Can thermal generators be built anywhere to power anything?

>>61148912
As far as I know:

Geothermal sources are not permanent when they are exploited..

Not easily available (no return of the investment) unless near volcanic sources...

>>61148912
when engineering manages to transform heat directly into eletrical power, that will the greatest energetic revolution we will have.

>>61149178
Peltier cells.
Next.

>>61149178
already done but inefficient.

>>61149178
It's inefficient and will never, in any scenario, beat alternative power sources.

>>61148912
Geothermal is limited to VERY specific geographical locations

Its much more feasible to have some sort of chemical engine or a small nuclear reactor

>>61148912
>Talking aboit actual technology
Get a well deserved bump

>>61148912
Company I used to work for when I did residential construction built a few places with geothermal heat to save money. Super high r value products throughout the place, and a couple deep wells in the foundation for heat.
Geothermal isn't something everyone can have, the geography of the area is the determining factor. You've got to get deep into the earth, and that means you're drilling deep, way below the water table in some areas. You don't want to break through any oil containing shale veins either or you can get contamination with natural gas and some nasty smelling stuff.

Though geothermal isn't usable everywhere, the ground temp is stable everywhere if you go down a few feet. So you won't be getting any free energy, but you have plenty of insulation from the outside to make the temp stable regardless.

>>61149178
If we could turn heat directly into electricity we would just harvest everything to the point of extreme diminishing returns. That'd be like the biggest miracle in the history of man. Ambient air, body heat, pick up waste from exchangers, engines, even monitors and TVs.

Tell me more. Interesting stuff.

>>61149178
>when engineering manages to transform heat directly into eletrical power, that will the greatest energetic revolution we will have
Google "heat exchanger"

Geologist here…

>>61148950
>Geothermal sources are not permanent when they are exploited..
No (unless we are talking about billions of years)
>>61149612
>Geothermal is limited to VERY specific geographical locations
No (unless we are taking costs into account)

First, we have to claryfy about what kind of geothermal we are talking. Shallow (for heating and cooling) or deep (heating and power generation).

Shallow is easy, cheap and can be done almost everywhere, but you can only get some rather limited amounts of heat (cold) out of it. Think residential use, or industrial size, if you have space around your property, not used by others. Also, you need external power (electricity) to run your heat pump.

Deep is hard and expensive, but theoretically can be done everywhere, if you drill down deep enough, but the deeper you get, the more expensive it becomes.
Wheres shallow systems just need a temperature difference to the outside air, deep ones need to be hot enough to produce steam to run a generator off (so essentially a "classic" powerplant, but your heat does not come from coal or nuclear).

Essentially, we have the technology for almost all kinds of obstacles you can encounter when drilling for deep geothermal (just ask the oil guys), but it's very costly and you can not with 100% certainty forecast what you will have to drill through.

And then there is the issue of causing earthquakes, which terrifies nimbys and stopped many a geothermal project.

tl;dr:
it works, but expensive.