A Startup Says It Has Found a Hidden Source of Geothermal Energy
A geothermal startup, Zanskar, claims to have discovered a new commercially viable site for a potential power plant in Nevada. This breakthrough, according to the company, is the first of its kind in decades. The find is the culmination of years of research on how to locate these resources, and it highlights the growing promise of geothermal energy.
"When we started this company, the most common message we heard was that geothermal was dead," says Carl Hoiland, a co-founder of Zanskar. "But thanks to new tools and capabilities, we can systematically find and derisk these sites. We believe this is the first full-scale signal that the tide has turned."
Geothermal power is a simple method of generating renewable energy. It involves using reservoirs of hot water underground, heated by the Earth's core, to produce steam that powers turbines at the surface. This process requires no excessive mining or complex fuel conversions. Geothermal resources are particularly accessible in areas where tectonic plates meet and the Earth's crust is thinner, making the western US an ideal candidate for power plants.
However, finding these resources is a significant challenge. Most geothermal systems that can generate electricity are deep underground, and there are no surface indicators. These hidden or blind systems are surprisingly difficult to identify. As a result, many geothermal power plants are built over systems discovered accidentally while drilling for agricultural wells, minerals, or oil and gas exploration.
"It's like finding a needle in a haystack," says Joel Edwards, Zanskar's other co-founder. "Only a small percentage of the land you examine will have a geothermal system associated with it."
In the 1970s, during the oil crisis, the federal government attempted to boost the US's geothermal energy output by mapping a grid in Nevada to systematically drill for blind systems. However, due to limited data on the heat characteristics of hidden systems, this effort was deemed unwise in hindsight.
The government subsequently reduced investment in geothermal research, focusing on other energy technologies like fracking, nuclear, and solar and wind. The industry, lacking funding, shifted its focus to developing already-known systems. Any profitable blind systems developed after the 1980s were found by accident or through academic or government work.
Today, geothermal energy accounts for less than 1% of the US energy supply. But scientists in the field believe there's vast untapped potential in blind systems in the western US. Zanskar's technology, which uses AI to analyze vast amounts of geological data, can help locate these systems.
Zanskar's tech builds on the work of scientists like James Faulds, who began researching and cataloging the attributes of known systems in the 2000s. In the late 2010s, Faulds led a team to pinpoint blind systems in Nevada using data on fault patterns and electrical conductivity. They successfully located a blind system hot enough for electricity in 2018.
While Zanskar's researchers have been collecting data on their Nevada sites for years, they hadn't confirmed that these systems could produce electricity until this year. This required tests involving drilling deep underground to ensure the water's temperature was sufficient to power a plant. The recent discovery, the company says, proves their tech can find these systems.
However, the potential for harnessing blind systems may be overlooked in the craze to embrace new technologies like enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). EGS manually creates geothermal conditions through a process similar to fracking, eliminating the need to find blind systems. While EGS uses less water than traditional fracking, it requires external water sources for the injection process and can produce low-level seismic activity.
Ultimately, Zanskar's co-founders believe the energy potential for blind geothermal systems could be much greater than previously estimated. In 2008, the US government reported that undiscovered geothermal systems comprised a mean power potential of 30 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power over 25 million homes. But scientists like Faulds suggest these estimates might be underestimated by an order of magnitude, with tens to hundreds of gigawatts likely from blind systems in the US.
As new technologies for deeper drilling in hotter conditions advance, the ability to harness geothermal energy will continue to grow.
