HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

> Do we need to reach magma?

Nope. Over the last ~20 years the drilling industry has gotten good at: angle drilling (not slant drilling but turning the drill angle at the bottom) and fracking, or pumping fluid through rock to break it up. This means conventional methods can dig far down, turn the drill and make a reserve with fracking. The heat is much less but it's conventional technology.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jamie_c_beard_the_untapped_energy_...

⬐ pettusftw

Interesting. I've wondered about this sort of pivot before. Coming from Oklahoma where O&G reigns supreme it seemed natural to galvanize that same workforce for this type of clean energy, and with the explosion of horizontal drilling and fracking over the past couple of decades I often wondered why no one had targeted geothermal in earnest yet. Glad to see it's being worked on and gaining steam.

There are plenty of people who work in O&G that wouldn't mind one bit if their skillset was driving a green technology. They're most protective of their "way of life" and if they can see themselves as creating and leading a new industry their fed egos could benefit everyone rather than just their midstream uncles making millions and their roughneck cousins making slightly-less-than-millions.

⬐ rapjr9

Is there less of a danger of creating earthquakes from the fracturing since it is only done once in a specific area? Fracturing 100,000 geothermal sites seems like it could possibly cause some earthquake problems. I wonder if extracting the heat in some types of rock will quickly deplete it, is this really workable everywhere, does the heat flow through rock fast enough? Otherwise it sounds fantastic!

⬐ pettusftw

Yes. Sort of. Oklahoma saw an incredible number of earthquakes from wastewater disposal, it has since died down after being regulated so its pretty clear that was the cause

https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/oklahoma-has-had-a-surge-earthquak...

⬐ filoeleven

It’s engineered geothermal powered by oil and gas drilling technology. The speaker is CEO of a startup that’s working on this. I’ve linked the company’s site for those who don’t want to watch a video. The video goes into greater detail though, making for better discussion. Maybe someone can find a better text article which has all the same info.

https://www.texasgeo.org/about