Climate - truthful information about climate, related activism and politics.

6516 readers

509 users here now

Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:

Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

Geothermal Power Is a Climate Moon Shot Beneath Our Feet (www.newyorker.com)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

"This road is long, and much of the map remains blank. The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons."

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (9 children)

If you have a heat differential, you can generate power. Heat pump to boil water and drive a turbine.

What is this ~~nonsense~~ about a "fusion" reactor under our feet?!? There is no fusion going on in our core.

Edit: striked out inflammatory phrasing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (8 children)

Don't know what to tell you except that it's obvious you didn't read the article nor have you looked into what it's talking about. They need to go deep enough to get supercritical steam.

And yes I meant fission, not fusion. But go off on the rest I guess

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (7 children)

There is no fission inside the earth either, except some exceptionally rare locations. ~~Have you actually looked into what your talking about?~~ I did read the article, but the first half was fluff about them digging a hole and not having enough concrete. The rest is press releases for drilling startups.

Super critical steam may be what they are trying to get, but it is definitely not a requirement for generating energy.

Edit: needlessly inflammatory comment striked out.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

There is A LOT of radioactive matter below the earth's surface ... constantly generating heat.

"About 50% of the Earth's internal heat originates from radioactive decay. Four radioactive isotopes are responsible for the majority of radiogenic heat because of their enrichment relative to other radioactive isotopes: uranium-238 (238U), uranium-235 (235U), thorium-232 (232Th), and potassium-40 (40K)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Fission is a form of decay, but its relatively rare compared to the other more typical modes of devay.

Spontaneous fission is relatively rare, because it is usuallly restricted to superheavy elements, which are fairly rare and short lived.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_fission

It was a needlessly pedantic nitpick though.

load more comments (5 replies)