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Comment by tony_cannistra | Hacker News Reader

From the Bloomberg article:

   In many regions, the existing rock is hot enough but there isn’t enough permeability for fluid to flow through the hot rock. Through wells drilled deep underground, EGS injects fluid to create fractures, causing the permeability needed for electricity generation.

My gut says they're using the same methodologies as hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction for this, but I'm not sure.

That raises a whole host of environmental concerns, particularly with regard to the high volume use of fresh water in places where it is scarce, and the impact of toxic high-pressure fracturing fluid on aquifers.

Both are issues that have plagued communities where oil and gas fracturing takes place.

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> gut says they're using the same methodologies as hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas extraction for this, but I'm not sure

This is correct.

> the high volume use of fresh water in places where it is scarce, and the impact of toxic high-pressure fracturing fluid on aquifers

Petrochemical fracking constantly creates new fractures to unlock new seams; extracted resources don't replenish.

Geothermal energy is different. You can stimulate once, then circulate and recapture; the heat one extracts renews itself. ("The produced fluid was pumped through a series of holding tanks to provide the residence time for the water to cool sufficiently and was ultimately recirculated for injection," though it was supplemented with "saline brine sourced from a nearby groundwater well.")

Fundamentally, it has the capacity to be almost endlessly cleaner than its oil and gas counterpart.

[1] https://eartharxiv.org/repository/view/5704/

Thanks. In principle I am wholeheartedly in support for geothermal as a renewable energy source, especially compared to fossil fuels. I think these kinds of developments to expand the potential for geothermal resources are super important.

I guess I just would like to understand some of the externalities to this particular methodology. Especially since many of the parallels to oil and gas fracking are present, and the environmental track record there is poor.

> I just would like to understand some of the externalities to this particular methodology

I would too. Their white paper devotes an entire section to induced seismicity. There is less attention paid to steady-state water requirements. (Given it's just water and brine, and assuming natural prop pants, the threat to the water table seems de minimus, barring something nasty dissolving out of the rocks.)

It's not parallels to fracking, it is fracking.

Except twice as many wells, and less isolated geology.

Also, benefits of fracking is the generation of heat and positive pressure from the chemical reactions.

If they aren't netting the geothermal gains against the embedded energy in the injection chemicals, all we're seeing is energy accounting tricks, not a technical breakthrough.

My reading of the comment above is that Geothermal uses the same chemical/physical process to fracture the rock and has to dispose of those chemicals afterwards (or leave them in place). Fossil fuel fracking needs a continuous supply of the chemicals and a continuous problem of finding a reservoir for the used chemicals so the impact is much, much higher.

IIRC (and I'm not an expert), you need to keep working on the cracks to keep water circulating. You don't need as much stimulation as you would for fracking since the goal isn't to crack new areas, but your well will stop working if you don't monitor and stimulate as needed.

The rate that geothermal energy replenishes is incredibly slow. Average heat flux through continental crust is around 70 milliWatts per square meter[0], so a single well with a horizontal drilling range of 3km would in steady state generate about 2 MW thermal, or around 0.8 MW of electricity. For comparison a single onshore windmill typically produces around 2 MW of electricity. As an example, to steady state power the state of Delaware, you'd need to completely frack 13% of the area of Delaware. You actually frack substantially less if you don't wait for the heat to regenerate, and you deplete an area bit by bit.[1]

[0] There are volcanic areas where the heat flux is substantially (~5-10x) higher, but they are few in number, generally far from population centers, and creating geologic instability in close proximity to a volcano carries its own risk. Viable in places like Iceland but not generally.

[1] Eventually of course you would wind up fracking the same total area, but it would take centuries to millenia, by which point you've probably either switched to a better power source or learned to deal with the issues of fracking.

"Fracking" for geothermal wells will supposedly not use toxic fluids. The reasons they're used for oil and gas extraction does not necessarily apply to geothermal wells.

There are some concerns about micro earthquakes and other disturbances if it's done near towns.

It seems like not using fracking, and just making several vertical lined bore holes might be better anyway though. In the best case you don't need any active pumps to drive the loop, so it can be much simpler.

> Fracking for geothermal wells will supposedly not use toxic fluids.

I'm interested in learning more about this. Could you share the source from which you learned this?

Fracking for geothermal induces earthquake[0], so I wonder what's new / who would risk it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_seismicity_in_Basel

People with a population centre that isn't atop a known and historically active fault (such as Basel), people that are already living in a geologically active fault zone such that risks introduced by fracking are dwarfed by straddling the "ring of fire" already.

I'd rate those as valid informed decisions.

The stress on 'informed' is because it many countries it's rare for industry to be open (or forced to be open) with the wider public and rare for the wider public to have an effective say in such decisions.

I guess you're hinting towards Switzerland special voting system :)

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