Wiki says it's basically nil:

> The flow of heat from Earth's interior to the surface is estimated at 47±2 terawatts

And

> Despite its geological significance, Earth's interior heat contributes only 0.03% of Earth's total energy budget at the surface, which is dominated by 173,000 TW of incoming solar radiation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget

Thank you so much for the link, there is a lot in here that is genuinely fascinating!

For instance heat from the surface “thus penetrates only several tens of centimeters on the daily cycle and only several tens of meters on the annual cycle”

This is why ground source heat pumps are suprisingly effective. You're drawing on the yearly solar inflow to the ground, at a depth where the temperature is quite stable, due to accumulating and averaging over years.

My curiosity in using things like heat pumps is that what happens when you move too much of that heat energy away. The heat might be doing nothing but, it has been there for a long time. At what point is too much heat displaced to the surface and what is the outcome of that?

You can read about what happened to the London underground over the years.

Except the process has been sort of reversed: there was heat being introduced into the deep layers of clay and rock.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_cooling

For them to actually work the energy needs to be replaced, flowing from the hot areas to the (relatively) cold areas, mostly coming from the sun.

If you have a small area and continually pump the heat out then you end up with the inside of a freezer, which uses the same tech for exactly that purpose, but also intentionally insulates to prevent the heat getting back in.

It's probably similar to the fact that wind turbines don't stop wind around the world :D

They actually do, a bit: https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/fyi-do-wind-f...

>stop wind around the world Probably not, but do they affect local micro-climates? I have the same question about large-scale solar farms.

I've always assumed it's been looked at, so I don't worry about it particularly, but I never see anybody talk about it.

Thats for sure but, where does that energy come from? I would say it comes from the earths own rotation, would this infinitesimally slow the earth rotation?

Anyway this is fascinating stuff!

Solar radiation, ultimately (wind heats air, air expands, that creates a pressure differential which ultimately caused wind).

Maybe you‘re thinking of tidal power plants? Tides are gravitationally caused, and as far as I know tapping into them infinitesimally changes Earth‘s rotation (and to some extent probably also Earths and the Moon‘s orbit).

Well I was thinking of the geothermal energy that Quaise is pretending to extract.

Geothermal energy comes from a mixture of radioactive decay and from gravity pressuring the Earth's core into gradually solidifying over the course of billions of years.

I also read that Quaise value proposal is drilling a 20km deep hole but once you reach there, how do you transform that into usable energy? Push water to extract vapor?

I'm also curious how they would deal with rock deformation as it reaches the point of becoming less solid and more squishy. There would need to be a mechanism to maintain hole integrity post-drilling.

To your question, I'm wondering if they simply pump down water and extract resulting steam once it reaches the point of vaporization? The steam condensers and everything else are already built on-site for coal generation.

One difficulty would be handling any accumulated minerals that got into the steam loop from interaction with the rock in the hole. Unlike traditional closed-loop steam generator, an open system would pick up contaminants and eventually cause scaling.

Yes pump water down, extract supercritical steam coming out and then just use a regular turbine.

Just curious, is this process performed in alternate phases (pump water, wait for the vapor ) or is it done at the same time with different pipes in the same hole?

As another spin-off of this, I’ve always wondered how much tidal energy we can extract before we start messing up the moon’s orbit.

We lose energy from gravitational waves being emitted from the earth spinning around the sun. Causing earth to move toward the sun.

The amount lost is sufficient to power a small toaster oven.

Where can you buy one of these toaster ovens?

Can't you read?! There's just one!

...and it's kept in the basement of the BIPM, right next to the International Prototype of the Pop-Tart®.

Does it have a USB port?