 or 17 or something like that.

Solar energy is dirt cheap right now just have to find an inexpensive way to store/move it

Geologist here
>It's not THAT high
Yeah, compared to what?

This sadly.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chikyū
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kola_Superdeep_Borehole

We'll get there someday. Someday.

Can you PROVE that you get high temperatures? Can you show me actual PROOF and not just CONJECTURE?

We've found the newcomer to the topic.
Hasn't read a thing on it yet.

Sweden is on 100% renewable energy today. Yes, it's a small country, but it at least shows that it's doable.

Because there's actually not very much energy you can get in that manner. There's only so much output and it is only viable where you can harness it nearly directly on the surface. Even then it is still very limited. In a year, there's actually less energy being released globally than the amount of energy humans use.

the reason why we haven't drilled through the earth was because of the fucking temperature. If the earth didn't have an insane temperature capable of melting all our drills/drillbits, we would've fucked the earth looking for oil and any potential discoveries

if I'm not mistaken Iceland is big on geothermal, but they sort of do their own thing. also, it helps it's a highly volcanic island where the crust isn't too thick in a lot of spots.

still, even if it doesn't meet 100% of human consumption demands, why not max out the capacity

soon, maybe a few decades before nano-material and solid diamond bits several km (segmented) long can be produced, expensive, sure, but, there would be industrial applications and thus investors in these technologies.

youtube.com/watch?v=JhXl8rrVzTU

Deep holes are expensive to build. Several miles down is incredibly expensive and hard.

Rock is a poor heat conductor. As you tap the heat of the rock and surrounding rock, the rock cools, and it takes a long-ass time to heat back up, because rock is a poor heat conductor.

The net result is that it's currently a shitty idea, AFAIK.

To fully understand, be sure to read this:
bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/

In other words, if the energy output does not drastically exceed the energy costs to build, maintain, and operate, then you're wasting your time, and it cannot power an industrial society.

Citation please. My initial googling says otherwise.

Clarification: Except in certain areas, like Greenland, precisely because local conditions are different, and you don't need to drill these super deep holes that are mentioned in the OP.

>bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/
The numbers that's based on are complete garbage - they were considered pessimistic ten years ago.

I ran the numbers a little less than a few months ago. The argument still holds. Currently, the solar panels / wind mills could be practically free to manufacture, but the energy storage costs will still kill you. Energy storage is not advancing as fast as solar and wind. Energy storage is more or less plateau'd on the EROEI measure.

Because the earth is hollow thats why.

right, and the borehole can collapse because that rock will become brittle and the surrounding heat and pressure on it will fuck it up.

solar panels... idk, rare earth minerals aren't exactly environmentally safe to source and can be expensive, best to save them for enegy capture. unless you scrap photo-voltaic and go full light energy in mirror parabolas heating tubes of compressed thermal conductive fluid in the deserts.

>solar panels... idk, rare earth minerals aren't exactly environmentally safe to source and can be expensive,
Solar panels aren't made from rare-earth metals.

Some are made from relatively rare metals. The ones that are often cited - unfairly - in money cost and energy cost comparisons.

I need something to compare this to in order for me to grasp how impressive it is.

Knowing literally nothing at all isn't a platform from which to question the correctness of people who do. Start with a bit of humility.

If you drill far enough, you reach a point where the drill can't withstand the hear and it starts to melt. Even if the drill were to not melt, the semi molten rick would just refill in the hole. It would be like trying to drill into wet cement.

The problem is that the flux of energy from the earth's center is only about 0.1 watts/m^s. Versus 100X that from solar.

The implication is that if you take much heat out, the temperature gradient flattens and it takes a long time to recover.

So in effect you have to keep digging. which burns a lot of energy.

> Versus 100X that from solar.

Correction 100 w/m^2 = 1000X more.

Someone were to jump into the Kola Superdeep Borehole, how long would it take them to reach the bottom? Also, would the pressure, if there's any, or impact kill them first?

>just a few miles into the crust
>no big deal guys

you dip. drillbits get worn out from the friction of drilling, not from the heat of the earth.