How big a role can geothermal energy generation play in the UK's green transition?
Well, a new plant coming on line in Cornwall will test that proposition, as its major up-front investment starts to pay off in energy generation.
Of course, we're used to big up-front investment(s) in nuclear power, so it will be interesting to see how this project compares in cost recovery terms & longevity of production.
@ChrisMayLA6 Germany operates geothermic plants since the 80s, mostly for heating.
But we also have quite a few which also produce electricity in range of ~5-10MW.
The positive is that there will be almost no waste. I'd expect some because they also want to use the water to extract Lithium. But that's nothing compared to a nuclear power plant.
@Brokar @ChrisMayLA6 I've been following Quaise energy with the new drilling tech: https://www.quaise.com/
I really like the idea of converting fossil fuel plants into geothermal.
I'm in favor of companies who actually produce something. Not a fan of startups which promise you the world and only 1% of them actually succeed and deliver.
But i wish them all the luck, this is a promising project. And if they'd put all the AI money into projects of this kind instead, we'd all be living better.
But to be honest, i know that drilling down to 5km works, it's done today. Drilling down to 20km is a whole different league. I know of no commercial projects yet which drilled down that far.
My question would be "why not build 2 plants with only 10km depth?" Should be the same result and certainly much less difficult than 20km depth.
Big ambitions are good but you should start with the middle way first, show that it works.
@ChrisMayLA6 David MacKay discusses this in Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air, and it's pretty disappointing (for fundamental rather than technical reasons). The UK can get at most 1.6% of its energy budget from geothermal.
If you divide the amount of heat the earth dissipates by the number of people, the resulting number is simply pretty low.
It works for places like Iceland, because a large area's worth of heat comes out at one point where the population is low.
@etchedpixels @pbloem @ChrisMayLA6 The fancy new technologies are being worked on and are starting to deliver. eg: Fervo Energy is drilling wells down to 5000m and 250C and has working power plants. Those depths open up huge areas for exploitation with minimal surface foot prints. You can even use such wells to store excess renewable energy by shutting off the generator but driving the return pumps to pressurise the wells.
But I guess the one good thing is it doesn't vary so could help (albeit only a little) deal with troughs in other renewables?
@ChrisMayLA6 @pbloem Un-correlated (including always-on) low-carbon electricity sources are good. Demand-callable / load-following is better, but there are far fewer of those (no GB nukes for example).
(This is 3MW out of ~40GW yesterday's GB peak demand, and there seems to be scope for ~2 more of these cf *20,000* needed to cover *current* peak winter demand in the UK.)
@pbloem @ChrisMayLA6
1% here, 1% there, adds up.
It looks like power that can be all the time, and/or can be throttled, and should just run and run.
And a few jobs locally where a few jobs helps a lot.
Little tidal projects seem worth it as well.
Both would make more difference to a dunkelflaute than to the ordinary supply.
That's an interesting Q. but might run up against the issue that the ground beneath us is owned by the state not us....
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