At these depths, the heat of the surrounding rock can hit temperatures of around 500 degrees Celsius – enough to transform any liquid water pumped down there into a vapor-like supercritical state that's perfect for generating electricity.
That's called superheated steam. It's kinda spooky because a jet of steam at that temperature will be invisible in air, but will melt the flesh off your bones.
By 2028, the company hopes to be able to take over old coal-fueled power stations, transforming them into facilities powered by steam instead.
Umm akshually, coal power plants already use steam turbines; only the heat source would be different.
BTW I like this plan to extract geothermal energy from Yellowstone. It would make 6 GW of electricity and possibly prevent an eruption.
It is funny that just about every form of power generation is ultimately just, "we're goint to use a bunch of water moving to spin a big magnet."
Wind is just that but air, so the only one I can think of that's really different is photovoltaics. Even solar mirror plants use mirrors to focus light to make steam to spin turbines.
the coolest form of generation is heating up a fluid (like a molten salt) and causing it to flow in a coil faster and faster, generating it's own magnetic field. cuts out some of the energy waste and moving parts. magneto-hydrodynamic power generation.
Regular steam ("saturated" steam) has little droplets of water floating around it it, because it's just barely hot enough to vaporize and some of it will condense in the air. If you have a kettle or a pressure cooker with a small vent you can see this in action: the jet of steam will only be visible after it's gone a few mm out of the vent, and those first few mm will be invisible superheated steam. If it's hot enough (like 500C, so hotter than in your kitchen) it will dissipate before it has a chance to condense. You usually need a high-pressure boiler for this, or a secondary heat source like in the video that bentwookie posted.
Superheated steam was first used in steam engines because it wouldn't condense inside the cylinders, so you don't have to drain water out of the engine or worry as much about it rusting on the inside. It's also good for turbines because those water droplets would run into the turbine blades at high speed and cause pitting and damage over time.
Water vapour itself is invisible in air, we just call it humidity. What you see as steam is when the water vapour condenses out of it. IDK why superheated steam wouldn't condense but probably something to do with the high temps increasing the saturation point of the air around it.
That's called superheated steam. It's kinda spooky because a jet of steam at that temperature will be invisible in air, but will melt the flesh off your bones.
Umm akshually, coal power plants already use steam turbines; only the heat source would be different.
BTW I like this plan to extract geothermal energy from Yellowstone. It would make 6 GW of electricity and possibly prevent an eruption.
It is funny that just about every form of power generation is ultimately just, "we're goint to use a bunch of water moving to spin a big magnet." Wind is just that but air, so the only one I can think of that's really different is photovoltaics. Even solar mirror plants use mirrors to focus light to make steam to spin turbines.
all power plants are just giant kettles
the coolest form of generation is heating up a fluid (like a molten salt) and causing it to flow in a coil faster and faster, generating it's own magnetic field. cuts out some of the energy waste and moving parts. magneto-hydrodynamic power generation.
Neat! I'll have to look that up.
That's the kind of awesome plan a New Deal 2.0 (or even better, a socialist US) could do. Make the Hoover Dam look quaint by comparison.
earth is the tissue
really? why?
Regular steam ("saturated" steam) has little droplets of water floating around it it, because it's just barely hot enough to vaporize and some of it will condense in the air. If you have a kettle or a pressure cooker with a small vent you can see this in action: the jet of steam will only be visible after it's gone a few mm out of the vent, and those first few mm will be invisible superheated steam. If it's hot enough (like 500C, so hotter than in your kitchen) it will dissipate before it has a chance to condense. You usually need a high-pressure boiler for this, or a secondary heat source like in the video that bentwookie posted.
Superheated steam was first used in steam engines because it wouldn't condense inside the cylinders, so you don't have to drain water out of the engine or worry as much about it rusting on the inside. It's also good for turbines because those water droplets would run into the turbine blades at high speed and cause pitting and damage over time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superheated_steam
I fuckin love learning about things
Water vapour itself is invisible in air, we just call it humidity. What you see as steam is when the water vapour condenses out of it. IDK why superheated steam wouldn't condense but probably something to do with the high temps increasing the saturation point of the air around it.
Oh sick that makes sense to me