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Those were the takeaways from a live panel discussion on geothermal trends and technologies at the 8th Geothermal Congress for Latin America & the Caribbean. The virtual conference took place September 8-10.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the ultimate potential of geothermal is to truly be a replacement for fossil fuels,\u201d said Carlos Araque, CEO of\u00a0<\/span>Quaise Inc.<\/a>\u00a0and one of six participants in the panel.\u201cSolar and wind will play a role, but displacing fossil fuels is going to take a lot more [than those two]. I think geothermal and some nuclear technologies are the only way to get there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That said, Araque and others emphasized that new technologies, including some repurposed from the oil and gas industry, will be critical to creating such a geothermal future. \u201cGeothermal technology development is very hard to do, but it will open up a gigantic market. It\u2019s the birth of a new industry,\u201d saidAraque, whose company is developing a completely unique drilling technology.<\/p>\n For geothermal \u201cto truly have a large impact on the whole energy transition, it\u2019s going to be through new technology and new implementations,\u201d agreed John Redfern, President and CEO of\u00a0Eavor Technologies Inc.<\/a>, which is developing a novelclosed-loop geothermal system. Groundbreaking innovations will be complemented by \u201crepurposed technology, infrastructure, and capabilities from the oil and gas industry,\u201d he continued. \u201cThat\u2019s why we\u2019re working with and have strategic investors like BP and Chevron.\u201d<\/p>\n Panelists were excited about the growing interest in geothermal from the oil and gas industry. \u201cThere\u2019s tremendous enthusiasm,\u201d said Redfern. Oil and gas professionals \u201care looking around and saying, \u2018where can I deploy my own personal skills in a way that helps the energy transition,\u2019 and they\u2019re all coming up with some of the same answers. One of the main ones is to get involved in geothermal.\u201d<\/p>\n Ann Robertson-Tait is President at\u00a0GeothermEx, Inc.<\/a>, a company aimed at \u201cfacilitating the growth of geothermal in all its forms,\u201d from advanced closed-loop systems to more conventional projects. She noted the many \u201camazing things that [the oil and gas community] can offer its geothermal colleagues.\u201d Key among them is the industry\u2019s prodigious R&D capabilities. \u201cIt\u2019s a really exciting time to transfer that knowledge back and forth between the two domains,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Joseph Scherer is President and CEO at\u00a0GreenFire Energy<\/a>, another firm that is developing a closed-loop geothermal system. He noted that GreenFire has been actively introduced to new projects by the oil and gas industry. \u201cTo have the oil and gas industry bringing the geothermal industry geothermal opportunities is, I think, really wonderful and new.\u201d<\/p>\n Concluded Araque, who worked in oil and gas for 15 years, \u201cI think the fossil fuel industry will be absolutely key to scaling geothermal. Without them it doesn\u2019t happen. Period.\u201d<\/p>\n Other participants in the panel were Nicholas Goodman, CEO at\u00a0Cyrq Energy<\/a>, who moderated the discussion, and Joseph Bonafin, Sales and Business Development Manager for Geothermal at\u00a0Turboden<\/a>. Turboden specializes in technologies that convert heat into electricity.<\/p>\n About the Author<\/strong>: Elizabeth Thomson is a correspondent for Quaise Inc.<\/p>\n SOURCE:<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday, 13 September 2021 Clean, renewable geothermal power\u2014the heat beneath our feet\u2014has huge potential as a clean energy source, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":165,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4317,4318],"class_list":["post-56906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-cleangeothermalpower","tag-renewablegeothermalpower"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/wp-includes\/images\/media\/default.svg","month_date":"Sep","day_date":"15","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/165"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56906\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carilec.org\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.carilec.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Capture-300x74.png\")
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