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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

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[–] • 4 pts 3y

The steam itself doesn't directly drive a turbine. It's just what causes enough of a pressure differential to act on the turbine blades and make the whole thing move. If you put everything down at the bottom of the hole, then the temperature and pressure would be equal across the system, and nothing would happen.

So instead you pipe the steam up from the source (where the temperature and thus pressure is high) into the turbines (where the pressure is low).

[+] [deleted] • 2 pts 3y
[–] • 0 pt 3y

If you put everything down at the bottom of the hole, then the temperature and pressure would be equal across the system, and nothing would happen.

That can't be entirely true. If I had a sealed reservoir full of water, with a pipe going down into the water, and I throw it on the stove(or inside an oven for that matter), it will boil and water will come out of the pipe.