'Thought' seems a bit strong. I get that sensory stimuli created some sort of reaction in your brain - but that's not necessarily thought. Thought, I would suggest, is a process of challenging those autonomic mental reactions - and I see no evidence of that here. What I see is the stubborn post-rationalisation of an automonic reaction. Thought would have altrered your position by now. Were you actually thinking you would be forced to accept that the energy is there, and that the fossil fuel industry has extensive knowledge about drilling holes deep into the earth, 40 years in advance of anything NASA had available. You would be forced to accept that "experimentally proven by NASA" - while a blatant appeal to authority, is a credible basis upon which to claim it's a viable technology. Instead, what I see is a dismissive use of the term 'theorectical' - as an opening slavo, and what that suggests is that you are arguing from an attitude - reacting; not thinking, for thinking is to be aware, and sceptical of one's attitude. — karl stone

I think (here not used to indicate an instance of thinking, but to voice some amount of uncertainty or subjectivity in what I'm about to say) that what I did was in fact thinking in this case.

That tentative conclusion that you might be talking about a 'merely' theoretical study, came as an answer to the question in my mind: 'why isn't magma-geothermal being used everywhere by now, if it was shown to be that good by NASA?'.

My priors going in were something like (not exhaustive)
1) NASA does seem like a trustworthy organisation,
2) I don't think Karl Stone is straight up lying,
3) Magma-geothermal isn't being used on a large scale anywhere
4) There are a lot of studies being made (in case of renewables for instance) that don't take into account full costs and availability of human and material resources when talking about replacing fossil fuels, i.e. they are theoretical in that they don't take into account real world constraints

Running that question through my mind, I thus came up with an explanation that violated my priors the least/fit into my view of the world the best. I did look at some of those priors, but didn't find anything that would make me want to reconsider them. And then you shared the link to the study, which only confirms my tentative conclusion that is was only theoretical. As a kind of Bayesian, that is what I think thinking is.

"Theoretical" is in no way meant to be dismissive by the way, just that it doesn't look at real world implementation yet. It is part of the process, and a vital step in coming up with new technologies... you have to start somewhere.

Anyway I stand by my original position, that we can't sensibility talk about the viability of this in relation to other energy-sources, if we don't have data about the costs and other practical stuff. Maybe it could work at scale, I just don't know.

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I did consider that possibility, and I kinda figured you would bring that up as a possible answer to that question, which is why I added "not exhaustive" afterwards... I won't deny that political and industrial interests probably play a role in choosing what energy sources to go with, I just don't think in this particular instance that would be the most important reason why it wasn't adopted. Sure, vested interests will push for more financing in their particular sector, but lobbying only gets you so far. If it was such a clearly abundant and cost-efficient energy-source, politicians wouldn't be able to steer political decision processes in other directions... not in an issue with so much public attention. The simpler explanation in my mind is that there are in fact some technical, technological or practical issues that hamper implementation everywhere on a large enough scale.

Raise the standard of living and the people having so many children will rapidly diminish. — ssu

In order to maintain the relatively high standard of living for some people, many other people have to live a relatively low standard. So that's not really a solution.

And the interesting fact: Japan hasn't had an economic crash or societal collapse. So a World with a diminishing global population might not be so bad after all.

In Japan, living a modest, minimalist lifestyle is a virtue. Not everyone there lives that way, but some do. And if too many did, that would bring problems for the economy eventually.

Plain living and high thinking not only is no more, it seems it isn't the solution some hope it would be either.

In order to maintain the relatively high standard of living for some people, many other people have to live a relatively low standard. So that's not really a solution. — baker

Why?

Prosperity isn't fixed. It's not a game of someone wins, others loose.

For example, take all the Americans of 2022. Compare them with all the Americans of 1822.

How will you argue that compared to two hundred years ago, only some Americans have become more prosperous, but others have it worse than in 1822.

It is a solution.

The real question is how to get there.

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It does look a bit suspect, certainly given the history fossil fuels industries have with lobbying. So sure, one can create a credible narrative that explains it in that way.

