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Geothermic Solution Limited (GSL) is at the forefront of the GeoHeat™ revolution, combining technical advances in drilling and material science to harvest the unlimited heat energy stored right beneath our feet. GSL overcomes the limitations of conventional geothermal—most critically, its reliance on large and sustainable reservoirs of hot water deep underground, which are found in very few places—to provide abundant access to GeoHeat energy, anywhere in the world.
We founded Geothermic Solution in 2013, driven by concern over the grave environmental and geopolitical ramifications of fossil fuel–dependent growth. Fusion and other game changers are still at least another decade away from commercial scale viability. Although useful, solar and wind cannot currently lead the replacement of fossil fuel-based plants, primarily due to space constraints and the risk that their intermittent character poses to electric grids’ stability. GSL’s technology, by contrast, will harvest deep rock GeoHeat on a continuous, 24/7 basis. GSL’s strategy for getting to and retrieving this subsurface heat is well-rooted in existing technologies, materials, and methods, and can be commercially disseminated within five years, a timeline with the potential to save our environment from untold damage in the coming decades. Critically, the nature of our technology allows generators and customers to sidestep the environmental and political challenges traditionally associated with fuel supply.
Replacing just 1 percent of the 9,000 GW in the global electricity generation portfolio—over half of it fossil fuel–based—requires capital investment in the $100–$800 billion range. Fossil fuels and intermittent renewables are at the lower end of this range and nuclear energy at the higher. Keep in mind that the amount of energy delivered is more important than nameplate capacity—baseload producers like geothermal outperform in this regard. We are in the middle of the range, but given the absence of fuel costs and our baseload capacity factors, we expect our long-term costs to be equal to or lower than any—around $0.04 per kilowatt-hour. We can do this without subsidies, which I don’t believe are sustainable in the long term – the technologies that allow us all to win will be those that survive economic as well as environmental tests, so we must be competitive.
Geothermal power production currently relies on either original in situ underground water or newly injected water to carry heat from the rock formation below to a surface plant. This complicates exploration: not only do you need high enough heat at “shallow” [2–4 km] depth, but it must also be accompanied by a steady supply of water from the reservoir. If injected, we make use of an increasingly scarce resource—water—and essentially pollute it with various contaminants on its round trip to the surface, at which point that water must be treated and disposed of. Seismic tremors are also often a concern to the nearby population.
Geothermic Solution eliminates these obstacles with a “closed-loop” system consisting of:
In short, GSL’s technology works something like the pressurized water reactors used successfully in nuclear power plants over the past 60 years without the shocking costs, public safety concerns, environmental risks, and fuel supply issues.
Thermo-conductive fingers bring heat to the harvester, allowing the cooler water from the surface to absorb that heat, and then returning the hot water to the surface in an insulated inner tube.
We are integrating existing technologies in the following ways to reduce risk, accelerate time to market, and enhance commercial relevance and the potential to scale rapidly:
Right now, we are looking at several sites for our first commercial-scale plant(s). The low-hanging fruit will be rock formations of at least 300° C that are relatively shallow [no more than 6 km], with well-understood geology and, optimally, above-ground plant assets that can make use of our GeoHeat™. These are likeliest to be found at existing geothermal sites, and we are excited at the possibilities to team with operators to help them expand and realize their potential. The next steps will parallel the experience of the unconventional oil and gas industry, whose innovations saw a vast reduction in cost and access to recoverable resources in unforeseen places. As tools improve and our costs decrease, with our partners we will drill deeper and apply this solution to any market that wants us, whether for heat and electrical energy, desalination, hydrogen fuel refining, or powering transport.
There are a lot of great ideas out there, both in geothermal energy and beyond, and we welcome competitive, logical alternatives to share this gigantic market with us. Every good idea can play a role. We hope that the focus of the market remains on the least risky, fastest-to-market, and most economic and environmentally sound solutions TM because the only thing as inexhaustible as GeoHeat™ is our human appetite for energy.
We are looking for partners among the global enterprises that are most capable of deploying our intellectual property, and their engineering expertise and capital to solve the biggest problems humans face. We would rather work with these, and capitalize on our respective strengths to swiftly disseminate our technology, than try to replicate them.
Over the last decade, we have assembled and now work with the world’s most innovative GeoHeat™ recovery team. Numbering over 40, it includes iconic figures from research universities, the geothermal industry, innovators in drilling technologies and materials science, and great managers and capable engineers with decades of practical experience. Without this depth and breadth of knowledge about the problems we are solving, we would feel less confident in our bold claims. GSL combines a portfolio of granted and pending patents with trade secrets and know-how that cannot be matched. We remain far more focused on our intellectual property and our engineering than on self-promotion, as we are convinced that, in the long run, the best solutions will prevail.
Piotr D. Moncarz, Ph.D., is a registered professional engineer in numerous U.S. states and Canadian provinces, and a member of National Academy of Engineering. He is an adjunct Professor at Stanford University and has been for many years on the leadership team of Exponent, an internationally renowned firm of engineers and scientists focused on problem solution and prevention of failures.
