Taking geothermal forward in 2020 – a Paetoro view

People and place and preconceptions

I’m used to my views being a bit of an “outlier” at times, and on geothermal, perhaps that is again true. I’m not sure whether it is my north of England roots or my antipodean upbringings, or the combination that has nurtured it most, but I do sometimes like to gently challenge the prevailing preconceptions on things.

I have spent a lot of time over recent years researching what has gone on in geothermal in the past and what is going on now.  It’s a huge subject so that always involves getting to know a limited selection of its elements.  Getting to know the whole would be filler for many lifetimes.  There are many, many, experts out there and lots of people doing it with the drill-bit for real. All have my respect and admiration. It’s tough out there at the minute.

I am passionate about the importance of place and people and to me that includes not having any preconceived presumptions about what can or will work best - in any one place or population.  That means spending time researching not just geothermal in a place, but the alternatives it has. It also involves understanding the people.  

Things can work well in other respects, but if the people don’t want it there, that’s important. It’s not something to be battled, rather something to be absorbed and investigated, to understand, to discuss, and if clarification of any misconceptions is needed, then to offer it but not to impose it. To achieve that successfully, will typically not involve some geoscience lecture from a boffin but putting people with concerns in touch with others who have done it before somewhere else. It is always impossible to please everyone, but no project can thrive in a place without the permission of its public.

Giving it a place on a diverse menu

Paetoro’s interests are in the entire energy transition – or resource tide as I’ve started calling it (just to be stubbornly different). The interest I have in geothermal is not as “the” answer but as one element amongst many, an element with many different manifestations, that deserves being brought to the table more often than it is.

Specifics, projects

These days, my perception is that key components which have taken and are taking geothermal forward - in a concrete fashion – almost always include the following:

• The specific detail of place.  Thinking about a specific area, its inhabitants, constraints, issues, and full suite of resources, not just geothermal ones.
• The specific detail of what type of thermal resource is being targeted. “Geothermal” in 2020 is not one science, it is twenty. Not only that, it sometimes means different things to different people. There are all sorts of different hues depending on depth, well interaction with reservoir, reservoir type when there is interaction, and market application. This includes whether the delivered commodity is heat or power or minerals from brines or a cascaded mixture of these – perhaps in a blend with other renewables. I’m not going to bore everyone with another list of all the different permutations there are - but suffice to say there are lots.  To me, it is about being specific in which ones we have in mind.
• The specific detail of customer. Who is being targeted as a potential customer and why would they want it?
• The specific detail of data - including case study examples of what is being proposed. If we are not bringing new data and information to the table, then we are not doing anything that hasn’t been done a hundred times over already.
• The specific detail of competitor analysis and complementarity. It is not enough in 2020 to demonstrate that something can be done. It needs to be demonstrated that it can be done better than the competition – either on its own or as part of a joint effort with other resources. If we are also being specific about the type of geothermal being pursued in a particular place, then “competition” might include evaluation not just against other non-geothermal energy sources but also with different types of geothermal. Going deep with geothermal involves drilling costs, and risks. There may be many reasons why it is still a good idea to contemplate that – the rewards can be worth it, but there always has to be a good and well documented reason to go deep when surface or shallower competitors may exist.
• Quantification of all the above. That means numbers and commercial analysis, even if it is just scoping. There will always be uncertainty but that is never an excuse for not being quantitative. Accounting not just financially, but environmentally and socially. Note that including all three of those means that one on its own doesn’t necessarily have to win out standalone over the competition. It is the combination of all three that has to have something going for it that is attractive to the customer.

In other words, in a nutshell - specific projects. Sorry if this is boringly the hundredth time you’ve heard it from me, but projects are the currency of the energy transition. Not concepts.

Place, people, type, customer, competitor, quantity. That’s what a geothermal project analysis in 2020, for me, for Paetoro, has to have. And above all, data.  Without that, it’s another tumbleweed of talk.

Data, focus, action

The passion for geothermal at the moment is hugely encouraging, and many fantastic groups are all tackling it from different angles. I've very much enjoyed being involved with a sprinkling of them. That said, given the diversity within geothermal itself – it is not one science but twenty (and the rest) - this means a lot of different people involved in geothermal all have different ideas about what it should look like and where it should go. 

On its own, that can make it difficult for the cart to be pulled in one direction if the only thing that is talked about is the concepts - under the increasingly huge diversity that the banner "geothermal" encompasses. Lots of horses looking at lots of carrots and pulling the cart in slightly different directions.  However, when there is the focus of a place and a project, that unites all sorts of disparate views on something specific that can be taken forward together. All of us like to see action. All of us weary of talk eventually. The latter is not in short supply.

Paetoro’s emphasis on geothermal is and will remain, on collation of data, collation of case studies, and their application to specific places. With a keen awareness of all the expertise that exists out there and which has achieved so much already, Paetoro’s interest is in looking at places in detail and bringing promising ones to the attention of those many experts. Experts who have historically done geothermal in anger already. 

Paetoro does this not just for fun, though it is fun. Paetoro does it to highlight business opportunities in these places. Paetoro tries to be liberal in sharing some of its information efforts publicly to help a wider platform of geothermal story-telling, but it is about the business aspect of progressing projects in places. These may be in a state to run tomorrow, or they may be something for down the line, and they may sometimes require some element to change in the meantime to be truly viable. Paetoro is doing this in the UK and a handful of other countries it considers to be strategically placed - from a resource and demand perspective and with good data sets available. Always though, the focus is place and data. 

National scale starts local

That focus inevitably must lead, in the end, to a close interaction with local authorities. The policies which central governments put in place are pivotal and not unimportant. However, while local governments may well argue that it is never done enough, any central government worth its salt knows that it has to listen to local government. These authorities are closest to people, closest to infrastructure, closest to the land, and to the buildings on it. 

Consistently in many parts of the world it is projects in places, spearheaded with the co-operation of local authorities and customer companies, that has driven geothermal - in all its hues - forward. Where that enthusiasm to lead is present at local level, central governments can sometimes take their time, but are generally amenable to following – when specific potential is explained by those who know a place. If a scalability can also be demonstrated, so that successful application in one place is likely to lead to opportunity for many, then even better.

Heating up.

The outlook for geothermal is good. It is happily sneaking in quietly under the radar in many surprising places, as a contributor to horticulture, agriculture, aquaculture, leisure, building heating or wider municipal district heating. This as well as the more traditional power application in the areas of high heat flow - the application it is more widely known for. It can be about this electrical power too – that has the advantages of being easy to plug into when there is a grid nearby - but the resource available for heating is orders of magnitude larger. This is where large numbers of countries and companies currently spend a vast amount of their energy budget. In the UK it is just under half of our total energy use. This heat resource is one that can be well documented and understood already if there has been historical oil and gas drilling in an area. The same reservoirs which sometimes hold oil and gas, also always hold water at elevated temperature.

As we look to geothermal in 2020 and beyond, it may not always be the meal we choose in a particular place, but let’s make sure that wherever it is realistic to put it on the menu, that it is on the menu.  

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