Curious Worldview

87: Patrick Hanson | The Mighty Promise & Potential Of Geothermal Energy

• Patrick Hanson • Episode 87

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🎙️: https://atlasgeographica.com/patrick-hanson/

The following is a conversation with Patrick Hanson who is the Director of Sales and Marketing at JRG Energy Consultants.

Patrick has 15 years of marketing, brand management, communications, and sales enablement experience, with over 13 years specific to the geothermal industry. This includes 5 years working in Houston, TX with Scientific Drilling International where Patrick led all geothermal marketing and oversaw global geothermal business development strategy for an O&G dominant supplier.

Patrick has spent his career helping energy service companies redefine their brand and strengthen strategic customer relationships within the energy sector while positioning and promoting geothermal at every opportunity.

In This Podcast With Patrick Hanson, You Can Expect To Hear About…

  • The Promise Of Geothermal Energy.
  • VC Money In Geothermal.
  • Low Hanging Potential Of Geothermal.
  • Megawatts At Scale.

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  • 00:00 – Introduction.
  • 03:31 – The Promise Of Deep Geothermal Energy.
  • 11:51 – Megawatts & Geothermal Scale Explained.
  • 14:39 – Geothermal Compared To Other Renewables + The Pacific Rim Of Fire.
  • 18:41 – Limitations Of The Geothermal Promise.
  • 23:41 – The Most Exciting Companies In The Industry.
  • 30:31 – VC In Geothermal.
  • 43:01 – The Incentives Are Misaligned.
  • 48:06 – The Geopolitical Impact Of Geothermal At Scale.
  • 54:51 – Low Hanging Fruit In Geothermal.
  • 1:06:57 – A Sceptical Take On Geothermal.
  • 1:14:11 – Future Predictions For Geothermal.
  • 1:34:16 – Country You Are Most Bullish On.
  • 1:35:46 – Conversation Between Any Two People Of History.
  • 1:38:13 – Afterthoughts & Ambition For The Podcast.

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SPEAKER_02

Hello mates, welcome back. The following is a conversation about geothermal energy, top to bottom, as it currently stands. I cannot think of a more exciting industry at the moment than geothermal, especially the prospect of when it gets deeper and deeper and deeper. As you'll hear in this conversation with Patrick Hanson, who is the director of sales and marketing at JRG Energy Consultants, the type of energy potential that lays beneath our feet right now at about 15 kilometers plus deep is enough green mean renewable energy, zero carbon emissions, continually hot to run the entire planet. So that's the hyperbolic promise of geothermal energy. All we have to do is get over a few hiccups of engineering to drill that deep. But can you think of a more exciting industry than that? Put yourselves in the shoes of one of the early oil barons when they had just discovered that below our feet, five to six kilometers deep, there was this slick black material that was going to completely revolutionize the way that people consumed energy throughout the entire world. I feel like there are certain individuals out there right now tempting that exact same fate. If they can just dig 15 kilometers or a little bit further down and harness the 400, 500 Celsius degree rock that is that far deep and convert it into electricity up at the top, the type of uncapped potential that that would release is uh extremely thrilling and very exciting. So I wanted to speak with Patrick about this because there probably isn't a more qualified expert to give the current state of the union of the geothermal industry. So Patrick has 15 years of marketing brand management, communications, and sales enablement experience with over 13 years specific to the geothermal industry, which as you'll see throughout the conversation, Patrick emphasizes is really starting to heat up now. This includes five years working in Houston with Scientific Drilling International, where Patrick led all geothermal marketing and oversaw global for geothermal business development strategy for an oil and gas supplier. Patrick has spent his entire career helping energy service companies redefine their brand and strengthen strategic customer relationships within the energy sector while positioning and promoting geothermal at every given and possible opportunity. So in this podcast with Patrick Hansen, you can expect to hear about some of the following, but really a lot more as well. The promise of geothermal energy, the sort of venture capital and investment money that is going into geothermal energy, where geographically around the world are the businesses and the hotspots and the shallowest rock and all of the geographical questions of geothermal energy. What is the low-hanging fruit in geothermal energy at the moment? What does megawatts at scale look like? What does actually converting this hot rock beneath our feet into a consumable electricity look like? All the rest. So it is a top to bottom, it is an introduction. We speak about a lot of companies in the channel. I would encourage you to follow up on them if you are interested in this. But as well, I just want to make a general appeal to anyone out there. If you are working in geothermal or somehow interested in it, I would absolutely be thrilled to hear from you. I'm really trying to make something happen on what feels like this huge industry of potential that most of the world was completely blind to. So very exciting. And with no further ado, here is the amazing Patrick Hansen. Mr. Hansen, thank you so much for joining me on this uh lovely Seattle afternoon and Stockholm evening.

SPEAKER_00

Thank you, Brian.

SPEAKER_02

Like I said before, uh off air, we're gonna kick right off into it. And so I would just ask you off the top to outline the promise of geothermal energy should we manage to dig 15 kilometers and deeper.

