DTN 026: The quest for enhanced geothermal is heating up in the US

Plus: Robotic bees, NASA's first new wind tunnel in 40 years, WormGPT, metals can heal themselves, and more.

Jul 24, 2023

Welcome to The Deep Tech Newsletter, a weekly exploration of the business, science, and engineering behind the world’s most important frontier technologies.

The Big Picture

A Vast Untapped Green Energy Source Is Hiding Beneath Your Feet

“Since 2018, Moore has led a $220 million bet by the US Department of Energy (DOE), called FORGE, or the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, that this heat can be harnessed to produce electricity in most parts of the world. Geothermal energy is today a rare resource, tapped only in places where the crust has cracked a little and heat mingles with groundwater, producing hot springs or geysers that can power electricity-generating turbines. Such watery hot spots are rare, yet there’s hot rock everywhere, if you drill deep enough. Moore’s project is trying to create an “enhanced” geothermal system, or EGS, by reaching hot, dense rock like granite, cracking it open to form a reservoir, and then pumping in water to soak up heat. The water is then drawn up through a second well, emerging a few hundred degrees hotter than it was before: an artificial hot spring that can drive steam turbines. That design can sound straightforward, plumbing water from point A to point B, but despite a half-century of work, the complexities of engineering and geology have meant no one has managed to make EGS work at practical scale—yet.” (WIRED)

The Illusion of AI’s Existential Risk

“Extinction from a rogue AI is an extremely unlikely scenario that depends on dubious assumptions about the long-term evolution of life, intelligence, technology and society. It is also an unlikely scenario because of the many physical limits and constraints a superintelligent AI system would need to overcome before it could “go rogue” in such a way. There are multiple natural checkpoints where researchers can help mitigate existential AI risk by addressing tangible and pressing challenges without explicitly making existential risk a global priority.” (Noema Magazine)

TSMC delays U.S. chip plant start to 2025 due to labor shortages

“Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. said it will push back the start of mass production at its plant in Arizona to 2025 due to a shortage of skilled workers and technicians needed to move equipment into the facility. TSMC Chairman Mark Liu said the world's biggest contract chipmaker is entering a critical phase of handling and installing some of the "most advanced equipment" at the plant, its advanced first chip facility in the U.S. in more than 20 years. Mass production was previously slated to begin late next year.” (Nikkei)

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Miscellanea

WormGPT: The Generative AI Tool Cybercriminals Are Using / Hundreds of drones plunge into Yarra River after malfunction / Human-Powered Air-Compressor and Energy Storage System / The Tantalizing, Lonely Search for Alien Life / Wikipedia-grounded chatbot “outperforms all baselines” on factual accuracy / AI-Generated South Park / Space material found on a beach in Western Australia / Vacuum Airship / The Moon Landing Was Opposed by Majority of US

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