The green future of coal mining

The box! The BOX!

Whenever I see nonsense about the "cost" of clean energy, I always remind myself the magnitude at which dirty energy is subsidized.

"its all heating water to spin a turbine?" "always has been."

"District heating . . ." Tories: "COMMUNISM DETECTED"

New coal meta just dropped

I live in a town that was built by coal mines. There is a lake across from my house that has a drain pipe supposedly connected to one of the shafts. The water that comes out of it is like bathtub water, and no matter how far the temperature drops that part of the lake does not freeze. One day I hope my town would consider installing district heating from the mines. I'm sure it will bring a lot of pride to families who have parents and grandparents that worked in the pit. knowing that they're still heating our homes today.

I think the thing to realize about these closed-loop geothermal systems is that their benefits are hard to quantify monetarily. They provide low-carbon power, but not intermittently like Wind and Solar. But unlike Wind and Solar, they have very small surface footprints, meaning we're not dedicating large tracts of land to wind and solar farms. More importantly, they provide baseload power without the need for uranium mining or the associated regulatory system required to keep a nuclear power plant safe (because the greatest threat of a nuclear power plant isn't the tech, it's human stupidity). So we have a tech that 1) provides consistent power; 2) is low-carbon; 3) requires no destructive mining, expensive maintenance, or disposal of dangerous fuels; and 4) takes up very little space (much smaller than a nuke plant and vastly smaller than wind and solar farms). So while yes, it's monetarily expensive, we are paying up front for the benefits.

Man, this trusty Adobe Premiere Preset for 'look at this graph' gets me every time

"The extreme north" 🫤 Place is south of my entire country... 😅

More Simpsons references, I only learn via Simpsons references

I audibly gasped when Soup came out because I really wasn’t expecting him, but y’all’s content scratches the same itch so it makes a ton of sense:)

I think I read one of the problems with an open-system for geothermal is, that these waters often contain a hecking ton of salts and chemicals that can be quite dangerous to equipment, like pipes, pumps etc. So you would have to develop stuff that could withstand these conditions, so it would be better keep a system closed that does not draw in all these chemicals, yet drilling such tubes all the way 5 kilometers into the ground probably risks them being damaged be any kind of underground movement.

Damn could have sworn the geo thermal guy was the spiffing brit at first

Nice! In Sweden we've decarbonised heating since the 90s, heat pumps (ground and air) and district heating instead of local burning of fuel. Biggest source of heat in district heating is reused heat (heat that would otherwise be lost). There's a lot of low hanging fruit in district heating. :) But then, you should also watch how much energy housing uses.. Swedens energy use per square meter is one of the lowest in Europe even though we have a lot more winter here.

Love the video and all, but, as an American, I can't help but be amazed by the thought that 75%+ of local authorities' budgets are spent on elderly care. In the US, its rare to find a city that isn't spending more than 50% of its budget toward the police... This is nothing to say of climate change or moving towards renewable energies, but just a tangential observation that I hadn't thought about in a while.

This is excellent, engaging, informative, fact based and hopeful? That's not everyday, and it seems i really need to subscribe to that soup emporium guy as well, awesome collaboration.

Super interesting, I genuinely didn't know the intricacies of geothermal heating networks - seems like a good idea. Also absolutely loving The Simpsons references.

If you consider the cost of geothermal heat as % of GDP of a nation. You are going to find that the cost is really, really low. But something ,something rich people and big coal companies and so on.

Installing a PILE of pipes can also be seen as a huge surge of Union Plumber Jobs… (Also mostly doing freshwater/heat transfer fluid, not sewage)

Also, it gives you an excuse to force the circulation of the mine water, which can become acidic or hazardous if allowed to sit.