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by ibatindev 1389 days ago
Every time I read the word Geothermal I end up in the wikipedia article: "Induced seismicity in Basel" within minutes.
2 comments

That wikipedia article certainly brings up some need for pause/concern.

Recently, I heard about this relatively new company named Quaise: https://newatlas.com/energy/quaise-deep-geothermal-millimete...

And I thought that the technology seemed quite interesting, so I hope the development of it can pan out since it seemed like it would enable greater usage of geothermal energy around the world, which seems to be mostly untapped at this time, and also seemed like it might be able to address the seismic issue/concern, although I'm not an expert on the topic so I could be wrong there.

Geothermal is mainly a topic of interest for myself since there are a few local plants in my own region but I hadn't really realized that it is an underutilized power generation option until I read the article on Quaise recently above.

I believe the seismic problems come from water flowing across the bore hole and eventually destabilizing the ground (this can happen with fracking). The Quaise approach basically cauterizes the hole as it drills, so water can't flow across. The water is more of a closed system.
Conversely: " Blowing off steam: How clean energy could stabilize faults" https://temblor.net/earthquake-insights/blowing-off-steam-ho...

A summary of this publication: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03601-4

Seems like the perfect candidate for $165 million in DOE research funding.

>The Geothermal Energy from Oil and Gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE) initiative will provide $10 million to form a consortium of experts to develop a roadmap for addressing technology and knowledge gaps in geothermal energy, based on best practices used within the oil and gas industry. DOE will then use that roadmap to fund up to an additional $155 million in research to address those gaps. This funding opportunity supports President Biden’s priorities to deploy clean energy sources to combat climate change, strengthen our energy independence, and create good-paying jobs.