New Mars Forums

Last week we set the number of colonists at 1,000 people.  I'm still trying to come up with my estimates for the life support requirements, because that sets the power requirements.

Net Habitable Volume Requirements are driven by this document from NASA:
Defining the Required Net Habitable Volume for Long-Duration Exploration Missions

Their defined minimum volume for 6 crew members is 27.3m^3.  For this proposed facility, I'm estimating 125m^3 of net habitable volume per person, which works out to 125,000m^3, equivalent to a "box" style building with dimensions of 50mL x 50mW x 50mH.  My initial estimates still show quite a bit more tensile material to work with, though, assuming 10 Starships worth of 304L, so I think it will be significantly larger than that.

When I have my numbers for life support, power, and materials available, I can then estimate how much basalt needs to be extracted and converted into tiles.

SpaceNut,

I literally went to the first item on President Trump's list and found this:
Apple’s Major Investment Cements Houston as a Leading U.S. Manufacturing and Tech Hub

Yep, thar she be:

I found that with less than 5 seconds of searching.

If you're not finding anything, then maybe it's because the tools you're using don't want you to find anything.

Regardless, it won't change the nature of reality.

The money is real, the buildings are real, and the people going into and out of them are real, because the jobs are real.

TRUMP EFFECT: A Running List of New U.S. Investment in President Trump’s Second Term

Since President Donald J. Trump took office, his unwavering commitment to revitalizing American industry has spurred trillions of dollars of investments in U.S. manufacturing, production, and innovation — and the list only continues to grow.

Here is a non-comprehensive running list of new U.S.-based investments in President Trump’s second term:

