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KellyCriteriontoday at 3:24 PM1 replyview on HN

If it goes down, what happens to all the buildings using geo/earth heat with these probe heads to collect the energy?

Does this effect occur in lets say 10-20 years or is this longterm like 50y+?


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quickthrowmantoday at 3:37 PM

At a certain point there won’t be enough heat recovered from the geothermal side of the loop to generate steam on the process side of the loop and power generation will cease. I’m not smart enough to calculate how long that will take, however. I think you could still use the geothermal energy at a lower temperature for district heating and cooling, but a mechanical engineer would be more qualified to answer that.

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