<story><title>Iceland drills 4.7 km down into volcano to tap clean energy</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2017-05-iceland-drills-km-volcano-energy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chris_va</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d be careful about getting too optimistic.&lt;p&gt;Conventional geothermal is about 4-5 cents&amp;#x2F;kWh, on par with natural gas in the US. The dominant capital cost is drilling a large well (you need volume), and so geothermal plants are generally only built in areas that require shallow (1km) wells.&lt;p&gt;Well costs are ~quadratic in depth. Given how much money has already been spent optimizing drilling for the oil&amp;amp;gas industry, along with how cutthroat that market is, I don&amp;#x27;t see the cost coming down significantly. As a result, deep geothermal will likely be limited to niche regions like Iceland. And you need deep geothermal to scale it past the existing locations.&lt;p&gt;I would love to be wrong, since geothermal checks all the boxes for renewables and is also suitable for base load power, but I don&amp;#x27;t see an obvious path forward short of a drilling tech miracle.&lt;p&gt;(source: Climate and Energy R&amp;amp;D group)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Beltiras</author><text>Don&amp;#x27;t bill deep geothermal as any sort of green.  There are usually emissions that have health consequences for the population around the power plant.  The corrosion of the pipes bringing steam from the drill site to the turbines is massive.  Drilling that deep and pumping water into the hole ups the risk of earthquakes.&lt;p&gt;(source: I live in Reykjavík and have witnessed first-hand the increased stench from the Hellisheiði geothermal plant)</text></comment>
<story><title>Iceland drills 4.7 km down into volcano to tap clean energy</title><url>https://phys.org/news/2017-05-iceland-drills-km-volcano-energy.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>chris_va</author><text>I&amp;#x27;d be careful about getting too optimistic.&lt;p&gt;Conventional geothermal is about 4-5 cents&amp;#x2F;kWh, on par with natural gas in the US. The dominant capital cost is drilling a large well (you need volume), and so geothermal plants are generally only built in areas that require shallow (1km) wells.&lt;p&gt;Well costs are ~quadratic in depth. Given how much money has already been spent optimizing drilling for the oil&amp;amp;gas industry, along with how cutthroat that market is, I don&amp;#x27;t see the cost coming down significantly. As a result, deep geothermal will likely be limited to niche regions like Iceland. And you need deep geothermal to scale it past the existing locations.&lt;p&gt;I would love to be wrong, since geothermal checks all the boxes for renewables and is also suitable for base load power, but I don&amp;#x27;t see an obvious path forward short of a drilling tech miracle.&lt;p&gt;(source: Climate and Energy R&amp;amp;D group)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lumost</author><text>Has the lifetime of deep GeoThermal wells been studied at all? Unlike oil&amp;#x2F;natural gas drilling, a deep geothermal well should provide energy indefinitely barring collapse or obstruction of the well. I&amp;#x27;d venture the cost of shutdown and clearing obstructions is fairly low relative to the initial CapEx of the well.</text></comment>