    Apple announced a $600 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing and workforce training as it brings additional components of its supply chain and advanced manufacturing back to the U.S. — along with an American manufacturing program to incentivize its suppliers to make their products in the U.S.
    Project Stargate, led by Japan-based Softbank and U.S.-based OpenAI and Oracle, announced a $500 billion private investment in U.S.-based artificial intelligence infrastructure.
    NVIDIA, a global chipmaking giant, announced it will invest $500 billion in U.S.-based AI infrastructure over the next four years amid its pledge to manufacture AI supercomputers entirely in the U.S. for the first time.
    Micron Technology, the sole U.S.-based manufacturer of advanced memory chips, announced a $200 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing and production of advanced memory chips — including construction of a second chip fabrication facility in Boise, Idaho, and modernizing its Manassas, Virginia, facility.
    IBM announced a $150 billion investment over the next five years in its U.S.-based growth and manufacturing operations.
    Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) announced a $100 billion investment in U.S.-based chips manufacturing.
    Johnson & Johnson announced a $55 billion investment over the next four years in manufacturing, research and development, and technology — including a $2 billion dedicated manufacturing facility at the FUJIFILM site in Holly Springs, North Carolina.
    AstraZeneca announced a $50 billion investment for medicines manufacturing and research in the U.S.
    Roche, a Swiss drug and diagnostics company, announced a $50 billion investment in U.S.-based manufacturing and research and development, which is expected to create more than 1,000 full-time jobs and more than 12,000 jobs including construction.
    Bristol Myers Squibb announced a $40 billion investment over the next five years in its research, development, technology, and U.S.-based manufacturing operations.
    Amazon announced a $20 billion investment to expand its cloud computing infrastructure in Pennsylvania, creating at least 1,250 new high-skilled jobs, a $10 billion investment to build new data centers in North Carolina, and has committed to a $4 billion investment in small towns across America, creating more than 100,000 new jobs and driving opportunities across the country.
    Eli Lilly and Company announced a $27 billion investment to more than double its domestic manufacturing capacity.
    Vantage Data Centers announced a $25 billion investment to build a mega-scale 1.4GW data center campus in Shackelford County, Texas — which will employ more than 5,000 people across construction and ongoing operations.
    United Arab Emirates-based ADQ and U.S.-based Energy Capital Partners announced a $25 billion investment in U.S. data centers and energy infrastructure.
    Google announced a $25 billion investment in data center and AI infrastructure.
    Blackstone announced a $25 billion investment in digital and energy infrastructure across Pennsylvania.
    Novartis, a Swiss drugmaker, announced a $23 billion investment to build or expand ten manufacturing facilities across the U.S., which will create 4,000 new jobs.
    Hyundai announced a $21 billion U.S.-based investment — including $5.8 billion for a new steel plant in Louisiana, which will create nearly 1,500 jobs.
        Hyundai also secured an equity investment and agreement from Posco Holdings, South Korea’s top steel maker.
        Hyundai later increased its total U.S.-based investment to $26 billion.
    John Deere announced plans to invest $20 billion over the next decade in American expansion, production, and manufacturing.
    United Arab Emirates-based DAMAC Properties announced a $20 billion investment in new U.S.-based data centers.
    France-based CMA CGM, a global shipping giant, announced a $20 billion investment in U.S. shipping and logistics, creating 10,000 new jobs.
    Sanofi announced it will invest at least $20 billion over the next five years in manufacturing and research and development.
    Venture Global LNG announced an $18 billion investment at its liquefied natural gas facility in Louisiana.
    GlobalFoundaries announced a $16 billion investment to boost its U.S.-based chip production, including expanding existing plants in New York and Vermont.
    FirstEnergy Corp. announced a $15 billion investment in infrastructure enhancements.
    Stellantis announced a $13 billion investment in the U.S. — the largest single investment in the company’s history — to expand its U.S.-based production by over 50%.
    Gilead Sciences announced an $11 billion boost to its planned U.S.-based manufacturing investment.
    AbbVie announced a $10 billion investment over the next ten years to support volume growth and add four new manufacturing plants to its network — including a $195 million investment to expand its U.S.-based drug production capacity.
    Merck & Co. announced it will invest a total of $9 billion in the U.S. over the next several years after opening a new $1 billion North Carolina manufacturing facility — including in a new state-of-the-art biologics manufacturing plant in Delaware, which will create at least 500 new jobs.
    PPL announced a $6.8 billion investment to expand grid capacity and modernize transmission.
