Comment

Comment by ncmncm

Geothermal power always sounds like a great idea. And it used to be one.

But nowadays, anything that needs a steam turbine is going to be more costly to operate than wind or solar + cheap storage, because steam turbines need expensive periodic maintenance.

(Geothermal heating, or for extra credit heating and cooling, remains viable.)

If you want to rescue geothermal power generation, you need to put in the engineering work to make a viable alternative to the steam turbine, one that needs a lot less, or anyway a lot cheaper, maintenance. Presumably it is still a turbine, but designed for a different working fluid. Some have suggested supercritical CO2 for this role.

parent ncmncm 4 years ago

Discussion

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton