Podcast: Geothermal Could Save the Grid. So Why's No One Talking About It?

In this episode, we explore Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS)—a new take on geothermal energy that uses oil drilling tech to tap deep underground heat almost anywhere, not just rare hotspots. 

This podcast is sponsored by Mouser Electronics. 

Episode Notes

(2:15) - Enhanced geothermal systems: An underground tech surfaces…

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Transcript

Anyone who's heard about sustainable energy, you've heard a lot about solar and wind over the last couple of years. I'm going to ask you to forget that and think about enhanced geothermal systems, which is an alternative to geothermal energy that a Princeton study says could power up to 20% of the US's energy demands within the next couple of decades.

What's up friends, this is The Next Byte Podcast where one gentleman and one scholar explore the secret sauce behind cool tech and make it easy to understan

Daniel: What's up folks? Like we said, in today's episode, we're talking about clean energy and an interesting alternative solution to some of the other big names you're hearing out there, like smart grids, clean batteries, robots, wind, solar. And that alternative is enhanced geothermal systems. But before we talk about EGS and jump right into that, let's take a second to kind of look at the overall ecosystem and clean tech innovations. And this is an ode to our favorite sponsor, Mouser Electronics. They are one of the largest electronics distributors in the world. And by nature of their work, being super connected to folks working on awesome electronics and releasing new products all the time. They've got a really comprehensive knowledge of where tech is going, kind of where the puck is heading on the ice, so to speak. And they write these awesome articles that kind of explain how things are going and give us a good primer on different technologies. The article we've got linked in the show notes today is about smart grids, clean batteries, robots, and how those are all contributing to more sustainable technology. It's basically a primer of the latest in clean tech, how it might power a greener future. And that relates really well to today's story, which is about enhanced geothermal energy, which is a new way to take Earth's heat as a way of sustainable energy, taking clean power to places we've never seen before. So, if you want to check that out, we've got it linked in the show notes, I think is a really awesome read and it's really well related to the topic we're talking about today.

Farbod: Speaking of the topic of the day, geothermal. Probably the most, I don't know, undervalued maybe, potential that there is when it comes to clean energy. It's very unpopular too, like it's not very sexy when people talk about green energy, when they talk about clean energy, solar has been the go-to. Wind is obviously there, it's always been there. But geothermal doesn't get any love, and I feel like the constant question I've been having as I went through the article was like, why? Right?

Daniel: And I think part of it is like traditional geothermal power. Really only works in very specific geographies. It comes from the name geothermal; we're trying to capture the Earth's heat and use that as a way of generating electricity, generating power that we can use in our day to day lives. Traditional geothermal energy only works in special places where the heat from the Earth's core is escaping. So, think about places where you've got like geysers or hot springs and things like that, like areas like that where it's not sure. I'm not sure if there's like if this is the technical term for it, but where there's like enough fissures and cracks in the earth's crust, such that heat is escaping from the core of the earth. These are the areas where we've traditionally tried to use geothermal energy because that's where the heat is already escaping from the earth's core. But the problem there is like those places are far and few between, they're hard to access and they're challenging to build a lot of infrastructure around such that it could actually support our entire grid demand.

Farbod: And like, I guess taking a step back. Fundamentally, the way that geothermal energy works, is that you take heat and then you use that heat to, I don't know, generate steam, for example, and then that steam helps you turn a turbine and the turbine turning then helps generate electricity, right? What you're talking about here with traditional geothermal being in areas where it's like naturally hot, up until four years ago, that was the only geothermal, right? And that's kind of where we start to like inch into today's article with enhanced geothermal. And I'm not going to spoil it, but like this, this idea of something other than the traditional is incredibly, incredibly new, right?