    CoreWeave, Inc., announced a $6 billion investment in data center expansion.
    Westinghouse announced a $6 billion investment to build ten large nuclear reactors in the U.S.
    Pratt Industries announced a $5 billion investment to create 5,000 new manufacturing jobs in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona.
    South Korea-based Hanwha Group announced a $5 billion infrastructure investment at the Hanwha Philly Shipyard to boost local shipbuilding.
    GlobalWafers, a Taiwanese silicon wafer manufacturer, announced a $4 billion investment in its U.S.-based production.
    Thermo Fisher Scientific announced it will invest an additional $2 billion over the next four years to enhance and expand its U.S. manufacturing operations and strengthen its innovation efforts.
    Clarios announced a $6 billion plan to expand its domestic manufacturing operations.
    Belgium-based drugmaker UCB announced a $5 billion investment in a new U.S.-based factory.
    Ford announced it will invest $5 billion across its Kentucky and Michigan manufacturing plants to deliver a new midsize truck and advanced batteries.
    General Motors announced it will invest $4 billion in U.S.-based manufacturing as it shifts more vehicle production from Mexico to the U.S., including in Michigan, Kansas, and Tennessee.
    Mitsubishi announced a $3.9 billion investment in energy.
    Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, a leader in biotechnology, announced a $3 billion agreement with Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies to produce drugs at its North Carolina manufacturing facility.
    Kraft Heinz announced a $3 billion investment to upgrade its U.S. factories — its largest investment in its plants in decades.
    GE Appliances announced a $3 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing, onshoring 1,000 jobs and expanding its plants across five states.
    NorthMark Strategies, a multi-strategy investment firm, announced a $2.8 billion investment to build a supercomputing facility in South Carolina.
    Biogen announced a $2 billion investment in North Carolina-based manufacturing.
    Mars, Inc., announced a $2 billion investment in its U.S.-based manufacturing operations.
    Kimberly-Clark announced a $2 billion investment to expand its U.S. manufacturing operations, including a new advanced manufacturing facility in Warren, Ohio, an expansion of its Beech Island, South Carolina, facility, and other upgrades to its supply chain network.
    Chobani, a Greek yogurt giant, announced $1.7 billion to expand its U.S. operations.
        $1.2 billion to build its third U.S. dairy processing plant in New York, which is expected to create more than 1,000 new full-time jobs.
        $500 million to expand its Idaho manufacturing plant.
    Corning announced it is expanding its Michigan manufacturing facility investment to $1.5 billion, adding 400 new high-paying advanced manufacturing jobs for a total of 1,500 new jobs.
    First Solar announced the inauguration of its $1.1 billion high-tech manufacturing facility in Louisiana, which projected to directly employ over 800 people.
    Carrier announced an additional $1 billion investment in its U.S. manufacturing, innovation, and workforce expansion, which is expected to create 4,000 new jobs.
    GE Aerospace announced a $1 billion investment in manufacturing across 16 states — creating 5,000 new jobs.
    Hikma Pharmaceuticals announced a $1 billion investment to expand its U.S.-based manufacturing and research capabilities.
    Anduril Industries announced a $1 billion investment for a new autonomous weapon system facility in Ohio.
    Live Nation Entertainment announced a $1 billion investment to build 18 new live music venues across the U.S.
    Williams International announced a $1 billion investment for a new high-volume aviation gas turbine engine manufacturing facility in Okaloosa County, Florida.
    Amgen announced a $900 million investment in its Ohio-based manufacturing operation.
    Merck Animal Health announced an $895 million investment to expand their manufacturing operations in Kansas.
    General Motors announced an $888 million investment at its propulsion plant in Tonawanda, New York.
    Schneider Electric announced it will invest $700 million over the next four years in U.S. energy infrastructure.
    GE Vernova announced it will invest nearly $600 million in U.S. manufacturing over the next two years, which will create more than 1,500 new jobs.
    Abbott Laboratories announced a $500 million investment in its Illinois and Texas facilities.
    AIP Management, a European infrastructure investor, announced a $500 million investment to solar developer Silicon Ranch.
    Jabil announced a $500 million investment in manufacturing and AI data center infrastructure across the southeastern U.S.
    Hitachi announced a $457 million investment in a new power transformer facility in Virginia.
    Wistron Corp, a Taiwanese electronics and AI server manufacturer, announced a $455 million
    London-based Diageo announced a $415 million investment in a new Alabama manufacturing facility.
    Lego announced a $366 million investment to build a new distribution center in Prince George County, Virginia.
    The Bel Group announced a $350 million investment to expand its U.S.-based production, including at its South Dakota, Idaho and Wisconsin facilities — which will create 250 new jobs.
    Dublin-based Eaton Corporation announced a $340 million investment in a new South Carolina-based manufacturing facility for its three-phase transformers.
    Anheuser-Busch announced a $300 million investment in its manufacturing facilities across the country.
    Whirlpool Corporation announced a $300 million investment in its U.S. laundry manufacturing facilities.
    Germany-based Siemens announced a $285 million investment in U.S. manufacturing and AI data centers, which will create more than 900 new skilled manufacturing jobs.
    Clasen Quality Chocolate announced a $230 million investment to build a new production facility in Virginia, which will create 250 new jobs.
    Hadrian, a defense manufacturing startup, announced a $200 million investment to build a large-scale manufacturing and software hub in Mesa, Arizona.
    Fiserv, Inc., a financial technology provider, announced a $175 million investment to open a new strategic fintech hub in Kansas, which is expected to create 2,000 new high-paying jobs.
    Paris Baguette announced a $160 million investment to construct a manufacturing plant in Texas.
    Philips announced a $150 million investment in U.S. manufacturing and research facilities.
    Siemens Healthineers announced a $150 million investment to expand production, including relocating manufacturing operations for its Varian company from Mexico to California.
    JBS USA announced a $135 million investment for a new sausage production facility in Perry, Iowa.
    TS Conductor announced a $134 million investment to build an advanced conductor manufacturing facility in South Carolina, which will create nearly 500 new jobs.
    Switzerland-based ABB announced a $120 million investment to expand production of its low-voltage electrification products in Tennessee and Mississippi.
    Saica Group, a Spain-based corrugated packaging maker, announced plans to build a $110 million new manufacturing facility in Anderson, Indiana.
    Hotpack, a Dubai-based maker of food packaging materials and related products, announced a $100 million investment to establish its first U.S. manufacturing facility in Edison, New Jersey.
    Charms, LLC, a subsidiary of candymaker Tootsie Roll Industries, announced a $97.7 million investment to expand its production plant and distribution center in Tennessee.
    Toyota Motor Corporation announced an $88 million investment to boost hybrid vehicle production at its West Virginia factory, securing employment for the 2,000 workers at the factory.
    Glaukos Corporation, a pharmaceutical drug and medical device company, announced an $82 million investment in Huntsville, Alabama, for manufacturing and research and development, which will bring 154 full-time jobs by 2030.
    China-based Kingsun announced an $80 billion investment to establish its first U.S. manufacturing facility in North Carolina.
    Rolls-Royce announced a $75 million investment to expand its South Carolina manufacturing facility.
    Hanwha Ocean announced a $70 million investment to expand its Philadelphia shipyard.
    Hitachi Energy announced a $70 million investment in energy infrastructure.
    Century Aluminum announced it will invest $50 million to revive its South Carolina manufacturing plant for the first time in a decade, bringing its production back to 2015 peak levels.
    Canada-based Silver Hills Bakery announced a $48.5 million investment to revive the former Kellogg’s facility in Tennessee.
    AeroVironment, a defense contractor, announced a $42.3 million investment to build a new manufacturing facility in Utah.
    Paris-based Saint-Gobain announced a new $40 million NorPro manufacturing facility in Wheatfield, New York.
    India-based Sygene International announced a $36.5 million acquisition of a Baltimore biologics manufacturing facility.
    Asahi Group Holdings, one of the largest Japanese beverage makers, announced a $35 million investment to boost production at its Wisconsin plant.
    The GE Aerospace Foundation announced a $30 million workforce skills training program to prepare the next generation of its U.S.-based workforce.
    Valbruna Slater Stainless announced a $28 million investment in its stainless steel and nickel alloys bars manufacturing plant in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
    Nortian Foodtech announced a $22.2 million investment in a Missouri manufacturing facility.
    Cyclic Materials, a Canadian advanced recycling company for rare earth elements, announced a $20 million investment in its first U.S.-based commercial facility, located in Mesa, Arizona.
    Guardian Bikes announced a $19 million investment to build the first U.S.-based large-scale bicycle frame manufacturing operation in Indiana.
    Amsterdam-based AMG Critical Minerals announced a $15 million investment to build a chrome manufacturing facility in Pennsylvania.
    NOVONIX Limited, an Australia-based battery technology company, announced a $4.6 million investment to build a synthetic graphite manufacturing facility in Tennessee.
    LGM Pharma announced a $6 million investment to expand its manufacturing facility in Rosenberg, Texas.
    ViDARR, a defense optical equipment manufacturer, announced a $2.69 million investment to open a new facility in Virginia.

That doesn’t even include the U.S. investments pledged by foreign countries:

    United Arab Emirates committed to investing $1.4 trillion in the U.S. over the next decade.
    Qatar committed to generating $1.2 trillion in an economic exchange between the two countries.
    Japan announced a $1 trillion investment in the U.S.
    Saudi Arabia committed investing $600 billion in the U.S. over the next four years.
    South Korea committed to a $450 billion investment in U.S. energy products.
    Bahrain announced $17 billion in U.S. investment.
    Taiwan announced a pledge to boost its U.S.-based investment.

tahanson43206,

Whenever a gas expands, it also cools down quite a bit.  CO2 is famous for its "cold" discharge from fire extinguishers.  I can personally attest to how cold it gets, having used them on real fires aboard ship.  Plain old gas or liquid CO2 discharged through the cutting head would cool the cutter.  Heat from friction becoming so intense that it melts the cutter is what typically dulls the cutter because industrial rock cutters are always much harder than the materials they cut or drill through.  If these cutting bits had small passages drilled through them so that liquid or gaseous CO2 could absorb and carry away the heat generated during rock cutting, then the cutter could continue to cut as long as the coolant supply was expanded through holes in the cutters.

I happen to think that pressurized coolant, meaning liquid CO2, would work best, because pressurization keeping the CO2 inside the cutting head or drill bit in a liquid state would prevent gas expansion cooling to the point where residual water vapor trapped in the CO2 would freeze and potentially clog these very narrow coolant passages.  This implies some kind of rotary pump to maintain coolant pressure within the cutting head or drill bit.  All of this could be done using the same shaft for a high speed cutter, or a separate geared pump for lower speed cutters.  A high speed rock drill might not need the weight and complexity of a separate geared pump, for example, whereas a much lower speed tunnel boring machine almost certainly requires a coolant pressurization pump and system to circulate coolant to the dozen or more rock cutting heads.  Using supercritical CO2 would require considerable pumping power to maintain sufficient pressurization, but would also work.

These means hand tools like pneumatic rock drills would use plain old liquid CO2 as their coolant.

Ingersoll-Rand pneumatic rock drill:

Worker using a larger Atlas Copco pneumatic rock drill:

Assortment of pneumatic rock drilling heads:

These cutting heads already have holes drilled in them that could be used to exhaust expanded CO2 coolant through:

A much larger pneumatic rock drill mounted to a vehicle:

He has a shop vac to vacuum pulverized dust out of his bore hole.  This obviously won't work on Mars due to the minor atmospheric pressure difference between Mars sea level and a hard vacuum.  Therefore, a compressed air gun will be needed to blow the dust out of the bore hole.

Hydraulic fracturing using water and CO2 could also be used to greatly limit or entirely eliminate explosives used in excavation and quarrying operations.  Fracking has already begun to replace explosives in underground mining operations.  There's less of a cave-in risk associated with fracking in an underground mineshaft, and no possibility of blowing yourself up.

Calliban,

I don't think we're going to build much underground to start off with, primarily because the equipment and energy requirements for tunneling are so substantial.  It's not impossible to do and may be advantageous in select locations, but there is no absolute requirement to build underground when above-ground structures can still be adequately shielded against radiation.  Any GCR mitigated structure is a SPE / CME impervious structure by default.  Those are the only forms of radiation known to be problematic on Mars, so 1-2m of regolith protection creates an Earth sea level radiation environment.  I think we can create tensile structures made from recycled Starship 304L stainless steel and compressive structures using cast basalt tiles, as you already suggested.  The walls of the structure can be "bermed" with regolith piles.  There will still be direct overhead GCR that makes it through, but much less, so if the base (shielded by the planet itself) and walls (shielded by the regolith piles) are there, you simply deal with not having perfect GCR protection.  People who live on mountain tops or fly commercial aircraft for decades of their lives don't seem to have dramatically higher cancer rates later in life.

If we limit ourselves to singular building materials, then we end up with either impossible materials importation or impossible indigenous materials processing requirements.  Here on Earth, every structure is built using a combination of materials that are most ideal for resisting either tensile or compressive forces.  We may be able to technically build a skyscraper using concrete or steel alone, but the energy and therefore monetary tradeoffs involved in structures built that way are so over-the-top that nobody actually does that unless someone with more money than common sense comes along and doesn't care what it costs.  That's how we get buildings like the Burj Khalifa, but those are one-of-a-kind things.

We've already decided that even though we have the tech to house everyone in a pyramid carved from enormous rock slabs, it's inefficient and wasteful, therefore we're not doing that as a general practice.  I have to believe that a city on Mars will still be subjected to the energy / engineering / economic / timeline factors which drive housing development here on Earth.  If you have enough personal wealth, someone will build a rock slab home for you, but most millionaires and billionaires still live in larger / fancier versions of what you see average middle class people living in.  Historic homes are the only ones "built differently".  Architects live for projects like those, but the rest of the time it's pretty meat-and-potatoes.

I've been in multi-million dollar homes owned by wealthy people here in Houston.  Their slabs are still concrete.  Their walls still use pine even though they could easily afford hardwoods.  They still have a roof using shingles or tiles.  Their floors, wall coverings, and furnishings are much nicer, but not fundamentally different.  The craftsmanship is better.  We still sit at a wooden table and so do they.  The near total lack of exceptions seems to indicate that even when money is far less of a factor, engineering and economy don't change.  President Obama still lives in a seaside McMansion, not an abandoned missile silo.  President Trump still lives in one of his seaside luxury hotels.  Elon Musk still lives at work because he's not interested in anything else.  Jeff Pena lives in a Scottish castle because he has a castle fetish.  He's not the only one, but the Vanderbilts and Rothschilds of the world live in prototypical mansions.  Governments create giant reinforced underground shelters to shield themselves from their own poor decision making, and to alleviate their own paranoia, but only using other peoples' money.

