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Arrays of Networked Standard Geothermal Wells
Robert METCALFE, Emmanuel LUJAN, Collin WITTENSTEIN, Andrew INGLIS, Alan EDELMAN
[MIT CSAIL, USA]
GEOTHERMAL ARRAYS -- Time to scale the harvesting of geothermal heat for conversion to grid electricity. And not just because geothermal is clean. No, we choose geothermal because it is now emerging firm, abundant, safe, and competitively harvested almost anywhere. How best to scale geothermal? We urge the development of … geothermal arrays. With our Internet mindsets in place, let us not continue toward ever bigger geothermal mainframes. Instead, let us network smaller, standard, competitively-sourced wells into geothermal arrays. While accelerating progress continues at the well level, let us move up to the array level. Let us chat with our AIs about the energy they will need and about how soon to deliver that energy with capacity factors (CFs) approaching 100% and with levelized costs of electricity (LCOE) on a new plateau, less than a cent per kilowatt-hour 1¢/kWh.
Topic: Modeling