Steven Novella

speaker

1,536 appearances 3 recordings 2 series first heard Jun 2026 last heard 4 Jul

Steven Novella’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 3 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.

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to the point where it boils, the steam turns a turbine, and that makes electricity.

But it's more complicated than that.

There's a few pieces here.

And the reason why I'm talking about this, by the way, is because geothermal has been in the news a lot.

There's the recent Geothermal Research and Development Act, which was passed, but with bipartisan support.

Kara, you mentioned this not that long ago.

Why is that, do you think?

Why...

Anyway, but we'll get to that.

Oh, my God.

Is that a good guess?

The simplest geothermal power plant is what you basically drill in down to a depth.

Because, you know, as you go deeper underground, the temperature gets hotter, right?

And when we talk about temperature gradients, how hotter does it get per depth, right?

The average gradient in North America, for example, is 25 to 30 degrees Celsius per kilometer.

But that's the average.

But in a young volcanic region like California or Iceland, it could be as much as 50 to 100 degrees Celsius per kilometer.

And on the East Coast where we are, it's 15 to 25 C per kilometer.

So do you have to go down two kilometers or do you have to go down 10 kilometers or do you have to go down 20 kilometers, right?

How far down do you have to drill to get to earth that's hot enough to generate electricity with geothermal?

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