If someone hands me $10M tomorrow, I'm not going to live in a bunker.  Moving is exhausting.  I'm very happy right where I'm at.  I might travel and spend more time with my family, but that's about it.  I would imagine it's largely the same for almost every other person, even though there are eccentric exceptions.  As far as what I think we'll build on Mars is concerned, I think we'll spend the minimum amount of money for adequate shelter, then worry about style later.  If we apply sound basic engineering principles, then in all probability our colonists won't have much to worry about.  The key to good engineering will be finding people who are willing to adhere to the fundamentals because they accept how important those are, rather than people looking to prove how smart or creative they can be.  There's nothing wrong with being smart and creative.  However, I don't want a creative type of person assessing the load carrying capacity of my home's foundation when rigid adherence to applicable engineering code determines whether or not the walls collapse or remain upright when the foundation shifts.  That's an actual problem here in Houston, and a serious one.

RobertDyck,

You are impressively committed to either deliberately lying or stunning displays of ignorance, I'll give you that.

U.S. Axle
Northern Industrial Manufacturing
American Axle & Manufacturing
Mack Trucks
Alloy USA
Cummins

If you don't think we make injection molded plastic parts or home furnishings, then please learn how to use Google.

Every false statement you make, which is refuted by a 5 second duration Google search, only serves to reconfirm what I already know to be true.  It's as if you don't accept objective reality, only whichever version of unreality best serves your belief system.  You've almost convinced me that I can immediately discount whatever assertions you make on the basis of you making them alone.

No doubt about that, but they're still made here in America as well:

Virginia Transformer Corp
Pennsylvania Transformer Technology, Inc
WEG Transformers USA
GE Grid Solutions
Efacec Power Transformers, Inc
Olsun Electronics Corporation
Hammond Power Solutions
Maddox Technologies
Meta Power Solutions
Larson Electronics

They don't truly need to be.  That was my point, and it is factually true.  America has all the manufacturing and tech required to do it completely domestically, whether it's typically done that way or not.  Do you know who else does as well?  Canada and Mexico.  All 3 nations have all the metals, plastics, rubbers, and electronics manufacturing facilities, small though they may be in certain cases, that 100% American made or 100% Canadian made or 100% Mexican made vehicles are achievable using ONLY existing domestic manufacturing facilities already in operation.  These vehicles won't all be precisely equivalent, but they would still be 100% functional passenger motor vehicles.

This isn't some pedantic point about "American exceptionalism", this is "everybody-already-knows-how-to-make-a-car-ism".

If you had any ability whatsoever to "read between the lines" (the hallmark of someone who has been educated vs indoctrinated), then you'd at least acknowledge that what I'm telling you, is that every western nation has the ability to make every bit of their own tech, even if they don't have the capacity to make 100% of it at this very instant in time.  They clearly don't want to, but only because someone is getting "lazy rich" by selling cheap rubber dog crap out of Hong Kong while the other 99% of their fellow countrymen continually get poorer because they no longer hold the manufacturing jobs that made their nations wealthy to begin with!

I don't want to continue down this path to serfdom merely because a literal handful of smart and wealthy but completely unscrupulous and immoral people want to add a few more digits to their offshore retirement accounts.  They'll still be able to become obscenely rich if they employ their own people.

Since you're clearly not a member of that 1%, and at this stage in your life you likely never will be, why would you continue to support that insanity?

Tell me why you don't want 100% Canadian made cars and fighter jets?

Would you rather service cash registers than write code for fighter jets?

I keep asking you real questions about what you actually want and you keep responding with autistic non-sequitur history lessons that fail to address anything related to why we should keep playing reindeer games that destroy our own people.

Why do you want to keep volunteering to play a game that leaves you empty?