Daniel: And even if maybe there was theory around how to execute that, it was not executable until very recently. And I will say that because I don't think the theory for this is particularly new, but we've started to get technology that enables us to do this, which is enhanced geothermal systems that can work almost everywhere. But I guess kind of like an interesting note about geothermal energy in general is one of the biggest concerns with other forms of sustainable energy, think wind, think solar, is that the power production is very cyclical. We need clean energy sources that work all day and all night. If we only have cyclical power production, like stuff that it only produces power when it's windy or it only produces power when it's sunny, it actually creates a demand for even greater infrastructure for energy storage so that we can shave the peaks and then save that extra energy and then redistribute it when there's troughs. But if we can find more solid, sustainable, consistent forms of electricity production the same way that we have on-demand energy production, essentially using fossil fuels, that alleviates a lot of the need for the additional infrastructure that would come about if we were to use 100% solar. As an example, we would need a ton of batteries to store that extra energy so that we can access clean energy at night when it's dark out. So that's kind of the additional context around it. But enhanced geothermal systems, the idea is that you can work almost anywhere. So instead of trying to find a spot where the heat is escaping the Earth's core and making its way to the surface and using the heat from there as a means of driving a turbine to generate electricity. This team from Princeton who's studying enhanced geothermal systems and its potential says that you can drill into hot rock, basically drill down into the Earth's core deep enough that the rock is starting to get hot because of the heat in the center of the Earth's core and the pressure of all the Earth's mass around it. Then you pump in a small amount of allow the rocks to heat that pump into steam, which comes back up through a pipe to spin turbines. And the idea is that instead of trying to find these rare heat reservoirs where you're at the mercy of the earth's geography and the temperature of which that the steam or hot water is escaping the earth, you can use latest generation technology, oil drilling technology to just go drill to hot rock, pump the water in yourself and it's a very controllable, very scientific way of doing it, which is like, can drill this almost anywhere. We just need to design the hardware to do this in a way that's not prohibitively expensive. And that's probably the caveat right now is it's still prohibitively expensive, I think.

Farbod: Well, that's, that's what I was going to say earlier. You kind of brought on, you know, even if we knew we could do it in theory, it was completely different in practice and like things have changed. Like you just said right now, the thing that changed was a significant advancement in drilling equipment. So, where we're at now is like, yeah, you can drill, but like, is it actually worth drilling or do you even know how deep to drill? One of the researchers made a good point of it's not like you're surveying land where you can have like satellite images that assist you in what sites make the most sense. Everything that you'd want to know is underground. So, you're just going off almost like the best guesses that you have from the geologists around you, but at the end of the day, you're gonna have to the digging to figure out if this is worth it or not. And that's obviously causing some sort of hesitation on like, does this financially make sense, yes or no? However, these folks at Princeton, being the bright stars that they are, they actually had some really interesting ideas. First of all, some numbers that I think are worth sharing. They said, look, today's grid capacity is about 1200 gigawatts, using existing policies by the government. Policies are going to translate into subsidies, realistically. By 2050, geothermal can make up to 250 gigawatts that are needed, which by the way, the reason 2050 is important is because that's when the USA is trying to go net carbon neutral. But if it gets more ambitious, then we can get up to 500 gigawatts deployed by 2050. So, cost being the prohibitive factor here, they're like, how do we get smart about this? And the idea that they had is, well, we know there are areas that are actually closer to these hot rocks. For example, like locations in the Midwest. And we have this assumption that as you start deploying more of these enhanced geothermal systems in these stations, manufacturers will learn more and more and therefore just naturally bring down the cost via experience. So, what if we get the first couple off the ground in these easy win situations and areas, so that by the time that we're trying to tackle these hard-to-reach spots, we now have all the knowledge that we need to do it for as low of a cost as possible.

