Drilling deep into the earth surface. In fact, you could say that drilling deep is the focus of this weeks made. Its a search for solutions. Welcome to our show. Heres what else is coming. Well look at how the ocean could work as a giant heat pump. In theory, at least, well hear from a chinese researcher about his experiences here in germany. And well look at a flexible solar. Phil could change the way that we think about solar panels. If youre like me, youve never visited the earths core. But scientists tell us its thousands of degrees. What if we could take just a little bit of that one for our needs here on the surface . Thats the idea, at least behind deep Geothermal Energy, which drills far deeper than traditional projects. And like all forms of Geothermal Energy, its almost emissions free. Germanys 1st geothermal plan is now under construction. Lets take a look of this thrill has reached a depth of 1800 meters. The drilling water gradually starts steaming. We want to go where its at this drilling rag in southern germany. The crew are in sterling for oil. Theyre aiming to penetrate hot rock. Its to be one of the 1st power plants in the world to tap thermal energy from a depth of 4000 meters. Hot water will supply electricity and districts heating the so far. The most common types of Renewable Energy ive been solar power and wind power. Deep thermal energy become the 3rd major Renewable Energy and the potential game changer. 50 kilometers south of munich. The crew may have reached the depth of 1800 meters, but they still need to go more than twice that the the team is international. Most of them hail from the oil and shell gas sectors. Here in germany, there drilling for hot rock. We have a huge variation of wells between a 100 meters and 8000 meters. But yeah, were, were activities picking up. And a lot of the technology that were using and geothermal is very similar to the technology were using. And shell gas, the price is for shale gas drilling have dropped. Thats why Geothermal Technology company ever can afford to drill wells for deep geothermal plans. The projects managing director, daniel meg, says its the 1st plant of its kind in the world. Right now we are on the journey to 4500 meters steps where we go so deep because this attempt to john the rocks that we want to use. I wonder if reached our target steps information. Then we start splitting up the was andrew many, many different letters to get to a very large, ready a to in the sub surface. Once they reach the target that they will start drilling a further 4000 meters at an angle with multiple laterals. Here the rock is 160 degrees celsius. The girls are flexible and locate each other. If you have magnetic signals. The installation will essentially be a network of radiators filled with water. Closed loop system for districts heating approximately 0 cost saved, drill into the rock with a pressure of 10. 00 to 20. 00 tons. The diamond drill bits have water nozzles for flushing cuttings away from the bit. We want to drill a 20 to 30 meters per hour with this to a bit of clothes in between. We will take some time to clean the whole and to complete the whole. We plan to be at 2400 meters and about 4 days as they drove them deeper heart sandstone, sorry is out to once they reach the target steps. So watery slurry will be boiling hot later the underground for holes will be inflated with pipes like these it will take 3 years in all to complete the underground Heat Exchangers. Its a huge operation with up to 200. 00 workers on the site. There are 2 towers where the 2 bar holes neighboring farm provides accommodation for the engineers. At the same time, theyre planning for construction of a power plant which is due to be ready. And just over a years time we up to the apollo acids. So would be a combined that is your thermal treating process. Weve football plan. Youre also going to provide the heat into the city. A Power Generator is to provide electricity or for 10000. 00 households. The plant will then generate districts heating for up to 80000 more households. Deep Geothermal Energy is a stable source of continuous power. Unlike solar and wind energy that depend on the weather, it still couldnt replace them. We want to be part of it. And then we can reduce it to ring very so many days. So when the wind is blowing, an increase of production, when we have available, it becomes highly complimentary to the so whats the difference between deep Geothermal Energy and other kinds of geothermal, heat pumps only reach the depth of up to about 100 meters. Hydrothermal energy draws on hot groundwater at depth of a 1000 meters and more deep Geothermal Energy uses hot rock layers. At depths of over 4000 meters ever says its already got most of the 202350 1000000 euro investment needed. Germany is an important market because of the many districts heating networks. Here we have 4 so Strategic Investors to see the potential for technology and for the future business or to support our goals, such as a, b, p, o, v, a or b, h, b being or large mining companies, gas district, eating from fossil fuel power plants is no longer in demand from 2026, the company will be providing green districts heating to munich. And in 2 years time, theyre due to start a newborn hole in northern germany to provide Geothermal Energy to another major city. Was not just deep in the earth where researchers are looking for new energy solutions. Also, when the seas like the coast of scotland were generators are using wave power to make electricity. Heres another possibility. In theory, differences in water temperature mean that the worlds oceans could actually work like a massive Heat Exchanger producing carbon free energy. But again, thats the theory, the reality. And especially the Business Case for such technology, thats much trickier. There is a way to turn the oceans and then on limits. It pauses all, you need to Something Like this plus really warm and cold water. Now you can produce Renewable Energy of round the clock. And the basic principle has been around for more than a 100 years. Can this really satisfy off the us for more in oval energy . This evening . Leave me a wreck to List Technology is called oceans the Energy Conversion or tech and sun. I mean, it takes advantage of the temperature difference between gold and cold water. When you look at the surface of the ocean, the water can be wides wont because its keeps it up by the sun in tropical water that can be around 26. 