SPEAKER_00

That is a that's a great kickoff question. So I guess to start, um, geothermal is um my preferred renewable, if you couldn't tell from my background. And I believe wholeheartedly that it is the solution to our energy crisis. Um it is the solution to our um desire to become more energy efficient, more energy dependent, and to solve or at least aid in the solution to um climate action in response to climate change. Um the prospect of geothermal, the the deeper we drill, um the hotter we're gonna get, the more powerful those respective wells are gonna be, which in turn generates a significant amount of energy for that respective region.

SPEAKER_02

So more powerful. Give us some flavor for what that might look like. Terawat, how it might impact the economy. Like what's the promise of geothermal? Can it actually solve the the energy problem, the renewable energy problem?

SPEAKER_00

I'd like to think so. And there's enough untapped potential to where it can worldwide. Um the there's a few challenges that that we all, everyone in our industry face on a regular basis, and that is it is capital-intensive to drill um to obtain that resource comparatively to finding a sunny hill or a windy ravine and throwing up some solar panels or some wind turbines, and you're you've got a pretty uh confident um project there that can be bankrolled, where geothermal requires a bit more front-end uh research, exploration to then confirm that you can then obtain that resource by drilling into it. And there's times even today that you can drill a dry well, which is a black eye, uh, to be honest, um, because there's there's millions of dollars to go down to these wells, and if you're not getting the resource you're intending to get, then that's a sunk cost. That being said, a successful drilling campaign anywhere in the world where it's commercially viable can generate uh megawatts for 30 to 50 years, depending on how you manage the resource and reservoir. Um, again, the deeper you go, the more powerful we're talking. There's wells around this world, um, probably a dozen or so that are in the 25 to 50 megawatts per well. And if you've ever been around that, the ground is rattling. Um, it is that powerful. The wells are are are shaking. Um, they're they're that powerful. I mean, geothermal steam is is something to see in person. Uh the the power beneath our feet is awe-inspiring, and it gives you that much more confidence to go after and develop it worldwide. Uh now there is a caveat to to geothermal when you think of obtaining that resource and then selling it or or generating power. Unlike oil and gas, you can't barrel it up and ship it overseas. It is largely where you're drilling. The power plant can't be too far from that drilling site, and the power you want to sell needs to be regionally um local, for lack of a better term. And so the commercially viable geothermal uh development worldwide today is largely around the Pacific Ring of Fire and any major tectonic or seismic activity. Uh, and largely that's because where there's volcanoes, there's heat closer to the surface, where there's tectonic activity, there's fissures and cracks and fractures that allow that heat and that resource to be closer to the surface. And closer to the surface equals shallower drilling, faster drilling, more affordable drilling projects. Now, the earth is hot at its core, so you can technically drill anywhere in the world if you go deep enough to obtain that resource, but then it gets to be less and less commercially viable because you can only sell geothermal power for a certain dollar per kilo or certain cents per kilowatt hour, and so it becomes a financial game after that. So when you're talking about the commercial development of geothermal, uh a lot of the low-hanging fruit has been explored. So you're talking the western US, Central, and South America, we're talking New Zealand, uh, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, Iceland, um, any island nation was created at one time based on a volcanic or tectonic um happening. And so it's largely built on top of a geothermal hotspot, no pun intended. And then you look at Eastern Africa and up through Europe, um, Italy, Turkey, uh, Germany, where there's um power online, uh, that is where to date the commercially viable geothermal power is largely produced. Um, again, there's more technologies coming up today than there have ever been. There's more attention on geothermal because it is the most logical transition from all these oil and gas experts because it's same tech, roughly the same technology, roughly the same engineering, roughly the same geology. You're just drilling for hot water or steam rather than um oil, essentially. So it's it's a logical landing spot for um my oil and gas brothers and sisters that are tired of losing their job every four years when the price of oil goes down to zero or to twenty or thirty dollars. So there was a lot of a shift in this in the industry, we call it the pivot. The oil and gas sector has pivoted towards geothermal, and you're seeing that with the majors investing in geothermal startups, you're seeing that in um regions such as Texas, you know, stereotypical oil and gas state in the US embracing geothermal, um, looking for the hotter regions where those oil and gas wells have been drilled so they know there's temperature and they're going after geothermal in these in these um parts of the country. But you started this question off with can you drill deep enough and what's that power? And there are studies to do super critical geothermal drilling. There are a few wells around the world in Iceland specifically where they literally hit magma. Um, and that is really exciting. It's it it it's I don't know enough about the details of those respective projects to speak in with any sort of um uh confirmation, but essentially it's feasible. We have the technology to drill there. The the question is what is the longevity of the integrity of the well? How long can the technology that we require to develop that heat withstand the supercritical temperatures of of that resource? Um so that's a long-winded answer that I may or may not have fully answered for you, but I believe that the potential is enormous. There's 16,000 plus megawatts online worldwide right now, um, and that number is hopefully going to double um in the next 10 years because there is enormous potential in the existing regions I just outlined. Indonesia specifically, the Philippines specifically, even in the US, East Africa, Turkey. Um but then all of the new technologies, all the new startups that we're seeing being invested in, they're going after the non-conventional geothermal, either the supercriticals or unconventional methods of obtaining the heat, whether it's horizontal drilling or drilling with plasma. There's so many different things going on which are super exciting, um, but still on the very, very front end of being commercially proven. So it's to be seen how that rocks our world, so to speak, and gets geothermal to to double or triple in its um development.

