After looking at the picture above, I am sure you have a couple of questions.
1. What is that?
2. What does it have to do with clean energy?
The picture above is a tunneling machine much like the one that created the Chunnel under the English Channel. One was used recently where I live, Pittsburgh, to create a tunnel under the river to accommodate light rail. These machines are similarly used all over the world.
They are pretty amazing machines. They can bore a hole through solid rock 90 feet wide and line the tunnel it has made with reinforced concrete making it secure and dry so that roads and rails can be built in it.
Perhaps if I showed you the first picture from a different perspective, you might guess what it has to do with clean energy. Here:
Is it clear yet how this applies to clean energy? No?
Almost 90% of the electricity we use is generated by steam turbines. Nuclear, coal, and gas fired power plants only heat water to turn it into steam for the turbines.
Still can’t guess what this machine has to do with clean energy?
About ½ mile straight down from where you are at this moment, the temperature is over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit . That is approximately the temperature that the steam needs to be to drive a steam turbine. At that depth, the temperature remains constant.
With one of these borers, we can tunnel straight down, lining the tunnel as we go, to half a mile where the temperature will turn water into steam to drive a steam turbine. We then remove all but the very end of the machine (the actual boring part). It was designed to come out at the other side and, as a result, can’t be removed from the tunnel. Then cover that with concrete appropriately thick to take the pressure.
Then a lid for the chamber needs to be build and installed to hold and focus the steam. Pipes and pumps need to be installed to deliver water to the chamber. We, then, mount steam turbines on the wall of the tunnel. Then water is pumped into the chamber and we direct the resulting steam to drive the turbines. Nothing in but water. Nothing out. That generates pollution free electricity.
The steam coming out of the top end of the turbines will be blown upward toward the surface. Before reaching the top of the tunnel, the temperature will have fallen sufficiently to condense the steam back into water. We collect the water and pump it back into the chamber at the bottom. And the process continues with no added water.
There are technical things to be worked out, of course. It may, ultimately not be feasible.
To find out could cost $2M. That is a bit much to to crowd fund. That $2M would involve conferences with: geologists to determine what kinds of problems that will be encountered by drilling that deeply; structural and electrical engineers to work out stress factors and design factors for functionality and connectivity; computer systems designers to work out controls and software; NASA to work out how to work dealing with 1000 degree heat; manufacturers of boring tools about what modifications are needed to the borer; etc.
If that feasibility study clears most of the hurtles to safety, construction, environmental impact, etc. It may take another $15M to complete a final feasibility study that goes much more into depth and begins involving governmental agencies. This study would tell us the last important parts: how much does it cost to build one and will it make money.
I have spent considerable time trying to convince people with influence and/or money of the viability of this. I am posting it here in hopes that someone who reads this, knows someone, who knows someone with the interest and resources to take the first step.