Void,

Supercritical CO2 undergoes such extreme density changes based upon temperature that pumping it down a well creates a thermosiphon effect, such that additional pumping power is not needed, unlike water or steam.  It's actually more efficient than water / steam, even at low temperatures, again, because no pumping power is required.  They're experimenting with that in frack wells here in Texas at temperatures as low as 150C.  The top side equipment remains very small because the turbine is still much smaller than a steam turbine.

For an ordinary frack well that goes down 5,000 to 15,000ft Total Vertical Depth (TVD), a 3MWe turbine, gearbox, printed circuit heat exchanger, and electric generator still occupies less "pad space" than the equipment normally used to produce oil or gas from the well.  We literally have hundreds of thousands of these small wells, so if they were ever suitable for fracking to begin with, then they're also suitable candidates for SCO2 geothermal conversion.  It's a closed-loop system that generates electric power and does not appear to lose much power or CO2 over time.  SCO2 doesn't leach salt from the layer cake rock formations containing various salts, unlike water / steam.  That's part of why it's stable over time, and incurs less damage to the turbine and heat exchanger equipment from corrosion.  Since the operating temperatures are so low, and pressures as well, plain Carbon steels or Austempered Ductile Iron can be used.  That means the equipment can be much cheaper than high temperature units because you don't need big chunks of Inconel.

Traditional geothermal systems attempt to find some ideal formation for generating power from steam, and tend to be very large, time-consuming to construct, and thus costly.  These new SCO2 systems are so small that the entire equipment skid easily fits on the bed of a "short trailer".  One standard length trailer has enough physical space and carrying capacity to take the equipment skid and a small crane to the well head to emplace the power generation unit.  You will obviously need more trucks to carry step-up / step-down transformers, power cables, and poles, but that's about it.  It's like a mini reactor, but without the security requirements.

Texas has 439,000 wells, give or take a few.  Let's say only 100,000 are suitable for generating electric power.  That's 300GWe worth of firm power- the only kind acceptable for data centers and manufacturing.  Texas total electric generating capacity in summer (Texas has lots of wind and solar) is only 168GW from all sources (natural gas, coal, oil, wind, solar, nuclear, etc).  300GWe would be a very nice capacity addition for AI data centers and manufacturing plants.  We could pay the well operators a fee to maintain their abandoned wells so they continue generating electricity after out-living their usefulness for oil / gas production.  At 600t per 3MWe onshore wind turbine vs 6t for a 3MWe SCO2 gas turbine, the metal-to-metal efficiency ratio is 100:1 in favor of the SCO2 gas turbine.

Maybe we'd finally have enough excess mid-day grid capacity to think about charging EVs at work.  If we can devote 70GW to cars for 2 hours per day, that's enough juice for 10M cars to drive about 56 miles per day.  There are about 22M total registered vehicles of all types in the Texas.  Mid-day charging using opportunistic power is the only kind that works because it's the only kind that doesn't involve running natural gas turbines at night, which defeats the stated purpose behind using EVs when that's how they're otherwise going to be recharged.

RobertDyck,

A fringe benefit of knowing how to count is knowing how much money I spent buying groceries and gas under Biden vs Trump.

If I have to live under another Democrat claiming to want to help me, then I might not be able to afford to live indoors.

You remind me of a speech by Kamala Harris: YouTube: Unburdened by What Has Been

RobertDyck,

The only danger posed to you by posting about politics comes from your fellow leftists.  You've made so many objectively false assertions that it's hard for me to take your "important insights" as anything more than a recitation of your beliefs about unreality.

The US is one of the least trade-oriented countries in the world – despite laying the groundwork for today’s globalized system

The US "gets rich off trade", according to you, but is involved in less trade as a percentage of the national economy than any nation except Nigeria and Sudan?

About 99.9% of the businesses which comprise America's "real economy" are small businesses who employ domestic laborers.  They generate almost half of the GDP.  They're responsible for over half all net new job growth.  It's always been that way.

This was 100% the result of wildly excessive US federal government spending, not a lack of domestic productivity.  The debt will be paid back when we quit allowing deficit spending.  I've heard all manner of lame excuses for Congress failing to pass a budget in regular order, but none of those excuses are an acceptable substitute for budgeting.

