AHC: Earliest Plausible Use of EGS

Looks to be difficult with all the deep drilling and so on, espeically compared to cola and oil. It probably only becomes viable with the development of deep drilling gear used in other spheres, but when these other spheres such as oil become uneconomic.
 
Maybe when oil drilling technology is sufficiently developed, a failed oil speculator manages to get something off the ground. Would it be plausible, and when?
 
Sorry, I personally think there's a lot of low hanging fruit in the way of energy recycling without having to drill 5km holes in the ground.
 
Sorry, I personally think there's a lot of low hanging fruit in the way of energy recycling without having to drill 5km holes in the ground.

Well, considering we're already drilling 10Km holes to get oil... :rolleyes:

Anyway, I was asking more as a AH question than a future plan.
 
Yes, but that's to get portable energy that can be put in planes, ships and road vehicles. EGS, unless I've totally misunderstood, is a way of generating electricity which isn't portable in any meaningful way. And there are easier ways to get electricty, energy recylcing from industry could get us 20% for no extra fuel consumption for starters.
 
Primarily, OTL, electricity was provided for by coal, which was excavated by digging into the ground and sending people down, and only in places where coal was in high supply; EGS can be done pretty much anywhere.

Remember, I'm asking this as an AHC in it's own right; I've already got one on energy policy overall...
 
Well, considering we're already drilling 10Km holes to get oil... :rolleyes:


Please don't confuse oil wells with the kinds of "holes" needed for a thermal energy plants.

One is relatively simple "bleeder" or "relief" pipe which has a relatively short lifespan while the other has to essentially work indefinitely as an integral part of a heat engine.

As Riain pointed out, most other forms of energy are much "lower hanging fruit". Absent of some long funded and long operating "energy independence" initiative, with all the political shenanigans that implies, I can't see this happening much earlier than it has in the OTL.

The Wiki page you linked mentions a US project which was funded for 18 years, still failed to produce, and is only now being reconsidered thanks to a few technological advances.
 
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