Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Generating Geothermal Energy Using Shale Technology || Peter Zeihan" video.

I an Australian engineer who works in industrial control systems. I have spent some time in oil & gas industry and can recognise from the way you speak you've spent time in and around drilling crews. I'm also skeptical about the claims often made about geothermal. Its worked well in a few places where the hot rock was close to the surface. Places like California, New Zealand and Iceland. We've tried it in a number of places in Australia and its failed every time. Typically they found that after a while they just couldn't get things hot enough to create what they needed to drive turbines efficiently. Apparently they were surprised that when you start removing thermal energy that things get cooler.
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@awolffromamongus875 Yeah - agreed. The thing for geothermal will be the same as it is for oil & gas - GEOGRAPHY. Geography is also a major issue with wind solar and hydro. Its arguably the least understood factor in the energy debate.
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@jamesspry3294 No these are new holes in a different place that have been specifically drilled to geothermal power. The difference is they are using the same fracking techniques the shale oil people use to great the wells and instead of extracting oil & gas they are extracting heat. I don't know how they have actually done this system but a few years ago a system was tried in Australia that sounds similar. In Australia the hot rock was actually granite so it was very hard but also brittle and could be cracked. In that system they'd drill 2 holes and frack the hot rock between them. They'd pump water down one hole and as it went through the hot rock via the cracks caused by the fracking it would get hot and then come up the other hole. That system failed in the end to deliver as much power as they thought they could get and it wasn't economically viable. I suspect this new system is working because its a significant improvement in how much they can frack the hot rock and access the energy.
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@awolffromamongus875 There's talk of that sort of thing but no matter what's done you still have to get the rock out of the hole and when they go deep its a lot of rock. On top of that issue to stop the hole collapsing they have to put down a liner. You only have to spend about 30 minutes with people who drill to realise that its quite different to what's shown on TV. Its one of those odd areas of engineering where experience really does matter.
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@jasonfuller499 You also missed all the stories from around the world where geothermal energy FAILED. YES in the right places it works and works well but most of the time IT FAILS.
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@nobilismaximus Really and WHAT drilling experience do you actually have. I'll admit I have NONE but I am willing to listen to people who have got experience. I can tell you one thing for certain. Its NOT Bruce Willis on an asteroid.
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