Congress wouldn't have much free time to debate allowing men in women's bathrooms if they were scrutinizing every line item in the federal budget.

The US federal government "big spending" advocates will be in trouble, because with your governments' help (by refusing to purchase US debt), we will cut them off from foreign currency sources used to paper-over their spending sprees.  Please urge your government to stop purchasing US federal debt.  Please and thank you.

The cost of maintaining US military bases overseas is estimated at $80-100 billion.

Not really.  See above.

If you had any true insight, then you would already know the answer.

People advocating for maintaining the status quo are the proximal reason why America's budget deficit is $111B and the cumulative debt over time is $38.45T and climbing.  The status quo is unsustainable for the US, which is why President Trump is ending it.

We do not care about what Russia wants.  Russia is not even a factor in our thinking.  It's only a factor in your thinking.  Russia has an economy the size of Italy.  Any nation with an economy the size of Italy is not going to take over the world, nor will it dictate terms to the US, now or ever.  The Russians pose more of a threat to themselves than they pose to the US.

The left, which you are a part of, are famous for "false framing" of issues based upon ideologically-motivated distortions of reality.  The only question I keep asking myself is if you truly only "know" what you've been indoctrinated to believe, or if you're deliberately making objectively false assertions which you somehow believe will influence the thinking of other people.

If you wanted to convince other people that your beliefs have merit, then you would not argue from objectively false premises.

These are the false-premise / false-framing "talking points" you've recited here:
1. America "gets rich" off of trade.
This is plainly false.

2. America will be "much poorer" when our politicians can't engage in deficit spending because no other country will buy our debt.
A government's spending cap being limited to available tax revenue does not mean a nation gets poorer.  I've never seen a nation that was taxed and spent into prosperity.

3. Russia will somehow achieve an exploitable geopolitical advantage if America can no longer engage in deficit spending to prop-up other nations, militarily and/or economically.
Russia has thus far failed to militarily conquer their next door neighbor when America and European nations devote a minor fraction of their GDP to weapons procurement on behalf of Ukraine.  They've done a lot of economic damage to themselves and Ukraine, but historically Russia always leaves themselves in a worse economic and military position.  Their war in Ukraine hasn't bucked that trend.

4. If America is no longer part of NATO, then America will somehow be "much more vulnerable".
Iraq War I was a preview of exactly what would happen if Russia's military was pitted against America's military.

5. Europe is vulnerable to Russia.
Russia can't militarily defeat Ukraine, but somehow it's gonna defeat a significant portion of European military forces after the US leaves?

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Calliban,

Some of us Americans don't want any American military bases in foreign countries.  If what President Trump is currently doing in Greenland gets the US military booted out and forces European troops to remain there and pay the associated costs with maintaining a military presence, then I'm all in favor of that.

All military bases are strategic threats.  The only question is to whom, and under what circumstances.  One nation's security guarantee is the next nation's strategic military threat.

Not only can I imagine it, historically that's already happened.  Why engage in hypotheticals?

It's amazing that you don't grasp the answer to your own question.  We can't and shouldn't.

Why should one nation maintain 800 overseas military bases?

We should bring all American military forces home and concentrate on defending America, not the rest of the world.

As an American, I'm completely disinterested in dictating terms to other nations, friendly or hostile.  They will not dictate terms to America, either.  That is fair.

Demanding that America pay to maintain military bases in foreign countries for their own defense, somehow doesn't count as extortion.

Ask yourself if our military interests are truly aligned.  Do you even know what your own nation's military interests are, or has that responsibility been ceded in favor of security guarantees that will ultimately weaken the United Kingdom's military forces?

You mean America would lack the ability to immediately become involved in foreign wars at the whim of any given American politician?

Hallelujah!

The Russians are so mired in problems of their own making that they have no bandwidth to address America stepping back from the "World Police" role.

You're still worried about an economy the size of Italy dictating terms to the rest of Europe?  How would that happen, exactly?

Over your entire life, you've never experienced an American President who was more concerned with American interests than being a "Citizen of the World".

If an American President was more concerned with his own nation's interests than those of every other nation, then he'd behave exactly as President Trump does.  He'd be far less interested in what everyone else thinks than what his own people think.