This Fusion Tech is Solving the Geothermal Energy Problem

[Warpy]

(People have seen me mention deep bore geothermal energy research. This is the most economical tech so far, more energy efficient than plasma drills, if slower)

[et tu]

1. very interesting

also maybe a blend of bore techniques
could help with the cost~

[mitch96]

2. This sounds great if they can make it work.. Like fusion it's only 5-10 years away. The best they have done

is 100 inches from what I can find...This was a few months ago.
m

https://spectrum.ieee.org/geothermal-energy-gyrotron-quaise

[Vogon_Glory]

3. Geothermal tech of this sort would be a boon for

Central America and much of South America. Much of Central America is volcanic territory, as is much of the territory in or alongside the Andes. Tapping into geothermal this way would allow many of these countries to shut down pollutant-belching power plants more often than not running on imported fossil fuel.

EDIT: Also, I suspect that the heat sources in volcanic areas are a lot closer than 10 miles down.

[Warpy]

4. Yes for CEntral America

but probably not for the west coast of South America. Yes, it's volcanic, but there's little water there, it's why they are in the forefront of harvesting water from the air for drinking water and crops. While shallow bores would access plenty of heat, that heat would need to be harvested by something other than steam turbines. High temperature thermoelectric ceramics are in the tinkering stage, but that tech is likely decades away from being scaled up for power generation.

Deep bore tech is for places like the eastern US that rely on coal fired plants. The microwave drills might be cheaper to operate and the geothermal energy equal to modular nuclear plants being proposed today. As the video pointed out, the turbines in the existing coal fired plants could be used as is, in situ, the superheated coming from deep in the earth instead of a coal boiler.