But here's another perspective. Scientists do have an interest in making their particular field attractive for investments. Most research projects rely on government funding to keep on existing and the succes of a researchers more or less gets measured in how much funding they can secure for their projects.... So that's another narrative one could create around the data we have.

What sways me however is that it isn't being used on a large scale anywhere in the world right now, eventhough energy security is such an important issue. It's not only about the US and NASA. I'm not an American, and I know that they are researching deep geothermal in my country, but it's always only at very specific locations to see if it's even viable there. Never is it seen merely as a question of implementing a technology that we know will work anywhere. You'd think that if it was such a no-brainer, they would've come to that conclusion, a good 40 years after NASA already did.

The idea that sustainability requires sacrifice of human and economic welfare is very widely believed, but I think it is untrue; and is in fact an artefact of the anti-capitalist politics of the green movement since the 1960's. It's now so ingrained an idea it goes unquestioned by left and right; but there's a sound basis in physics to say that resources are a function of the energy available to create them. — karl stone

:up:

The creation of prosperity (or wealth) is really not like the law of conservation of energy. Yet the false idea persists. Basically it's the consequences of Marxism: that the capitalist just takes something from the worker, hence the capitalist just steals from the worker and thus we would be better of without the capitalist in the first place. Yet the fact is that without the innovations, without the enterprises or the ideas of arranging a service, the potential capitalist would do something else and the workers does something else. Perhaps they'd be all working in the fields trying desperately to grow enough crops as the society was before the industrial (and agricultural) revolutions.

And magma energy is a perfect example of this: a basically untapped energy resource (perhaps now only used in some way in places with highly volcanic activity). If we could harness efficiently and cost-effectively, it would create more prosperity for us. It wouldn't be something "stolen from the poor". It would need the technology, the investment, the enterprise effort and simply the competition with other energy resources to make it the optimal energy resource.

Yet this simple fact will hardly have any impact to some. Too many people are mesmerized with ideas that improvements happen only by basically stealing from others, that capitalism and the market mechanism are bad, because there are obvious problems and injustices around us. Hence throw everything out...at least at a theoretical level. Yet central planning and socialism without market mechanism hasn't worked. But who cares about history?

The limits to growth fanaticism doesn't come from marxism I'd say, but more from some religious inspired eco-romantic back to nature notion couple maybe with some neo-Malthusianism, i.e the garden of Eden, i.e. the tower of Babel, i.e. Akira... there's tons of old and modern myths about it. It's the idea that reliance on knowledge and technology will do us in ultimately (human hubris) and that we need to return to some previous more pure natural state to save us all.

Also Marx was all for industrialization, It was the reason the bourgeois historically could have taken over from nobility, which ultimately paved the way for the proletariat to take over. It's a question of distribution and who controls the means of production for Marxists, wealth and prosperity an sich are fine. Not so for back to nature-guy.

That's a good point.

In a way all of these are criticisms of our present, either romantic or ideological, more things that some just say and not true alternatives.

Also Marx was all for industrialization, It was the reason the bourgeois historically could have taken over from nobility, which ultimately paved the way for the proletariat to take over. It's a question of distribution and who controls the means of production for Marxists, wealth and prosperity an sich are fine. — ChatteringMonkey

Marxism wanted to replace the market mechanism with central planning. In a way, it is a belief in the human intelligence and our technocratic ability to plan. Yet the fact is that we cannot plan what the next technological (or scientific) breakthrough will be. And we cannot assume to know what technology will be the most cost-effective, productive decades from now.

The romantic "nature guy" opposition is even more ideological or should I say religious. Perhaps the 21st Century person knows this idea from the Avenger -films bad guy Thanos, who came to the conclusion that there are too many lives for the resources the universe has. The idea of course is ridiculous and as depicted on the movie, quite evil. And so is the bizarre ideas of the neo-Luddites. The Luddite argument can be easily shown not to be true as the industrial revolution didn't bring us hoards of beggars roaming the countryside as there would be no work. Also the idea that because of technology, people won't find work is also strange. Yes, we can indeed work less, but that isn't the same that there would be an idle class perhaps at best engaging in a dialogue on a Philosophy Forum. (Even if active here, I do work also.)

