this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Geothermal Power Is a Climate Moon Shot Beneath Our Feet (www.newyorker.com)
submitted 2 days ago by kalkulat to c/[email protected]
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"This road is long, and much of the map remains blank. The biggest problem is drilling miles through hot rock, safely. If scientists can do that, however, next-generation geothermal power could supply clean energy for eons."

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[–] glimse 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Lol I don't believe you read the article. Don't lie now when anyone can scroll up and see that you wrote:

You dont have to go that deep to get to warmer than surface air, which is all thats needed to run a heatpump. I dont know what that group is aiming at, but its definitely not a moonshot.

They aren't talking about drilling for heatpumps. Not knowing what they're aiming for is a result of not having read the article.

Current drilling technology can't get us deep enough for the energy we need to use geothermal as a power source. The company in the article is trying a very new method using gyrotrons to vaporize the rock after traditional drilling caps hits a financial barrier.

Real Engineering just put out a video on it if you'd rather watch than read.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Your absolutely right, I didn't read the full article. It was clearly a puff piece. There is no new science here.

Heat pump doesn't just refer to the home heating and cooling systems, it can also be refer to any process that can boost the temperature up to the usable temperature.

Current geothermal systems dont require super critical steam right out of the ground, they boost the temp from relatively low temps (<180c) up to usable temperature. This technology has existed for decades, and can be rolled out right now, no moon shots required. Oil companies have dug down 12km, which is enough to get to 180 across a huge portion of the US.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/56b679/us_temperatures_at_the_depth_of_10_km_62_mi/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_cycle

I'm sorry about the fusion comment, which was rude, but I haven't been deliberately rude to you, I'd appreciate the same.

[–] glimse 3 points 1 day ago

I think we were both being rude but I'm willing to drop it

The goal of this new project from Quaise (what the article refers to) is digging deeper and cheaper. We are physically able to get to the depths needed but it's prohibitively expensive. If the technology works (it does) and is reliable (remains to be seen outside of a lab), it's a HUGE deal because now suddenly geothermal is cost-effective.

Also worth noting that something cool about their approach is the tunnel creates it's own pipe