Climate in the 21st Century

cannabineer said:

to the bolded: you said they had experimental results …

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DIY-HP-LED said:

They do, but not of a significant enough depth, it was proof of concept with low power devices. The larger experiment is or has been set up and equipment ordered for field tests, so it is a bit more than a pipe dream. We all await the results which will come a Helluva lot faster than fusion! those results are 2 years out and the pilot plant, if the experiments work out, five years down the road, they ordered a one-megawatt gyrotron, so they plan on blasting a hole through something! These people are scientists and engineers after all and most probably figure it has a good shot at working. We are not hearing much because they are not out selling and raising money but working the problem, they appear to have plenty of long-term investors already.

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cannabineer said:

“2 years out” is a dangerous phrase.

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DIY-HP-LED said:

They are on the bleeding edge and an endeavor like this takes time, nothing compared to fusion and other things. It does look like a methodical approach though and is backed by tests and theory as all such things should be. It will take less time to prove this than to build a chip fab, or perhaps even a battery plant. The energy is just 20 km away FFS and right under our feet and any way of getting at it is worth a look, if it does work out, oil companies will be on it like stink on shit with massive capital, so deployment might be quick. Countries like Germany with few energy resources would go nuts over something like this.

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cannabineer said:

“2 years out” is a dangerous phrase.

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Grandpapy said:

Dropping the core temp of the Earth, what could go wrong?

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What Keeps the Earth Cooking? - Berkeley Lab

From the planet’s core to its surface, heat enables Earth’s magnetic field, spreads the sea floor, and keeps continents on the move. Much of the heat is “radiogenic,” from the radioactive decay of elements in the crust and mantle, but how much? By measuring neutrinos from deep in the Earth...

newscenter.lbl.gov

Sativied said:

First article is 6 months old news but significant:

France announces massive €100 billion rail investment programme

Announcing the plan on Friday, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne stressed that rail must be the “backbone” of the government’s transport policy.

www.brusselstimes.com

I too heard of stories from uncles and grandparents about traveling across Europe and further, by night train even. Imagine that, the ability to sleep in a train and wake… miss everything along the way. Only thing I can compare based on experience is europe vs australia and the main difference then is the price of a ticket. Sure we got some high speed trains, very popular, but either book months in advanced or pay stupid high rates (very roughly a 1$ per mile). On a national level it differs a lot, but the combination of effective and affordable is rare. The investment in France is just an example and even if half the plans become reality it’s going to change Europe a lot.

I can fly to a spanish costa and back (~1000miles) for barely more than the cost of a train ticket that gets me to Amsterdam airport less than 80miles away… Train ticket Amsterdam - Vienna on a short notice costs about the same as flying from Amsterdam to the Big Apple… sumthin aint right.

Flying in Europe half as expensive as rail, report finds:


In regards to the last line:
”It also calls for European governments to introduce climate tickets - simple long-term tickets that are valid on all means of public transport in a country or region.”

Austria offers such a klimaticket, roughly 1200usd per year, unless you get a tattoo:

https://edition.cnn.com/travel/travel-news-austria-klimaticket-tattoo/index.html

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Fogdog said:

The earth's core is heated by a nuclear reaction. It's large. I mean really, really big. The core continually releases about 44 terawatts into space. We are safe taking a little of that to power our computers so that you and I can talk online.

What Keeps the Earth Cooking? - Berkeley Lab

From the planet’s core to its surface, heat enables Earth’s magnetic field, spreads the sea floor, and keeps continents on the move. Much of the heat is “radiogenic,” from the radioactive decay of elements in the crust and mantle, but how much? By measuring neutrinos from deep in the Earth...

newscenter.lbl.gov

What Keeps the Earth Cooking?
By Paul Preuss
July 17, 2011

What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth’s magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth’s interior into space. Where does it come from?

Radioactive decay of uranium, thorium, and potassium in Earth’s crust and mantle is a principal source,

So, let me see if I get the arithmetic right:

44 terawatts for 24 hours is 44 x 24 = 1,056 terawatt hours

The global primary energy consumption is estimated to be: 160,000 terawatt hours. So, maybe if we somehow managed to extract all of our energy needs from the geothermal we could begin to cool the earth's crust but we couldn't cool the core because it's generating the energy, not transmitting it.

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Dr.Amber Trichome said:

I see. It’s kinda strange that in my own country a Yankee is calling me a Yankee. It’s funny, because if some of these southerners went to your country they would be called a Yankee. I wonder how that would sit with them. Lol. I can just hear it now, “ I ain’t no Yankee, baby doll.”
Since being here I have been called some odd things like baby doll and little girl. Lol. These are some of the goofiest people I have ever met.

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cannabineer said:

Paul Preuss wrote some fun science fiction with a distinct engineer flavor.

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Fogdog said:

I included his name as a disclaimer. I didn't read the book but the movie made me skeptical of anything Preuss wrote. The article itself seemed to be well researched but the movie The Core was hard for me to suspend disbelief. Maybe he was trying too hard to make the science seem reasonable. Like when somebody starts his sentence with "Believe me..."

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Fogdog said:

I included his name as a disclaimer. I didn't read the book but the movie made me skeptical of anything Preuss wrote. The article itself seemed to be well researched but the movie The Core was hard for me to suspend disbelief. Maybe he was trying too hard to make the science seem reasonable. Like when somebody starts his sentence with "Believe me..."

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DIY-HP-LED said:

They do, but not of a significant enough depth, it was proof of concept with low power devices. The larger experiment is or has been set up and equipment ordered for field tests, so it is a bit more than a pipe dream. We all await the results which will come a Helluva lot faster than fusion! those results are 2 years out and the pilot plant, if the experiments work out, five years down the road, they ordered a one-megawatt gyrotron, so they plan on blasting a hole through something! These people are scientists and engineers after all and most probably figure it has a good shot at working. We are not hearing much because they are not out selling and raising money but working the problem, they appear to have plenty of long-term investors already.

