Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2025 Poal.co

The Kola Superdeep Borehole reached temperatures of 500 degrees at the bottom. If you could dig down to where the temperature reaches just over 212 degrees, would you be able to run a steam engine by putting water in the hole and letting it boil to create steam to power the engine. As long as the heat remained the same and was able to properly run the steam engine, it would seem like a very renewable energy source as the water could be collected and dumped back down the hole to repeat the process indefinitely.

Kola Superdeep Borehole, https://archive.is/0zuzE Steam engines, https://www.mpoweruk.com/steam_turbines.htm

The Kola Superdeep Borehole reached temperatures of 500 degrees at the bottom. If you could dig down to where the temperature reaches just over 212 degrees, would you be able to run a steam engine by putting water in the hole and letting it boil to create steam to power the engine. As long as the heat remained the same and was able to properly run the steam engine, it would seem like a very renewable energy source as the water could be collected and dumped back down the hole to repeat the process indefinitely. Kola Superdeep Borehole, https://archive.is/0zuzE Steam engines, https://www.mpoweruk.com/steam_turbines.htm

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (74).
[–] [deleted] • 0 pt 3y

That's not how it usually works.

What they do is, they run a pipe down the well deep enough that it will heat the water to near boiling then the pipe does a "U-turn" back up still liquid, but very hot. 99°C

Because the level is the same at the input (cold tank) as the output (hot tank), almost no energy is required for pumping. The water just levels out by itself.

Then a minuscule amount of natural gas is needed to finish boiling the water to turn it into steam to power the generator.