the most commonly cited total resource estimates of conventional geothermal are ~30-40 GWe in the contiguous USA (eg USGS, 2008), which is an order of magnitude+ too low for two simple reasons,
(1) there's multiples more undiscovered sites out there, and (2) each site can generate more than an order of mag more power by targeting deeper into each system
as past is prologue, these two concepts, finding more sites and going deeper into them, are key reasons why "peak oil" never came in the 19th-20th century
and that's where geothermal is today, circa 19th-20th o&g, with a bunch of prospective acreage as yet untested, and each site being entirely unexplored below 2+ km depths
but unlike 19th-20th o&g, geo gets the modern drilling toolkit from o&g and all the geoscience + data science advances, today, for free, meaning it can find the hidden sites cheaper and faster and drill down to ~5-6 km depths
all of this means conventional geo has a ton of unpriced upside
We're hiring for a Head of Comms to help tell Zanskar's story during an exciting new phase of growth-- Know anyone who might be interested?
https://t.co/ZC8ut8VVs1
Fresh off the press & fresh off the heels of our successful repowering of LDG in New Mexico, we're excited to announce yet another historic geothermal discovery; this time in Nevada!
While you're at it, be sure to subscribe to our Substack so you can read more Zanskar Notes from the Field 📝 as soon as they're live.
🔗https://t.co/G4wDFq0cG6
#Geothermal #GeothermalEnergy #EnergyTransition
Fascinating report from @heatmap_news - for all the exciting prospects of engineered geothermal, an AI-powered firm has a new twist on conventional geothermal development. Will be fun to watch @ZanskarGeo
AI for geothermal startup @ZanskarGeo just located a historically large, untapped reservoir that it says will help put greenfield geo exploration and discovery back on the national agenda https://t.co/sQp7ems0cm
The best news so far at Utah Energy Week:
@ZanskarGeo saying that not only is there immense potential for geothermal in the west, but it's being underestimated.
A Geothermal Sunrise – Wishing you all a good morrow and a fabulous Friday straight from our Lightning Dock Geothermal plant in New Mexico! Harnessing Earth’s heat; even in the wee hours of the morning. ⚡ #GeothermalEnergy
i have never been more excited about conventional geothermal power than i am today
-more sites than thought (with modern discovery)
-more heat production per site (going deeper and hotter with modern drilling)
-higher thermal-to-electric efficiency (hotter brines and closer to carnot limit with modern plants)
geothermal growth is coming and with it economies of scale, setting up a race for clean firm power supremacy with nuclear
We threw a party at Lightning Dock last week to celebrate its full repowering back to its nameplate capacity, a couple of post party thoughts
-there's so much "geothermal goodwill" out there spanning all sorts of demographics, the geothermal love is real, wonderful, deep, and broad and made for a banger party and extra motivation moving forward
-this was our first big party, and parties with internal and external peeps make for great retrospective moments to better see all the supporting hands that got us here, and i'm feeling extra love today for the earliest investors and team members who took big gambles on our geothermal mission
-i know its tough sledding out there in climate tech land, but geothermal is a real bright spot, these conventional geothermal projects are in the green, today, and there's so much more out there to develop, like GWe's, time to drill
as an aside
-Gov Lujan Grisham is an incredible public speaker, like wow, she showed up, unscripted, and had the 100+ person audience laughing and engaged front to back, made me realize that great public speaking is a real skill that most people (myself included) don't have