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Comment by derefr | Hacker News Reader

> Anything that works would be used by the oil and gas industry, and if they're not trying it, one suspects it might not be working.

To flip that around: this would imply that the most under-investigated-in-industry approaches to deep hole boring would be the ones that destroy the economic value of any oil-and-gas in the ground, no? Ones that make the ground radioactive, perhaps. Or that would set any potential oil fields on fire, or react them away, or irrevocably mix a combustion-inhibiting azeotropic solvent into them.

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Don't worry, we were doing nuclear fracking back in the days. Everything that could work has been tried for oil and gas exploration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy

Regarding drilling operations that destroy value: you're forgetting that drilling is 1D while oil fields are 3D (technically quasi-2D with horizontal dimensions 100x to 1000x larger than vertical dimensions). If your drilling messes up everything in a 10 meter radius from the drill string, you don't care.

Why do you think that drilling is one dimensional? Drilling at an angle, and even at gradually changing angles is common.

Technically embedded in that case, as your drill line can be represented (often) by a single parameterized function.

Exactly. Unless you plan to zizag around all over the place, most of the reservoir won't be in the near-well region.

> Don't worry, we were doing nuclear fracking back in the days. Everything that could work has been tried for oil and gas exploration.

Likewise, everything that conceivably could be done with nuclear was tried or at least designed for a while there - lighting watches with radium, digging canals with nukes, space travel by continuously exploding nukes behind you... good times. (Horrifying times, but w/e;])

Not to mention https://gajitz.com/1950s-radioactive-science-kit-most-danger...

> Likewise, everything that conceivably could be done with nuclear was tried or at least designed for a while there - lighting watches with radium, digging canals with nukes, space travel by continuously exploding nukes behind you... good times. (Horrifying times, but w/e;])

"The top secret plan to explode a nuclear bomb in Yorkshire", by Tom Scott: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceWZslOfEjs

I've long wanted to put some money into an eco terror fund.

It would buy controlling interests in all the companies that make some critical, specialized and heavily patented piece of modern internal combustion engines or coal turbines. Then, it'd wreck the factories, and patent troll everyone else into not producing.

Money is speech, and that would be protected political speech, right? :-)

Once it had demonstrated enough success to instill fear in the hearts of wall street bankers, I think it could start turning a profit. It would announce targets ahead of time, tanking the stock. On the way down, the companies would reinvest the money they make selling themselves for parts back into the fund.

You're not going to tank a stock by publicly telling people you're going to buy a bunch of it. A bunch of people will try to get in front of you and bid you up.

that will result in those devices will be manufactured by the Chinese instead, and them then having a near monopoly

Honest question: if something is patented, sure China could manufacture it, but wouldn't patent protection prohibit importing the counterfeit good into the USA?

I've never actually thought about whether patent protection covered just the sale, or the manufacture, or exactly what, so thanks for bringing that nuance to my attention!

As my wise auntie says,”You can’t see clearly through the bottom of a pint glass.” Are you not drunk on energy? Warm or cool at will, well fed and clothed, able to travel and communicate? There’s no collecting if you bet on the apocalypse. <\wisdomnag>

>There’s no collecting if you bet on the apocalypse.

That's just not true. Misery and suffering is it's own reward, to some. This is arguably the main point of Orwell's 1984, when O'Brien explains to Winston Smith why they bother torturing people before killing them. O'Brien says that to knowingly cause suffering in someone is the ultimate expression of power, and it is axiomatic to him that power is good in-and-of-itself.

Hey, if a DAO can raise enough money to almost buy the Constitution, maybe you don't need to wait for Someone Else™ to start the slush fund required to pull off that stunt /s (but also not /s) -- err, specifically I meant the "fund" part, not the "wrecking factories" part, unless you meant economically wrecking, in which case I think it's still plausible

> this would imply that the most under-investigated-in-industry approaches to deep hole boring would be the ones that destroy the economic value of any oil-and-gas in the ground,

That is only one explanation to why a technology would be among the most under-investigated-in-industry approaches. There are many others, such as:

- It does not work at all.

- It is more expensive than traditional methods

- It is illegal in some way

- It is incompatible with the rest of oil&gas processing.

Option C: it doesn't solve enough problems for oil and gas to have been worth pursuing compared to iterative improvements to existing systems.

Whereas for geothermal, conventional drilling isn't useful enough for it.

Oil companies sell finite fuel for energy to people in cars, on the move.

Geothermal heating provides unlimited fuel for people in houses, staying still.

The technology is similar, and it's boring ;-) The market is different. This is an opportunity for entrepreneurs to hire expert drilling engineers out of the oil industry!

> Geothermal heating provides unlimited fuel for people in houses, staying still

This sounds like the beginning of a great sci-fi novel.

A future where Earth's core has cooled because of excess draws to power humanity. Now, the planet is losing it's magnetic field.

To save humanity, humans need to re-heat the core, build biospheres, or leave the planet.

sounds similar to the plot of The Core

(it was not great)

It's surprising how often that movie comes up, especially given how it's often accompanied by a note that it's not good. I suspect it's hit a pseudo-cult classic film status. The last few times I've seen it mentioned I've had the desire to seek it out and watch it again since I only remember bits and pieces.

That's what you get when you do a lot of publicity for a movie that is not good.

"A future where Earth's core has cooled because of excess draws to power humanity."

Has anyone done the napkin math for how long that would take?

We basically can not accelerate the process. Almost all the resistance to heat movement is on layers we can not reach at all.

About as long as it would take to cool the surface of the sun.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2013/04/28/the-center...

Core of earth: 6,000 ºC

https://www.space.com/why-sun-atmosphere-hotter-than-surface

Core of sun: 27 million ºC Surface of sun: 6,000 ºC

"The leading idea among experts is the sun's magnetic field is actually bringing energy from inside the sun up through its surface and into its atmosphere."

The "napkin math" will involve gathering some data about RF power harvesting, and some assumptions (e.g. cosmic rays)

https://news.mit.edu/2020/energy-harvesting-wi-fi-power-0327

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics

Do you believe in the 1st law of thermodynamics, that energy is neither created nor destroyed?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe

We could just balance the system:

core of Earth too hot -> use geothermal

core of Earth too cold -> use solar power

Do you think that reheating the core of Mars could reboot life there?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476002

It's even more interesting that you mention the magnetic field, could we use solar panels to draw more energy from the sun to power a tesla coil and microwave the core?

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