00 degrees celsius. But the deeper you go and everyone who swims and a leg or dives in an ocean experience, is that the kona, the water gets at 1000 meters deep. The temperature reaches roughly 4 degree celsius. And this difference in temperature is what ocean thermal Energy Conversion utilizes. So housing generate energy from that, its quite simple. You need a Heat Exchange of the warm surface. Whats the heat . So fluid that has a low boiling point, that fluid and that parades creating a steam and that steam runs a turbine, generating electricity similar to a regular steam engine. Then the steam gets cooled by the deep sea water back into a liquids and the cycle repeat. Well, see what i itself doesnt boy like here with this thing, my hands on now basically the sea water, which now heats up the fluids inside. And as it can see, it goes up and bear with me a tom on in that it was spent. This process can run 247. Im like the Renewable Energy. The groundwork for this technology was late in 1881 by french because this is chuck. Ive seen dice on his student george cloth and actually built the 1st but unsuccessful tech plant. In 1930 lights, the interest, the no tech peak when oil prices exploded during the oil crisis. In 1980 us president jimmy carter assigned the law a to insure the production of 10000 megawatts of electricity from low tech and the next 2 decades. The problem is that you need to get that co deep sea water up to the surface on show where the Heat Exchanger has ever had the name of science. Well we have all of us last hold, hold, get thing to see what was that to the surface. Its done with pipes that im more than 2 kilometers long. Well, and heres the best of luck to kind of its the thing. A success card lead out to on Show Research plants, one on the island of coolant and japan, with a 100 kilowatts. And the other one in hawaii with a 105 kilowatts french developers, was set to launch a 60 megawatt plans in march scenic in 2020. About the project has reportedly been shelves due to technical difficulties. The other Research Projects as well. But non last very long. This also means that there is little to no continues Energy Production from tech until now. And just for comparison, the 100. 00 kilowatt pilot plants that we talked about earlier. One offshore wind turbine is a 100 times bigger when it comes to capacity. So even though its not a new idea, these technology is still very much in its infancy. Most of the pilot plans west sets up on shore to make a tech commercially viable. At that a large scale, you need to go off sharp. This is harm on coupla for mikaya, ocean engineering. The company has been developing opec pots in hawaii since 1979. You know, the size and amount of pipes that you need for your, your cold water and even for your return your discharge pipeline, as well as the amount of trenching in shore line crossing for commercial scale plants would just be infeasible. Stem costs for him to as well going off shore makes it possible to install multiple opec toms next to each other. Similar to offshore, wind pops. Currently, costs are still more than doubled the price of the renewables. The tricky construction of the deep sea water pipes, our tunnel from major investors. But before we get into that, lets look at whether its technology can be used. The major limits, in fact, the, is that we need a big temperature difference between the surface and the deep sea water. Warm surface water is available all year round in the tropical equitorial zone. So o tech would will bring more Renewable Energy to tropical islands. Many of them still rely on the diesel generators. Studies even suggest that if you disregard practical and financial hurdles, oh tech could power the in high yeah, well hypothetically. But before i would say i can even produce a fraction of a tow. I would need to overcome major huddled, potentially shoot, and how to calculate price spec being number one. Today, estimates for a 100 megawatt low tech plants can range from 718000000. 00 to 1500000000. 00 us dollars. And there is another big on known cold water pipe in the pipes, the cold water pipe. These days hot plastic pipes up to 3 meters in diameter on no problem before a 100 megawatt planned to meet pipes almost 4 times that size and pipes that big have you been developed yet . It is complex because the pipe needs to be stable. Im flexible at the same time to not break apart when it gets hit by waves or current. Its proven to be so tricky that an indian opec plant never went online because the deep sea water pipe failed. And even if an old tech pond, what worked, it could be destroyed by a storm. Thats whats happened to one of the 1st pilot plants in 1930 this on such since he has driven away companies with more than 40000000000. 00 us dollars in revenue, Lockheed Martin was set to build the biggest tech plant to date in china. But drop the project due to its costs, but its possible that costs could be costs, for example, in the Heat Exchange it to give you a bit of perspective. The Heat Exchangers on a commercial scale, a tech plant, are about a 3rd of the entire project cost. So the, the reason that these are so expensive for commercial attack is the up, youve, titanium, deep seawater is very corrosive. Weve developed what we call the fin foiled Heat Exchanger, and as the name implies, were using bin foils. And the purpose of that is basically were trying to reduce the amount of material and also the size. Another big question mark is the actual effect on the environment because youre moving insane amounts of water. Were talking about 4300000000 liters of one more time and 2200000000. 