Comment by pfdietz
11 hours ago
If the coffin needed any more nails, this puts the final kibosh on that cancelled SMR project out there that centered on Utah and Idaho, the one involving NuScale. Geothermal makes much more sense for them now.
There's a geothermal project at the Newberry Volcano in Oregon that also looks interesting (different people doing that).
Yes! It's near where I live, very excited to see this come online.
I don't see why necessarily, they are in the same ballpark LCOE cost wise. The advantage of enhanced geothermal is that you can potentially build it relatively quickly but that is more a policy choice.
The other advantage is political feasibility. Rational or not, people freak out the moment they hear the word "nuclear". Whether people should be this way is irrelevant if your goal is to have a project that succeeds. What's relevant is that they are.
One should be careful to not equate LCOE from demonstrated construction costs, vs. LCOE from projected construction costs in sales presentations.
I don't think when all is said and done SMRs will be anywhere close to the cost of energy from this kind of geothermal.
Does this support improved availability and economics of district heating?
In theory it could. The advantage of enhanced geothermal is it allows for a much wider variety of sites to be used compared to conventional geothermal. So, it may be possible to create one near an existing district heating system and use the excess heat for it.
I don't think district heating had anything to do with the CFPP.
I was referring to enhanced geothermal in general for district heating, as I believe you are potentially a subject matter expert and qualified to opine.
2 replies →
DISTRICT HEATING?
WHERE?
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