Daniel: And it's kind of the same thing that happened when this technology first made its way into oil and gas as well. So, a lot of this technology, and I want to kind of break down into each of these, but directional drilling, fracking, PDC drill bits, these were developed and scaled in 2005, as early as 2005, but they didn't hit their peak use in oil and gas until 2015-2016 timeframe, at which point it became ubiquitous enough that early geothermal tests started at the Forge Project in Utah, which is one of the first applications of this EGS technology is at these pilot tests in Utah, where they're using this modern oil field tech to create artificial geothermal reservoirs. But it only first started producing power in the last couple of years. So, there I agree, right? They're trying to say, can we demonstrate that this works? Can we prove that it works repeatedly? Maybe it's going to require government subsidies to get there because it's still prohibitively expensive. But as we start to get better and better and better at this, as we learn how to do this the right way and technology starts to become more ubiquitous and people are manufacturing more and more of these tools, hopefully the cost will drop the same way that it did for oil and gas. And in this case, instead of using this technology to try and extract oil and gas from the earth's crust, we can just take advantage of the natural heat that already exists in the earth's core and just pump water and to create our own geothermal reservoirs to create a sustainable source of energy as opposed to digging all through the earth's crust looking for a non-sustainable source of energy.

Farbod: Yeah. Basically, taking our destiny in our own hands when it comes to geothermal, which is pretty exciting.

Daniel: And you talked about it, but they view the overall potential of this as up to 20% of the US's energy demand by 2050. So, it’s not an insignificant bump here, right? We're talking about up to 20% of the country's energy could come from this EGS technology just by 2050. And it's an interesting thing to develop and to focus on. But I kind of want to talk about some of the oil and gas tech that's getting borrowed for this, because I think it's pretty interesting.

Farbod: I think you should, it's going to be perfect for clipping and getting engagement on social. So, hit it. Daniel loves fracking 2025.

Daniel: I love fracking. First one that I'm actually most excited about is horizontal and directional drilling. So, when I think like drilling for oil, I think of just a massive auger drill bit going straight down. But now with extra robotics technology, we've got the ability to steer the drill bit underground. That lets you like steer your way around underground and find wide areas of hot rock, even from one drill pad. So, you're only entering the earth once, but you can kind of navigate your way and around looking for these, these long-controlled areas where there's a lot of hot rock. So, then we can create these pathways underground for water to flow through. This is also made highly possible by PDC drill bits. These are polycrystalline diamond compact drill bits. These can basically cut through hard hot crystalline rock much faster than older bits. And these tools are specifically designed to handle the extreme heat and pressure that exists when you're that far underground. Geothermal rocks are much hotter than oil fields are. So, if you're to start digging through these super-hot, super hard, super compact rocks, you need to make sure that you've got these strong diamond drill bits to help do that. Similar to fracking for oil and gas, which I am not a huge fan of, but similar to fracking for oil and gas, they also have the potential opportunity to push high pressure water down into the rock. And if the rock is hot enough to generate steam, it will create cracks where the water can flow and pick up heat and increase the surface area of the hotbed where you're using as a geothermal reservoir. Basically lets engineers create these giant voids underground to create custom reservoirs, as opposed to relying on the rare natural voids underground with hot rock around them where we can pump a lot of water into. And the last thing that's really interesting is we've got AI and automation that are helping us to address drilling speeds, angles, and pressures on the fly in response to underground seismic imaging sensors that are helping the drillers see where the best rock layers are. So instead of doing trial and error, trying to find where there's hot rocks, you can use sensors on this self-guided underground drill and you're assisted by AI autopilot essentially to help you heat seeking missile, literally heat seeking missile to find the hot rocks underground.

Farbod: I don't know, just taking a step back, personally coming at you on this one, Daniel. Do you think that at least in the United States, because I know like China has been killing it with solar, do you think we're going to see a slowdown in solar and a spike in interest for geothermal? 

Daniel: I personally am a little bit skeptical.

Farbod: Tell me why.

Daniel: I think that it's still just super early and unproven at a broad scale, you drilling deep underground through hard rock to find hot areas of rock sounds really expensive and risky. And you're basically betting on costs falling exponentially over the next several decades. Whereas where we have seen costs already fall exponentially are solar wind and batteries. So, I mentioned that there's a struggle to extra infrastructure like batteries for energy storage, but battery costs are dropping exponentially and especially for infrastructure for battery storage where you don't care too much about the form factor that can take up a lot of space. There are ways to do that that don't even require lots of rare earth minerals like the ones that we're putting in our cars. I do think there's a feature in which, just from a fundamental perspective where solar actually does make up a lot of our power production. And we've got batteries alongside those solar to deal with energy storage, but I'm also a big nuclear energy fan. And I think that there's a feature in which solar is kind of our bridge to nuclear, which then will be our energy abundance era where we're not fighting over who has access to oil, gas. We've all just got the ability to produce abundant amounts of energy.

