tl;dr: Fervo Energy, a buzzy new startup, is attracting plenty of attention (and money) for its innovative approach to geothermal drilling.
No. Mainly due to water constraints.
Geothermal is great for district heating, but for electricity you have the solar+wind+battery combo which scales exponentially.
I’m gonna offer a bit of a controversial take here and say that solar is the solar of the 2020s
>While Latimer would not say what Fervo’s current costs are, he did say that for it to be competitive, it would have to get down to around $100 per megawatt-hour, about where traditional geothermal — where steam or very hot water that’s already present underground is brought to the surface — is now. The Department of Energy’s goal is to reduce enhanced geothermal costs by around 90 percent to $45 per megawatt hour by 2025. “The results show we’re on the path to already being able to provide economic projects even at that market rate,” Latimer said.
That low price would be nice.
DRILL BABY DRILL! (always wanted to shout that)
Yes. Solar and Wind will make up the majority of our power generation but we’ll still baseload and firm generation to compliment it, and I think geothermal is a great option for that in many places. EGS becoming cheap and widespread would be an absolute gamechanger.
Check out the Power Engineering article about the same press release, which has a graph of the per-well drilling time and how it’s decreasing:
No, this is still not a great tech. The issue is the quality of water from the ground. It isn’t steam, it’s an amalgamation of stuff, including heavy metals and it’s closer to like a 15 to 30% solids. It requires a lot of water treatment and water for a cooling tower is needed for any turbine system.
Capex is like 12 times a natural gas facility and depending on the site conditions, the opex isn’t any better. Out at salton sea area, carbon steel literally rusts away in like 3 years man, it doesn’t last.
Can it make power and energy, sure. Is it cost effective; that really depends on the market and investment factors.
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tl;dr: Fervo Energy, a buzzy new startup, is attracting plenty of attention (and money) for its innovative approach to geothermal drilling.
No. Mainly due to water constraints.
Geothermal is great for district heating, but for electricity you have the solar+wind+battery combo which scales exponentially.
I’m gonna offer a bit of a controversial take here and say that solar is the solar of the 2020s
>While Latimer would not say what Fervo’s current costs are, he did say that for it to be competitive, it would have to get down to around $100 per megawatt-hour, about where traditional geothermal — where steam or very hot water that’s already present underground is brought to the surface — is now. The Department of Energy’s goal is to reduce enhanced geothermal costs by around 90 percent to $45 per megawatt hour by 2025. “The results show we’re on the path to already being able to provide economic projects even at that market rate,” Latimer said.
That low price would be nice.
DRILL BABY DRILL! (always wanted to shout that)
Yes. Solar and Wind will make up the majority of our power generation but we’ll still baseload and firm generation to compliment it, and I think geothermal is a great option for that in many places. EGS becoming cheap and widespread would be an absolute gamechanger.
Check out the Power Engineering article about the same press release, which has a graph of the per-well drilling time and how it’s decreasing:
https://www.power-eng.com/renewables/fervo-energy-claims-70-reduction-in-geothermal-drilling-time-2/
No, this is still not a great tech. The issue is the quality of water from the ground. It isn’t steam, it’s an amalgamation of stuff, including heavy metals and it’s closer to like a 15 to 30% solids. It requires a lot of water treatment and water for a cooling tower is needed for any turbine system.
Capex is like 12 times a natural gas facility and depending on the site conditions, the opex isn’t any better. Out at salton sea area, carbon steel literally rusts away in like 3 years man, it doesn’t last.
Can it make power and energy, sure. Is it cost effective; that really depends on the market and investment factors.