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Lucky Luke said:

To be fair I'm sure most Americans would just get Yank or Seppo.

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Fogdog said:

Regarding gyro drilling in a pilot plant within two years: Skeptical. Not disbelieving. Just skeptical. Very skeptical. So skeptical it might seem like disbelief.

The two demonstration wells underway that were described in the NYT article are way beyond lab phase and approaching a pilot plant:

Three miles east, two teams are trying to tap that hot granite. One is Utah FORGE, a $220 million research effort funded by the Energy Department. The other is Fervo, a Houston-based start-up.

Both use similar methods: First, drill two wells shaped like giant L’s, extending thousands of feet down into hot granite before curving and extending thousands of feet horizontally. Then, use fracking, which involves controlled explosives and high-pressure fluids, to create a series of cracks between the two wells. Finally, inject water into one well, where it will hopefully migrate through the cracks, heat up past 300 degrees Fahrenheit and come out the other well.

This is “enhanced geothermal,” and people have struggled with the engineering difficulties since the 1970s.

But in July, FORGE announced it had successfully sent water between two wells. Two weeks later, Fervo announced its own breakthrough: A 30-day test in Nevada found the process could produce enough heat for electricity. Fervo is now drilling wells for its first 400-megawatt commercial power plant in Utah, next to the FORGE site.

“Those are major accomplishments, in a time frame faster than we expected,” said Lauren Boyd, head of the Energy Department’s Geothermal Technologies Office, which estimates that geothermal could supply 12 percent of America’s electricity by 2050 if technology improves.

The above is what it's really like when a project makes it out of the lab and into the field. These guys are struggling to make it work at scale. It sounds like people have been struggling for fifty years and only now has the technology begun to catch up with the concept.

I've worked on about 20 different product development cycles and it's always the same in the beginning. Everybody loves the new idea. But it's like a baby. Babies are cute. Most people like them. Some fall in love with them. But the things babies do are only cute when they are babies. Tolerance for a baby's behavior goes away when it starts toddling. Periodically spitting up on one's self might be OK when it's a few months old but if it continues beyond a year or two, it's not OK. Projects are like that. DIY is always adoring the babies. Articles about baby-tech downplay how they spit up or spew bodily fluids every where they go.

I'm OK with people posting their baby pics. It's just that I was posting about more mature development projects and am just telling DIY to stop comparing his latest favorite baby with juvenile projects with all their pimples and growing pains. Those babies that he so loves -- most won't make it out of the crib. Those that do will be pains in the asses, just like any juvenile who came before them.

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Fogdog said:

Regarding gyro drilling in a pilot plant within two years: Skeptical. Not disbelieving. Just skeptical. Very skeptical. So skeptical it might seem like disbelief.

The two demonstration wells underway that were described in the NYT article are way beyond lab phase and approaching a pilot plant:

Three miles east, two teams are trying to tap that hot granite. One is Utah FORGE, a $220 million research effort funded by the Energy Department. The other is Fervo, a Houston-based start-up.

Both use similar methods: First, drill two wells shaped like giant L’s, extending thousands of feet down into hot granite before curving and extending thousands of feet horizontally. Then, use fracking, which involves controlled explosives and high-pressure fluids, to create a series of cracks between the two wells. Finally, inject water into one well, where it will hopefully migrate through the cracks, heat up past 300 degrees Fahrenheit and come out the other well.

This is “enhanced geothermal,” and people have struggled with the engineering difficulties since the 1970s.

But in July, FORGE announced it had successfully sent water between two wells. Two weeks later, Fervo announced its own breakthrough: A 30-day test in Nevada found the process could produce enough heat for electricity. Fervo is now drilling wells for its first 400-megawatt commercial power plant in Utah, next to the FORGE site.

“Those are major accomplishments, in a time frame faster than we expected,” said Lauren Boyd, head of the Energy Department’s Geothermal Technologies Office, which estimates that geothermal could supply 12 percent of America’s electricity by 2050 if technology improves.

The above is what it's really like when a project makes it out of the lab and into the field. These guys are struggling to make it work at scale. It sounds like people have been struggling for fifty years and only now has the technology begun to catch up with the concept.

I've worked on about 20 different product development cycles and it's always the same in the beginning. Everybody loves the new idea. But it's like a baby. Babies are cute. Most people like them. Some fall in love with them. But the things babies do are only cute when they are babies. Tolerance for a baby's behavior goes away when it starts toddling. Periodically spitting up on one's self might be OK when it's a few months old but if it continues beyond a year or two, it's not OK. Projects are like that. DIY is always adoring the babies. Articles about baby-tech downplay how they spit up or spew bodily fluids every where they go.

I'm OK with people posting their baby pics. It's just that I was posting about more mature development projects and am just telling DIY to stop comparing his latest favorite baby with juvenile projects with all their pimples and growing pains. Those babies that he so loves -- most won't make it out of the crib. Those that do will be pains in the asses, just like any juvenile who came before them.

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DIY-HP-LED said:

A Franklin said, "What use is a baby"!

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DIY-HP-LED said:

A Franklin said, "What use is a baby"! I posted here on those more conventional projects too and there's nothing wrong with them. I don't think going deep using new tech is such a radical idea, but I can see potential issues using super critical steam and just getting deep enough. It is a lot closer than fusion power and more doable IMO, it won't cost much private capital to find out though or much time compared to other things. They already ordered the 1 megawatt gyrotron so expect them to play with the new toy and blast some rock, preferably basalt.

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