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Comment by jasonwatkinspdx | Hacker News Reader

While all that is true the original article concerns using high intensity microwaves to drill, with an unbalanced purge gas. One of the advantages of this is the potential to create a glass casement as you drill. I'm not in the industry but it's a neat paper and your comment reads like you're simply unfamiliar with what they're proposing, ambitious as it is.

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That’s because what they are proposing is untried fantasy at this point, and he’s talking about proven field reality.

MIT has verified the basics concepts at lower power levels. So while there's still uncertainty and risk here, it's wrong to say it's totally untested. It's trying to make the jump from lab demonstration to commercial viability, which is exactly what you'd expect a research project like this to be doing.

There is a vast difference between ‘verified at low power levels in theory’ and ‘bore hole maser drilling to multiple miles below the earth’.

The jump from lab demonstration to commercial viability is exactly the place where almost every tech trick fails.

So there is no need to pay this thing any attention. Geothermal under ideal conditions is not competitive. Steam turbines have operating costs solar and wind do not.

This is the same reason nukes are a dead end, and D-T fusion besides. It doesn't matter how cheap your heat source is if you need to pay for operating a steam turbine to get any power out. Solar and wind provide high-grade energy directly, so are impossible to compete with anywhere they work.

There are uses for direct heat piped underground to heat buildings, but you don't need to bore to 10km, or even 3km, to get enough heat for that.

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