To start, it’s a must to perceive there are two sorts of geothermal power.
There’s geothermal power primarily based on the straightforward indisputable fact that the bottom 30 metres down doesn’t change temperature throughout the yr. In B.C., throughout the summer time the bottom is 12 C, whilst temperatures push 35 C on the floor. Within the winter it may be as chilly as -30 C on the floor however the floor temperature continues to be a fair 12 C.
In case you run pipes underground you should use that even, year-round temperature to pre-cool or pre-heat. Higher than that, a warmth pump permits you to alternate temperatures, pulling both warmth or cooling from that steady temperature layer.
Many college campuses are putting in geothermal warmth pumps, together with McMaster College and College of Toronto. In case you consider a typical campus, there are giant buildings requiring warmth and cooling and huge areas of grass between them. Universities dig up the grass, set up the geothermal piping and replant the landscaping. That enables them to change from costly and polluting fossil fuels to a extra environment friendly geothermal warmth pump.
Then there may be one other type of geothermal power. The earth’s core is a whopping 5,430 C. You shouldn’t have to dig all the way in which to the core to seek out the warmth nonetheless. Relying on the geology of the area you reside in, there could also be warmth on the floor (such because the Revelstoke sizzling springs or demonstrated spectacularly at Yellowstone Nationwide Park within the U.S.). B.C. has the perfect geothermal sources in Canada with sizzling dry rock within the southern Inside (together with the Okanagan) and volcanic sizzling water within the coastal areas.
In locations the place the warmth doesn’t make it to the floor you might be able to discover it by digging 100 metres to 1,000 metres down.
The highly effective factor about geothermal power is it runs 24 hours a day. Due to a long time of funding, prices for wind and photo voltaic have come down, making them the most cost effective possibility. Nevertheless, photo voltaic solely produces energy throughout the day and wind might be intermittent.
Earlier than renewables, coal energy vegetation ran 24/7 producing baseline energy and pure gasoline “peaker” vegetation met excessive demand, specifically throughout the the 5 p.m. to eight p.m. peak interval when folks come dwelling from work activate lights, run laundry and dishwashers.
Now we are able to produce a lot of our power from photo voltaic and wind however we lack a clear supply of baseline energy and dispatchable energy to fulfill peak use. In some places nuclear and hydro energy can provide baseload power however nobody is constructing new nuclear vegetation and hydro is proscribed to areas with the precise geography. Geothermal power may fill that hole.
Canada has one working geothermal energy plant, the Swan Hills in Alberta. Swan Hills was one of many largest oil and gasoline reserves in Alberta. Because the oil and gasoline had been depleted, the location switched to “recent water enhanced oil restoration” the place 95 to 98 % of the fluid was water. Nevertheless, that water was sizzling, greater than 100 C.
Now Swan Hills runs a mixed pure gasoline and geothermal plant, promoting electrical energy into the grid in Alberta. The U.S. has geothermal energy vegetation in seven states. Ten % of Nevada’s electrical energy is produced by geothermal.
The “shale revolution” in drilling for oil and gasoline, has offered North America with low-cost pure gasoline over the previous 20 years. From an environmental standpoint that has been unhealthy information. Whereas pure gasoline is barely much less carbon intensive than oil, it’s nonetheless a serious contributor to local weather change.
Human psychology drives the change from carbon intensive to low carbon expertise. Many individuals change as a result of low carbon expertise is healthier for the local weather, however a big driver is the long-term financial savings and cheap pure gasoline has slowed the change.
Nevertheless, there could also be a local weather upside to the shale revolution. The revolution consists of advances in horizontal drilling, fracking and magnetic sensing. Utilizing these superior drilling strategies, geothermal energy vegetation might be positioned on a a lot wider vary of web sites.
One method includes drilling parallel wells 300 to 1,000 metres down after which horizontally, utilizing fracking. Water is injected in a single properly and seeps into the parallel properly, now sizzling from the encircling rocks.
Up till now, geothermal vegetation have solely been positioned in locations the place geology brings warmth up close to to the floor however fracking and horizontal drilling imply many extra websites are potential places for geothermal energy vegetation. There’s a imaginative and prescient that coal-fired energy vegetation might be repurposed by drilling onsite for geothermal power, changing the coal-generated steam with steam from geothermal.
Wind and photo voltaic generated energy lead the cost in renewables as a result of, after a long time of funding and improvement, they’re now mature applied sciences. Whereas the drilling expertise behind geothermal is properly developed, geothermal energy stations are a brand new breed.
Funding in geothermal, mixed with expertise switch from oil and gasoline drilling, will cut back threat and produce the price of geothermal down.
Pure Assets Canada has made a $5-million funding in Novus Earth to hold out a research for Latitude 53 in Hinton, Alberta. The Canada Development Fund has made a $90 million funding in Eavor Applied sciences Alberta Drilling Accelerator. The 2023 federal price range prolonged the clear tax created to geothermal drilling.
Limitless provides of energy are actually proper beneath our toes, if we are able to make the investments.