At the end, perhaps it's just that optimism just seems so naive and pessimism seems for us so realistic.

The romantic "nature guy" opposition is even more ideological or should I say religious. — ssu

As opposed to what? There's no default position on how the world ought to be from which a concept of 'back-to-nature' might be an ideological deviation. Your own personal preference for how the world ought to be is ideological to no lesser a degree.

One may well dislike modern technology. It's not just a given that we must maintain as high a population of humans as it's possible to achieve. We each argue for the world to be the way we think it best.

By all means criticise the arguments (technology=no work, for example), but arguing that they are ideologically driven is impotent; all arguments are.

There's no default position how the world ought to be, right, but there's a way the world is right now. And the way the world is, informs what the world can be, and therefor what the world should be. What should be is constraint by what is. Of course people disagree, but that doesn't mean that some visions just aren't very plausible from where we are now.

I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say.

I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say. — ChatteringMonkey

I agree. The point I was making was that absolutely every single solution to that problem will be ideologically driven. If we want to feed the 7 billion with high tech solutions - that's an ideological commitment to technology. If we want to use the most low tech solutions possible and bring the population down as fast as we can - that too is an ideological commitment. If we believe that more 'natural' methods of agriculture can be high yielding enough to feed everyone - that too is an ideological commitment (after all, it's not as if the high tech methods exist yet, so why can't we equally imagine future low-tech methods being discovered).

What I object to is the glossing of status-quo based solutions with the veneer of pragmatism as an attempt to paint them as more 'grown up' a solution, to paint all others as ideological, but the present state of affairs as being somehow more down-to-earth.

We are where we are because of an ideological commitment to the principles of governance and economics which guide our decisions. We needn't be.

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I like nature guy, I'm nature guy to some extent, but we can't return to some previous more innocent state of being without facing the consequences that entails. Back-to-nature should own up to the consequences, and in a world of 7, 8 billion people those aren't pretty I'd say. — ChatteringMonkey

And those consequences aren't usually then thought through. Because the idea goes that we simply are consuming too much, hence let's consume dramatically less. The problem with this is that we need that scientific and technological improvements, because otherwise we are truly prisoners of our present carbon based energy production ...or society in general. A huge economic depression will surely our planet greener (as we saw during the Covid lockdown), but it will also cease any desire to make investments and will cause political crises. The idea that we could just put then investments could be put towards R&D (by central planning) simply doesn't understand how complex the world is.

The best way forward is typically something which reeks to a political compromise and which leaves many very disappointed on the outcome. And likely something that only historians will later see as important breakthroughs.

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They don't seem that devoted — karl stone

No, they don't. Not in Washington, nor in most capitols.

It isn't that they are so much opposed to geo-thermal as they are opposed to risking their economies, as currently operated. This is not a mistaken danger. A sudden switch away from fossil fuels to any other system could not be done overnight, and the transition is more likely to be wrenching and wrecking rather than smooth and pleasant--whether the destination is geothermal, hydrogen, photovoltaic, wind, or hydro.

Yes, global warming is going to be maximally wrenching and wrecking, so much so that we (collectively, everybody) are well advised to take the risks involved in dramatic change, now.

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Sorry you missed the big meeting where all of this was decided. Your gold plated invitation and all-expense-paid ultra-luxury hotel reservation must have been lost in the mail.

Relatively few major decisions about economies are made by governments. Most economic decisions in the capitalist sphere are made by investors (the stock markets), corporate boards, private capital, investment banks, very rich individuals, and the like. The Federal Reserve (in the US) makes big decisions, but the Fed is only a quasi-government organization. It's mostly a creature of the banking industry with a mandate to maintain liquidity and keep inflation around 2% and the official unemployment rate as low as possible.

So, millions of large investors vote semi-second by semi-second on all sorts of economic questions. One question they have voted on is whether to invest in geothermal power. Again and again, big money has shied away from that -- and other -- unfamiliar or risky kinds of projects. In most places, nuclear power has gotten a cold shoulder from investors as a result of 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

Investors are a nervous lot -- bent on buying low, selling high, and maximizing profits. Nervous and a bit fickle. They live their lives with at least one eye on the market's ticker tape. They are mostly risk averse.

