Soviet-era tech could change the geothermal industry
- Reference: 1656426613
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/06/28/gyrotrons_geothermal_energy/
- Source link:
MIT research engineer Paul Woskov spent 14 years developing a technique to employ gyrotrons, normally used to heat plasma, to drill geothermal wells. Gyrotrons emit microwaves and have been used in physics research for decades; Woskov's repurposing gives the venerable devices a new use case.
According to folks at the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project, the [1]first gyrotron was developed at the Institute of Applied Physics (the Russian Academy of Sciences) back in 1964.
[2]
Despite their age, gyrotrons haven't been well publicized in the scientific community, Woskov said. "Those of us in fusion research understood they were very powerful beam sources – like lasers, but in a different frequency range. I thought, why not direct these high-power beams, instead of into fusion plasma, down into rock and vaporize the hole," Woskov said.
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Commercialization of Woskov's gyrotron drill comes from Quaise Energy, a company spun out of MIT. Woskov does not work for the company, but serves as an advisor.
Paul Woskov with his gyrotron drilling samples
Other forms of renewable energy have rocketed past geothermal in popularity, MIT [5]said today. The reason has nothing to do with the effectiveness of geothermal energy, rather its impracticality and massive expense.
[6]Compute responsibly: Yet another IT industry sustainability drive
[7]Small nuclear reactors produce '35x more waste' than big plants
[8]Fusion won't avert need for climate change 'sacrifice', says nuclear energy expert
[9]First Light says it's hit nuclear fusion breakthrough with no fancy lasers, magnets
"Geothermal plants only exist in places where natural conditions allow for energy extraction at relatively shallow depths of up to 400 feet (c 120m)," MIT said.
Drill much deeper, and the heat of the Earth's crust wears drill bits out too quickly to be practical.
Quaise's ultimate goal is to repurpose coal and natural gas plants into geothermal generators, but there are two engineering problems that have to be solved before they get there: the gyrotron beam has to be clean, and it has to continually output a high energy density level without breaking down.
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Matt Houde, who left geothermal firm AltaRock Energy to found Quaise with MIT investment fund manager Carlos Araque, said that all of the core physics problems have been solved by Woskov, leaving "just" those engineering issues. "It's more a matter of overcoming some of the more technical and cost considerations to making this work at a large scale," Houde said.
By the end of 2022, Quaise wants to have vaporized a hole 10 times the depth of Woskov's lab experiments, and in 2023 it plans to vaporize a second hole 10 times deeper than the first. Houde said the planned depth of the second hole will give the company enough confidence to begin experiments in the field next year too. By 2026, Quaise wants to have an active pilot well that reaches temperatures of 500°C (932°F).
"If we can drill down to 20 kilometers, we can access these super-hot temperatures in greater than 90 percent of locations across the globe," Houde said. ®
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[1] https://www.iter.org/newsline/-/3028
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Yrsln496zjY7vmx88G4fvAAAAEY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
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[5] https://news.mit.edu/2022/quaise-energy-geothermal-0628
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/06/responsible_computing_aims_to_drive/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/02/nuclear_reactors_waste/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/05/31/fusion_no_answer_to_climate/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/07/first_light_nuclear_fusion/
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Re: Is 500°C (932°F) hot enough?
I believe 200C+ is already enough for viable geothermal, at least where it's close-ish to the surface and you don't need to dig so deep (up to 1km). 500C would give you more power but of course you need to dig deeper (6-8km ta least).
Re: Is 500°C (932°F) hot enough?
But if you get higher temperatures you can probably start to use the existing turbines in coal plants... and since the tech allows it from most of the planet there's a good chance they can do this at existing sites...
That's not a benefit to be overlooked... just imagine if all our dirty plants could be powered by steam from an FDH (freaking deep hole).
Re: Is 500°C (932°F) hot enough?
I think you misunderstand - 300C isnt the temperature that the "drill" operates at, its the ambient temperature at the depth that they plan to drill to.
If your question "is 300c enough to boil water and therefore drive a turbine to generate electricity?" - then the answer is yes - but the amount of energy your 3d printer consumes to heat the head to 300C is higher than the amount of energy you would generate. Your 3d printer is generating a temperature of 300C by consuming electricity.
The goal is to consume a temperature of 500/c created by the earths core to generate electricity (by piping water through it and generating steam and using the steam to operate a turbine).
Could this be the energy source that 'solves' energy for humanity??
I used to see geothermal as quite niche before I came across this article:
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/10/21/21515461/renewable-energy-geothermal-egs-ags-supercritical
It still is very niche, BUT the potential energy that can be tapped is, theoretically, enough to power human activity for millions of years. Even tapping into only a small part of it would 'solve' energy. What is really interesting is that from a physics point of view it's very straightforward. cold water goes down, steam comes up, you can even feed the steam into current oil/gas turbines, and you can drill for it anywhere in the world if you have the technology to go deep enough. That makes it a very simple* engineering problem (as opposed to the complexities still involved in attaining workable fusion), it works anywhere in the world 24/7 (as opposed to the intemittance and/or locality-dependance of wind, solar, hydro, tidal...)
*note the difference between 'simple' (the idea of digging vertically for 10km is very straightforward after all) and 'easy', which it absolutely is not!
Re: Could this be the energy source that 'solves' energy for humanity??
Good link, thanks. A nice geothermal example is to visit Bath, Somerset and enjoy floating in the hot water.
How deep?
"Drill much deeper [than 400 feet (c 120 m)], and the heat of the Earth's crust wears drill bits out too quickly to be practical."
Really? The deepest oil wells max out around 40,000 ft (12,000 m), a hundred times deeper. Seems to me there is something more to it than this.
Re: How deep?
Feels about right. In a previous employment I designed deep well guidance control systems; we tested the electronics to operate reliably at 150C and were starting to look at 175 and 200C when I left. Even 150 is not easy; all the things you're used to with electronics start to change in subtle or not-so-subtle ways when they have to work across the range from -60 to +150...
Re: How deep?
I'd hazard a guess that the holes needed for geothermal are somewhat larger hence the issue. I mean using an oil drill would probably result in something akin to a high pressure hosepipe - somewhat decent for pushing small stuff but not for when you want some real oomph in your violent water.
Is 500°C (932°F) hot enough?
I have a 3D printer that tops out at ~300C, should I be drilling holes instead?