Old faithful erupts about once an hour and squirts out about 20,000 gallons of boiling water each time.  There are 3600 seconds in an hour.  That is an average flow rate of about twenty liters a second.

But since the eruptions only last three to five minutes I could easily claim 250 liters a second.

The devil is in the details. 

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 30, 2023, 10:11 PMOld faithful erupts about once an hour and squirts out about 20,000 gallons of boiling water each time.  There are 3600 seconds in an hour.  That is an average flow rate of about twenty liters a second.

But since the eruptions only last three to five minutes I could easily claim 250 liters a second.

The technique being used here doesn't require erupting geisers of the Old Faithful kind, which are relatively rare. It just requires an underground heat source, present anywhere the earth's crust is relatively thin or where there are cracks which allow the magma from the earth's mantle to come up near enough to the surface to be within drilling range for the kind of horizontal drilling done to extract shale oil.  Range there is down to about 10,000 ft.  Hawaii around Mt Kilaueha is a good example, as is just about all of Iceland.  These type of volcanoes don't usually erupt explosively like My. St. Helens, most of the time they just push out magma to the surface where it cools and hardens.  Right under the surface though there are large pools of molten lava.

The trick here is to drill down to just above a large pool of molten rock and run pipe through which you pump cool water and the magma just below the pipe acts like a burner to heat this water to just below boiling temp at 190F.  This comes back up the pipe to the surface where it runs through a heat exchanger and boils a refrigerant that runs a turbine.

The only limitations on flow rate are how big and how many pipes you run and how much water you can run through before you start cooling down the magma pool.  Bigger the pool and faster it is getting heated up from magma lower down, the more water you can pump through it before you start cooling it too much.

According to the article, their pilot well pumps 63L/sec and they plan a larger one for their next project.  The only question here is how many places have a magma pool large enough and close enough to the surface to drill down to and run the pipe.  They don't even really need much water for it either, since it is a closed loop system.

RE

Reaching lateral lengths of 3,250 feet, reaching a temperature of 191 °C.

That is something, but lengths implies more than one, so we are back to square one.

The article also mentions a 'breakthrough'.

A breakthrough implies something new.  Something Iceland has not done in 30 years?

Too bad the article won't says what it is.

Geothermal is not something that really needs an innovation.  Existing technology provides the tools and techniques needed.  What Geothermal needs is blood sweat and tears.

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The reason the article exists is to show Google spending money to purchase 'green' technology.

It will take more than that to get Google off my shit list.

You do know that this blog can't be found with Google right?  I have seen three bots at a time viewing this site at once.  But only the Legacy Diner page shows up in a Google search.  Google does exactly what the censors in Homeland Security tell them to do.  I am sorry to bring my history as a suspected domestic terrorist with me, but I really don't have anything to do with it.

I added 'Doomstead Diner' to the metadata for the page.  Bots can't miss it.  They do.

Of course if we ever get serious traction here we will appear as normal as apple pie and show up in a search.

Think what the Weimar Republic could have done with the the Nazi party when it only had 12 members and a website.  That would have been a good thing. 

Ranting on street-corners would not attract Berlin crowds had there been an net then.  Hitler could have practiced in front of a mirror all day long and it would not have done his movement any good.

That would have been a good thing.

But our Weimar repubic of the Stars and Stripes stops not just crazies.  Everybody is stopped, except for the sanctioned few.  Change WILL NOT BE ALLOWED.

And doom is baked in the cake.

Quote from: K-Dog on Jul 31, 2023, 11:14 AMReaching lateral lengths of 3,250 feet, reaching a temperature of 191 °C.

That is something, but lengths implies more than one, so we are back to square one.

The article also mentions a 'breakthrough'.

I think the "breakthrough" they are talking about is to apply the horizontal drilling technique the frackers use to setting up a geothermal collector. They could make better use of a source  by laying several pipes across a magma pool.  More surface area to heat the water.  Not a huge technological leap though.

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QuoteAnd doom is baked in the cake.

This of course is true. "baked" is a good choice of verbs. It's too little too late and doesn't address the problems of overshoot, resource depletion and climate change.  Even if we stopped all carbon emissions now, the climate will continue warming another 40 years at least.  Think this summer is hot?  You ain't seen nuthin' yet.

RE