[Veedrac]

cf. "but I wish they finished writing the equations out"

The article mentions EGS but, as far as I could tell, only seemed to present it to contrast it with the claim that Quaise is using a worse single-bore strategy.

If I'm just misreading, and it sounds like you're saying I am?, it'd be really helpful to show your working so I can see where the models are differing. There is a factor 100 difference somewhere, it shouldn't be that hard to spot!

[bhauth2]

This has been amusing and all, but I'm the author of that blog post, and since arguments in a mere comment aren't as reputable I'd updated the post.

[Veedrac]

Thanks, that makes the position much clearer.

Some questions:

You say, “if there's enough pressure to make a little crack, then the fluid can instantly expand and immediately make a big crack”. My admittedly quite surface level view of the research is that it is viewed as feasible in this regime.

“Close to the brittle-ductile transition conditions of pressure and temperature, new findings suggest that fractures are sufficiently permeable to allow fluid circulation and, in case of insufficient fracture density, enhancement strategies are likely to be successful”

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12146-0

I also believe that EGS fracture enhancement marginally prefers hydro-shearing (crack expansion) rather than hydro-fracking (crack formation), so if creating cracks is problematic, that leaves options open.

I also note that to my understanding gas fracking is already a thing, cf. nitrogen fracking. So gaseous behavior doesn't obviously seem like an instant write-off to me.

I'm sure that isn't convincing to you, but it's a bit challenging for me as a layman wrt. geothermal to see why I should trust your gut here, so to speak, and I'm wondering if you have a concrete argument I can evaluate on merits?

For example,

"The hypothesis that the brittle–ductile transition (BDT) drastically reduces permeability implies that potentially exploitable geothermal resources (permeability >10−16 m2) consisting of supercritical water could occur only in rocks with unusually high transition temperatures such as basalt. However, tensile fracturing is possible even in ductile rocks, and some permeability–depth relations proposed for the continental crust show no drastic permeability reduction at the BDT."

https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2879

I'm definitely not claiming to take these on faith, I'm just saying I haven't really been given a reason to believe those arguments are less trustworthy than your claims otherwise.