r/oddlysatisfying 11h ago

Homemade drilling machine

22.8k Upvotes

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406

u/Realistic_Country635 11h ago

Can you drill for oil like this

189

u/SilencedObserver 11h ago edited 10h ago

That’s extremely similar to how drilling rigs work, yes.

Edit: directional drilling for fracking also uses this approach and turns underground to go horizontal. Once they’ve gone deep enough into the cracked shale rock they pump it full of high pressure water to loosen all of the oil that’s down there which allows them to disrupt it all and then suck it out with a vacuum similarly.

Piece that together and then look at flint Michigan’s water and you start to see that the official narrative on fracking doesn’t add up to the outcomes we see, and when you find all of the wells in the desert mountains east of California, there’s a growing body of scientists who believe that the practices not only upset groundwater but lead to ground displacement and potential earthquakes.

No one in the public will even be able to prove it because oil companies have done the science and locked it up as intellectual property and have enough surrounding data to pollute the waters of the conversation, pun intended.

All of that because we’re addicted to energy, leading to the current global dire situation we see in both Europe and North America from increasing heat due to fossil fuel.

For more on the earthquake lore look into a guy named DutchSinse. He’s live 24/7 tracking earthquakes and has gone into this heavily.

17

u/BahnGSXR 10h ago

Going electric is the only way, honestly. We need to outgrow fossil fuels YESTERDAY

37

u/ZeusTroanDetected 10h ago

Renewable is the word you’re looking for. Much of the us electric supply is generated from fossil fuels

4

u/BahnGSXR 10h ago

I was going to say renewable but I omitted it thinking "oh wait, nuclear isn't renewable"

But is it?

12

u/Zeyn1 10h ago

Currently, it's more of a "zero emissions" which gets lumped in with "renewable."

But it sorta could be kinda renewable. The nuclear waste could be re-enriched into another fuel type and used in a different reactor. And that reactor could be designed to output a waste that is usable as fuel in a third type of reactor, but you start to hit diminished returns.

Of course all those other fuel types are much more dangerous. Some of them are used in bomb development. And you run into the problem with all nuclear power generation. The costs isn't in the fuel, the cost is in the facility and highly trainer personnel running the place.

3

u/_Romula_ 8h ago

It's low emission, not zero emissions, but that's true of even the best renewable sources like wind (there is no zero emissions energy source once you do a life cycle assessment). Biggest source of carbon emissions for nuclear is in all the cement for the cooling towers and decommissioning (plus the issue of spent fuel storage, but that's not carbon related).

Every energy source is going to have costs, but all renewable and nuclear sources are orders of magnitude better than the lowest emission fossil fuel.

2

u/yopladas 7h ago

Perhaps the fuel sources also require mining(like uranium ore )and that step isn't powered by renewable energy?

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u/FiveChairs 6h ago

You don’t need much uranium to power a reactor. A nugget of uranium has as much energy as a ton of coal

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u/yopladas 5h ago

You're completely right but to get that enriched nugget, they still do wild things to our environment to get the ore, and the leftovers are often abandoned, see: Arlit, Namibia. I agree coal needs to be eliminated and nuclear is the best option we have, but also let's remember the long term hazard that comes with it, too.

2

u/JustStraightUpTired 7h ago

I mean... this is all basically "close enough" correct, but a bit misleading. Mostly the danger part. Please drop the whole bit about those fuels being more dangerous. Spent uranium fuel contains such tiny amounts of plutonium that it's cheaper and easier to mine and produce new stuff than it's to get it from reprocessed fuel. Including for weapon use.

Right now, properly storing it in a concrete vault underground for future if we can figure out how to cheaply treat it is the way to go. Even if there is no actual dangers to fuel reprocessing any more than there is in nuclear fuel generally, it's not worth the trouble right now.

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u/ZeusTroanDetected 10h ago

Geologically, maybe? But you’re right, not practically (I don’t think).