Geothermal energy might be the most appealing of all renewables. Unlike wind, solar, or even wave or tidal energy, it produces constant and reliable long-term power. Iceland has got this all figured out, but they have it easy. The entire country is (luckily) perched on top of an active volcano. For the rest of us, tapping into geothermal power is harder, because you have to dig for it: About 5 kilometers down, you can find rock hot enough to turn water into steam.
Geothermal energy might be the most appealing of all renewables. Unlike wind, solar, or even wave or tidal energy, it produces constant and reliable long-term power. Iceland has got this all figured out, but they have it easy. The entire country is (luckily) perched on top of an active volcano. For the rest of us, tapping into geothermal power is harder, because you have to dig for it: About 5 kilometers down, you can find rock hot enough to turn water into steam.
The average depth of an oil well is only about a kilometer and a half, and drilling down to 5 km (especially through hard rock) using conventional technology isn’t trivial and definitely not worth the cost. A company called HyperSciences thinks it has a better way. It wants to harness geothermal energy with a new kind of drilling technology that does away with the “drill” bit completely, using projectiles fired into the ground instead.
It’s simple, really: Instead of slowly grinding away at rocks with drill bits that perpetually wear out, just shoot holes in the ground with bullets. According to HyperScience, you can bore a hole ten times faster than traditional drilling equipment this way.
Read more at: IEEE Spectrum
Image Credit: Hypersciences