00 lenses of cold water per day for small plants. There are a lot of question marks about attack the economics, the environmental side effects, the cold water pipe, and todays ponds. I just way to tiny to figure anything of that out. And in the last 10 years, not much did happen. So without serious investment outtake wont be taken off any time soon. Hes an intellectual star in china, here in germany where he lives and researches is rather anonymous. Shelby all is director of the Max Planck Institute for the logical research. His work focuses on migration and its effect on the state society work, even population demographics. We asked him about his personal experiences with migration and his thoughts on a life and career split between cultures. My name is young jones. I was born in 1972 and when joe china for been trying isnt coming as color was almost inevitable for me given the cultural fever in 198 my china and i that time loss in the west in philosophies were introduced at the time as a High School Students that i was interested in these topics i was calling to check on that date to 70 to see what thing without sure if we see okay, i can make sure i can chose to work in sociology and ask for apology because they dont approach things from the viewpoint of big ideas. They focus on concrete behaviors. And i came to the max of Plank Institute with a very important goal my most so it was dont ask what we can do for anthropology law School Anthropology can do for us, for our wills today when nature and then go to a woman, will mention condition fear flush brake fluid will show up with my impression of german society, comes mainly from my work. Good. What impresses me most is designed to innovate. Theres a trying to experiment, which even if we might file the tone for 4 or so and youve got ship, ive seen that sheet to do it for 2. She gemini, Public Interest in academic and social issues is greater than elsewhere. In other words, the german public likes to the banks to argue the answer to said to call come to me in what i told you. And id like to give it one to douglas real quick. Yes, think wine to motion me and im a complete stranger here. But jim, in society is still interested in what i have to say. I use this when i have a different opinion. Theyre interested in what i have to say to somebody who kind of i appreciate thats a lot to so and im grateful for that. These jim and ask that you gives me the sense that our research has public value in your computer or chair, the dont call that. And the answer. I think that when you compare young people in china to young people in other countries like germany, they have a loss in common sense for you to especially when it comes to how they perceive other people and what they perceive as stressful. If im sure. Uh yeah, i should say it went to some 4 commission thing, but i do feel that china is not an easy place for especially for young people publish at the time and especially the new University Graduates who are entering society at a time when the economy using decline, so hold on, go. I sent a request to be on the phone and when china is relationship with the world has become more complicated and send that to me. Your pharmacy. I got that. So its hung up with the machine they to young people in china. So what they had relatively clearances and goals for football. And they dont believe that anymore. Through the june they might not feeling secure as such. But they constantly in a situation where they forced to compete, hasnt telling people they feel that they have to work hard for them. And if they dont, they wont succeed. But even with hardwood and success isnt always in reach. So they have to work even harder. And thats where the sense of precariousness comes in your life. So why one of the biggest problems facing china is the lack of social resilience in grand street society. Typically, how can the basic ethics of bound daily life of human thickness see to mutual castle one another, be protected and preserved with especially in the face of all the shocks and disruptions china is facing today by me. And sandra, theres a mystery. I believe its time to move beyond the perspective of traditional anthropology as a disciplined questions they ask, are still good and useful to them, but we need to pay more attention to the situation of young people today that will also help answer apology become more relevant off and to bring a fresh perspective into placing the 11 looks like the or i from a great minds of Great Potential solar energy will play a bigger role in the coming decades. But only if we could expand its coverage around the world. And thats not easy. Traditional solar modules are quite heavy and rigid. They dont fit on unconventional roofs or on curve surfaces. But all that could be changing. The german firm has now developed a flexible solar panel. But if things go right, could actually drapes solar cells on all kinds of new surfaces. Take a look of this film generated electricity. Its less than 2 millimeters, thick, flexible, and durable. Its also 10 times lighter than conventional solar panels. It can be applied almost anywhere on the sides, proves silos, wind turbine, even on glass panes, antenna physics. Professor karlia was one of the leading researchers on our cannick solar cells. He co founded the company clearly of tech. 2000000 square meters of solar film comes off its production line every year. The dressed in this company is a Global Market leader. Its customers and cle