"Hey, everyone. Invest in International Magmatron! We'll drill into mostly quiet volcanos in the Pacific Northwest and power up Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. It's your can't-lose opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this futuristic thermorama."

Investors read the prospectus and got clammy hands, hyperventilated, and required medical attention.

In the meantime, there is the big multi-trillion dollar petrochemical industry that is in place, predictable, and cranking out billions of dollars in profits. Well, sure... it's wrecking the planet, but it IS very profitable, and everybody likes profits. The planet might die in a century but our Dynamo Energy Fund could go broke in 15 minutes, if we're not careful. We just hate going broke!

S0, Karl, that's how decisions about magma energy, and many other worthwhile projects are made. It's not nice, I hate it, but that is, unfortunately, the way the system works.

frack with one hand and carbon tax with the other; how could such obviously contradictory policies be enacted, and be accepted by lawmakers, scientists, protest groups, businesses and individuals. — karl stone

Capitalism, as Karl Marx pointed out, is chock full of contradictions.

You don't have to be a Marxist to see that. Humans, with rare exceptions, are the very model of modern, major, contradictions. Cue Gilbert and Sullivan.

Groups of "lawmakers, scientists, protest groups, businesses and individuals" have disparate interests, within the group and between the groups. Not just one or two disparate interests, but numerous disparate interests.

That's why preserving the plant's ecosystem is only partly a technical problem. It's largely a human behavior problem, and an obstacle that human behavior has so far not been very successful at solving,

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it's the dumbest thing you've ever written — karl stone

I beg to differ. I've written dumber things.

Yes, the government does do some R&D investment. Out of the US Federal budget of 2.3 Trillion Dollars, 106 Million Dollars was allocated to the Geothermal Office. What they do, actually, I don't know. Clearly Congress is not excited about geothermal. They devoted 250 Million Dollars to nuclear energy, not a huge vote of confidence either.

The members of the House and Senate also live their lives with one eye on the markets, and the other eye on on Bureau of Labor statistics, Treasury reports, Government Budget Office reports, and polling survey results. The thought of millions of redundant workers in the petrochemical sector or a collapse of the trillions of dollars petrochemical industry horrifies them, as well it should.

One of the points of which I have been trying to convince you is that a transformation of the energy sector (particularly concerning fossil fuels) cannot occur without severe dislocations in the world economy. Economic dislocation, collapse, destruction, etc. isn't merely inconvenient -- it will be fatal to a lot of people whose livelihoods disappear.

Supposing that we can just switch from a trillion dollar fossil fuel system to geo and hydrogen is a non-starter. It can be done, but it will take time--not a couple of years, not even a couple of decades. more like 50 years to get it all put together.

Your ideas are good, but they are not improved by monomania.

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How long have fossil fuels been around? I'd say 2 centuries minimum (1800s - 2000s). Every aspect of our civilization has been adapted to them to such an extent that removing oil, coal and gas would be the death knell for a way of life we've become so habituated to. What I mean is that our problem is not with energy, that we consume trillions of joules of it per annum, but that we're, in a sense, addicted to carbon! This is the reason why we're unable to effect a transition, smooth/bumpy, from fossil fuels to (say) electricity.

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Karl, I've agreed several times that geothermal (magma) is a good idea. I'm convinced.

What I have been laying out is an explanation for why the rest of the world hasn't gotten their act together and started working on it. People do not do a lot of things they should and could do, whether that is giving up tobacco, exercising more, avoiding war, or demanding magma wells NOW.

addicted to carbon! This is the reason why we're unable to effect a transition, smooth/bumpy, from fossil fuels to (say) electricity. — Agent Smith

Wrong. I've explained over and over how to transition from fossil fuels — karl stone

Agent Smith was not rejecting geothermal; he was offering a suggestion as to why it hadn't happened.

There might be an argument against geothermal, but I am neither a geologist nor a heat transfer engineer. I haven't, and I can't offer any technical objection.

I beg to differ. I've written dumber things. — Bitter Crank

If you need testimony to that effect, I'd be happy to help.

You shut up.