Farbod: I'm with you on nuclear, but I think I disagree with you on the solar side of things.

Daniel: All right, hit me.

Farbod: I think you're not wrong that batteries are getting cheaper. However, as things start to scale and as recycling is still a problem, I think our demand for the rare earth minerals are just going to get higher and higher. And there's still no great alternative to lithium-ion batteries, at least outside of Asia. So, to have the scale that you'd need to support our significantly increasing energy demands come 2050, I don't think we'll still be situated in a way where solar can have the energy storage solutions it needs to be productive. And I'll use Northern Virginia as an example. That's where Daniel and I are at, right? Two weeks ago, we had a massive heat wave and our grid was already at capacity, so they told every single data center that's around us, which I think handles something like 80 or 90 % of the internet traffic across the US to go back to their backup power using diesel generators because our grid couldn't take it anymore. I don't think something like solar could bridge the gap, especially as these things start to get built out. However, I think with the consistency offered by geothermal and the lack of needing a backup infrastructure could pave the way, but I'll concede. The cost is scary and I don't think, I'm not sure if they're gonna really make the progress that they're expecting to, but that's where my optimism kicks in and I'm just kind of hoping for the best.

Daniel: All right, so I'm gonna give you two things.

Farbod: Give me two things.

Daniel: One of them is sodium ion batteries.

Farbod: So, I know China has it. I don't know how it's gonna take off for us.

Daniel: But we've got salt water everywhere.

Farbod: We also have hydrogen everywhere and fusion is five years away every year.

Daniel: Fair. All right. So, the second point is the cynical point of all cynical points, is we'll still be using fossil fuels in 2050.

Farbod: For sure. It's just a matter of how much, right? Maybe we can plant some trees to offset the carbon.

Daniel: I'm hoping that's not the case. It'd be awesome if we crack that nut between now and then. I think that's the devil's advocate is saying you guys are both talking about stuff that is not currently being used to produce the majority of the Earth's energy. The thing that's been used to produce the majority of the Earth's energy for the last several decades will probably be the likely candidate for the next several decades until something comes to supplant it that's exponentially better.

Farbod: Well, I'm glad the devil came out to say something. I was trying to provoke it.

Daniel: Good stuff.

Farbod: I don't have a ton more on this. Do you want to wrap it up?

Daniel: Yeah, let's do it. So, we all know the sun doesn't shine at night. Sometimes the wind just stops blowing. If you know, if you've tried to sail before in like a hot summer day and the wind just completely stops blowing. That is a big problem for people that are trying to use just wind and solar for power production. It's unpredictable. It's inconsistent. But there's some scientists from Princeton that think there's a power source that's always on and it's actually just deep below our feet; it's called enhanced geothermal. Kind of like just building your own underground steam engine anywhere. They think you can just drill down into the earth's crust to where it's really hot. Use that as an opportunity to pour water on there that generates steam that spins a turbine. They're going to use new state of the art oil drilling technology to try and implement these enhanced geothermal systems to go basically dig through the earth's crust until you hit hot rock and create sustainable energy turbines. Basically, this whole thing about enhanced geothermal is about making clean energy where we couldn't before. So, we don't have to rely on the sun shining or the wind blowing to get sustainable energy.

Farbod: I love it. That's the pod.

Daniel: All right. See yah.

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The Next Byte: We're two engineers on a mission to simplify complex science & technology, making it easy to understand. In each episode of our show, we dive into world-changing tech (such as AI, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, & much more), all while keeping it entertaining & engaging along the way.