This is great news! It's strange that conversations about renewable energy are often framed in terms of scarcity, when we're awash in an extreme overabundance of energy both from below (inside our planet) and above (sun irradiation). Our only problem is our incapability so far to harness this abundance. This is why I believe that technological progress will solve our future energy problems and why it should be in the interest of nation states (especially those without lots of fossil fuels at hand) to lavishly fund research in this space.
And Chris Wright, the new Secretary of Energy, is an investor in Fervo. Hopefully Solar (and maybe Wind) cannot be stopped and we can add enhanced geothermal to our tool of renewable energy sources.
I'm still a bit more of a skeptic. Even if they reduced the well cost, the costs of components in the rest of the system may be harder to reduce. The turbines and condensers are huge because of the low efficiency and 85% rejected heat. (The Nature paper lists net electrical output efficiency as only 12%, though it has a complementary characteristic to solar in that the geo efficiency improves with cold outdoor air.)
A chart in the Nature paper projects that in 2045 CA could be 100% renewable with 40 GW of this, and only need 20 GW of solar. Well, CA already has 23 GW of utility solar and 15 GW of distributed. With that much solar, the capacity factor of all "backup" generation gets low, and the LCOE from something like geothermal gets higher.
The efficiency and LCOE are very dependent on the temperature of that water. It may be hard to get that outside the Great Basin. Depths and well costs are projections and extrapolations. We'll see.
I'd love to see more emphasis on direct use of heat in, now I'm dreaming, district heating. It looks like it could be done in Denver where they have an old steam system, and trying to get folks to go off it and onto heat pumps at huge expense.
This is great news! It's strange that conversations about renewable energy are often framed in terms of scarcity, when we're awash in an extreme overabundance of energy both from below (inside our planet) and above (sun irradiation). Our only problem is our incapability so far to harness this abundance. This is why I believe that technological progress will solve our future energy problems and why it should be in the interest of nation states (especially those without lots of fossil fuels at hand) to lavishly fund research in this space.
Nuclear is a far better option.
And Chris Wright, the new Secretary of Energy, is an investor in Fervo. Hopefully Solar (and maybe Wind) cannot be stopped and we can add enhanced geothermal to our tool of renewable energy sources.
I had missed that in my research. Thanks for sharing!
I'm still a bit more of a skeptic. Even if they reduced the well cost, the costs of components in the rest of the system may be harder to reduce. The turbines and condensers are huge because of the low efficiency and 85% rejected heat. (The Nature paper lists net electrical output efficiency as only 12%, though it has a complementary characteristic to solar in that the geo efficiency improves with cold outdoor air.)
A chart in the Nature paper projects that in 2045 CA could be 100% renewable with 40 GW of this, and only need 20 GW of solar. Well, CA already has 23 GW of utility solar and 15 GW of distributed. With that much solar, the capacity factor of all "backup" generation gets low, and the LCOE from something like geothermal gets higher.
The efficiency and LCOE are very dependent on the temperature of that water. It may be hard to get that outside the Great Basin. Depths and well costs are projections and extrapolations. We'll see.
I'd love to see more emphasis on direct use of heat in, now I'm dreaming, district heating. It looks like it could be done in Denver where they have an old steam system, and trying to get folks to go off it and onto heat pumps at huge expense.