I have an issue with this youtuber due to a transphobic video they posted some time ago, so personally, I don't watch this channel's videos anymore.
More info:
Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder Screws up on Trans Kids' Care - Rebecca Watson (Skepchick)
this post was submitted on 05 Jan 2025
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I visit Sabine for her physical sciences commentary, because of her qualifications. Sorry to hear she stepped outside of that and offended people. Doesn't invalidate any of what she shared in this episode.
...and for those who prefer their information as text anyway, here's an article on a very overlapping topic, which likely gives the same information as the video:
Geothermal Energy with Millimeter Wave or Direct Energy Drilling
The problem:
Multiple countries, over decades, have tried to drill into the Earth’s crust to reach the mantle without success due to exceedingly hot temperatures in deep bore holes and extremely hard rock formations located under pressure deep underground. From 1961 to 1966, the United States’ Project Mohole tried to drill through the crust out in the Pacific Ocean off of the coast of Mexico. They were only able to reach a depth of 601 ft (183 m) in 11,700 ft (3,600 m) of water. Between 1970 and 1992, Russia’s Kola Superdeep Borehole Project (see Figure 3) reached a record depth of 40, 230 ft (12.2 km) but were only able to drill about a third of the way through the Earth’s crust. In 1990, Germany initiated the German Continental Deep Drilling Program in Bavaria to try to break Russia’s record but were only able to drill to a depth of 5.6 miles (9 km).
Today, boreholes of 7 km are probably reliably attainable with state-of-the-art equipment. This can be very expensive and in most places, ground temperature at 7 km is not sufficient to warrant going there for energy.
The proposed solution: drilling boreholes with a maser (radio frequency laser in the millimeter wave spectrum). The gyrotron would likely sit on surface while the waveguide (antenna) is lowered into ground. Meanwhile, vapours would be blown out with compressed air (or maybe nitrogen, if things keep catching fire).
If the company developing it gets the system to work, boreholes deep enough to reach good quality heat would be possible everywhere on Earth, not just handful of places.
It makes good sense in theory, and I hope they get it working. But its benefits won't reach many people for at least a decade or two, so while the folks at Quaise Energy do their thing, I suggest that everyone else continue installing renewables and storage. :)
Maybe I should have mentioned that geothermal is a great sustainable and renewable source of energy (wiki)
Also, I'm a bit confused with the source you linked because it is about geoengineering which I believe is a terrible approach (see links bellow) but this site kinda presents geothermal as part of it. Geothermal energy production is not related to geoengineering/climate engineering, in any way.
Gigawatthours (GWh).
Gigawatt (GW) is power, not energy.
Yeah I thought about quoting the rest of that line ...'which would cover the world's energy needs for several hundred million years' but didn't feel like converting that to hours.... 10^6 x 10^9 x 10^x x 10^6 * ~8765.... it's a lot of energy
You don't have to convert anything.
My comment was just to make clear that GW is for mesurement of power, whereas GWh is for measurement of energy.
As your quote was dealing with energy, but using Gigawatts as unit, there was something obviously wrong.
I've made it a habit to point that out in the hope of helping to make people realize the difference.
This is pretty much the only thing that gives me still the slightest sliver of hope, because if this succeeds, it would have massive potential to turn things around. And the chances for this to work out aren't as far away as something like fusion.
piers anthony was talking on researching for a novel he was writing. deep well. have not actually seen it in print though. funny he was talking about it before I started seeing it so much in media.
piers anthony Maybe that's this? https://hipiers.com/newsletter/2021-mayhem/
"for my serious novel Deep Well. I read Geothermal Engineering Fundamentals and Applications, by Arnold Watson."
P.S. Damn, he's looking old these days.
I got word back that they are still shopping it around to publishers and no one wants to pick it up. He mentions in his blog a lot that the publishers won't take anything from xanth nowadays.
yeah its like I see stuff about him researching it but can't find it being sold so im wondering now if he completed it. I have a feeling it might be one that takes more time like the geoodessey series.