El_Minadero
El_Minadero t1_j1bpeut wrote
Reply to ‘Mind-blowing’ network of magma chambers found under Hawaii’s volcanoes - The discovery offers a possible solution to a long-standing mystery — how magma from the deep mantle travels to the Hawaiian surface by GeoGeoGeoGeo
Wow. The original article has some pretty compelling earthquake clusterings. I don't think we've managed to image upper mantle magma plumbing in quite as much detail as they have.
El_Minadero t1_iuk1uya wrote
Reply to comment by KmartQuality in British and Austrian scientists have developed substances that have the opportunity to replace rare earths. In the future, the "artificial cosmic magnets" produced in the laboratory are expected to be used in wind power generation and electric vehicles. by future168life
There’s something relatively unique about the deposits in china that makes them very economical to mine.
El_Minadero t1_iudbo1q wrote
This is not a great visualization. Try a spider plot and normalize values to a standard.
El_Minadero t1_irx40cb wrote
Reply to comment by grambell789 in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Lots of geothermal plants use a binary cycle. Look up Ormat or the FORGE project.
El_Minadero t1_irx3wcs wrote
Reply to comment by AnimiLimina in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
the energy in the system is limited by both how much fluid you pump down and how hot the fluid is. Even for a static flow rate you can just keep increasing the temperature of the injected fluid to increase heat transfer. Even if the steam is supercritically heated, everything should still work.
Infact, supercritical steam is preferrable! It helps catalyze the conversion from CO2 gas to stable calcite minerals, opens up pore space at depth for more efficient heat transfer to the rock reservoir, and is much more thermally conductive than plain water or steam.
El_Minadero t1_irx2scn wrote
Reply to comment by OGCelaris in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Look up the FORGE project. Its basically a non issue, especially compared to O&G
El_Minadero t1_irx2pra wrote
Reply to comment by ghostcompost in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Yes. Look up the FORGE project. EGS systems are coming online with orders of magnitude less induced seismicity than conventional fracking operations
El_Minadero t1_irx2l2n wrote
Reply to comment by AnimiLimina in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
> electricity limited to the power requirements of the water pumps?
Nope. Geothermal stations don't pump up water from depth. You're limited by the ability to throttle the turbines and how much energy you can inject into the geothermal loop.
Edit: there's also only so much heat the surface heat exchanger can use. Typically geothermal plants are run as stable base power loads but its possible to add a 'peaker' capability similar to natural gas plants.
El_Minadero t1_irx2fif wrote
Reply to comment by Hyval_the_Emolga in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Yes. But there are logistical challenges to getting enough battery grade lithium soon enough to effectively combat climate change. Using existing geothermal reservoirs as a stopgap solution to store excess energy across years is a great way to transition the grid.
El_Minadero t1_irx27u6 wrote
Reply to comment by istasber in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Solar thermal plants do use molten salt as thermal storage. However, they aren't able to store heat energy seasonally.
The Earth is such an excellent thermal insulator that volcanic areas that received their last pulse of power 150,000 years ago are still hot! Geothermal energy storage could locally solve the solar "duck" curve where the subsurface conditions and economic factors are optimal with no need for tons of battery metals and virtually no greenhouse emissions.
El_Minadero t1_irx1uyb wrote
Reply to comment by platoprime in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Yes. Because we can't make the entire planet a hydroelectric dam. Dams are great! but they require lots of fresh water.
Geothermal and hydroelectric power are both incredibly low carbon sources of electric power and potential energy storage mechanisms. It makes sense to use both depending local economics and logistical constraints.
El_Minadero t1_irx1lz3 wrote
Reply to comment by grambell789 in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
Sure. but the way newer geothermal binary cycle plants work is the hot geothermal water goes through a heat exchanger at the surface but is never allowed to change into a gas. The intermediate working fluid is typically something like butane. round trip cycle efficiency is limited by the carnot cycle but its not like closed cycle geothermal plants are just leaking water left and right into the ground.
El_Minadero t1_irw6wxg wrote
Reply to comment by dramaking37 in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
There’s very little leakage in these systems. They mostly operate as closed loops
El_Minadero t1_irw6td0 wrote
Reply to comment by wwarnout in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
But you can store excess power for years underground
El_Minadero t1_irw6r4m wrote
Reply to comment by minitrr in Geothermal May Beat Batteries for Energy Storage: Enhanced geothermal systems are well suited to store excess renewable power as heat. by filosoful
The EGS he talks about doesn’t need a high enthalpy system to operate.
El_Minadero t1_je3rkd0 wrote
Reply to comment by djohnsen in Researchers Show Optical Fiber Communication Cables Can Warn Against Earthquakes by HeinieKaboobler
its some variant of distributed acoustic sensing. Basically strain within the fiber causes a phase shift in the light scattered along the cable.