SPEAKER_02

So um a couple of details then, just so uh me and the audience can get a sense for what a really geothermal is. Can you explain megawattage? Uh you said the 16 megawatts online right now. Is that that's geothermal energy being transformed into electricity? And what is a megawatt? For example, how many megawatts is used every day in Seattle?

SPEAKER_00

That's um I'm I'm not gonna try to answer that because I will definitely mess that up.

SPEAKER_02

But well, somewhere around the world, so we can have a sense for what a megawatt is.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. So essentially, just to clarify, 16,000 megawatts um online worldwide. Um some some single wells can produce up to 50 megawatts, maybe 60, um, and some uh are in the two to three to five megawatts per well. And so you can look at those economics, it takes a couple million dollars to drill those wells um to produce those megawatts. Obviously, the more powerful the well uh per well, the the better the economics of the project. Now, when you look at how much can a megawatt power, um all of my engineers will will probably correct me on this, but essentially it's it's roughly one megawatt of of power can generate enough electricity to meet roughly 160, 165 homes uh in America based on um uh a quick calculation. Um or you can extrapolate that 100 megawatts can power 16,000 give or take homes based on the average energy consumption in America. So you can take that and extrapolate that to 16,000 megawatts and what that can power. Now, again, it's not as I said, 16,000 megawatts is spread out around the world. So we're talking 300 here, a thousand there, twenty five here, ten somewhere else, and so that then powers certain size communities or certain direct uh direct consumption for um operations. So it could be more that a mining operation is looking to offset their consumption by leveraging the heat and their geothermal resource within their mining operations. And the great example there is in uh Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, uh the here gold mined. Uh they they were drilling some prospecting wells uh for their mining operations and discovered geothermal pretty much by accident, and now they're saving millions of dollars over the course of their project in power consumption, so they're not importing um diesel or fossil fuels to to produce their their mining operations. Um so geothermal is can be widely found um and used in in a number of different applications.

SPEAKER_02

Uh you mentioned the Pacific Rim of Fire. Can you just explain geographically where that is?

SPEAKER_00

Sure. So if you look at the map, it's essentially a perimeter around the Pacific Ocean. So it we start the western United States, Western, Central, and South America, up through New Zealand, um, Indonesia, Philippines, uh Japan, and then these and this is where it's most shallow geothermal is accessible everywhere else.

SPEAKER_02

You have to go a couple kilometers deeper if you want to get the big megawatt.

SPEAKER_00

Roughly, yeah. So so when you look at you look at the a a global power plant map for geothermal, you're gonna see a lot of red dots around the ring of fire. And then the next kind of region is major tectonic activity that may not be volcanic, but is is plates shifting, which essentially opens up access to that same kind of heat. And that's most prevalent in um the Eastern African Rift. So we're talking Kenya, uh Djibouti, Ethiopia, Rwanda, um, those those countries are making a significant push to become energy independent and to leverage their clean energy at their feet, and then up through uh Turkey, um, Italy, etc.

SPEAKER_02

Mm-hmm. Um this might be an unfair question again, but 16,000 megawatts currently being achieved through geothermal. Can you compare that to what we're extracting from solar and wind if you know globally how much they're producing, just so we can create a pie chart of where our energy comes from?

SPEAKER_00

That's a great question. The amount of solar megawatts and wind megawatts and even hydro for that matter are significantly larger than um what we have online with the geothermal. And that's I mean, that's top we're talking about in the US alone, uh 121 gigawatts of solar um capacity is installed nationwide, and that just that just dwarfs what is available in geothermal. And that's and and again, I don't have the numbers off the top of my head for wind, but I mean we're talking uh it's not an apples to apples comparison. The the challenge with solar and wind, and I will be choosing my words carefully because I'm not a solar or wind expert, but I'm a renewable passionate about renewables, um, is that you the sun doesn't always shine, the wind doesn't always blow, and that's kind of a cliche these days because energy storage is rapidly advancing. But until energy storage is proven to be cost effective and mass-produced worldwide wherever there's solar or wind, those utilities, depending on solar and wind, have to have intermittent backup power that largely defaults to less climate-friendly options.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And I mean JFEMA could also totally complement the energy storage question as well, couldn't it? It's it's theoretically, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Theoretically, yes. And and and the nice thing about geothermal is even though it's more capital-intensive and more risky to develop on the front end, when you have a well online, it's online 24-7, and we call that baseload. So baseload capacity is is geothermal's um best uh you know claim to fame. It's uh it's what keeps people going coming back because there's so much potential, and once it's on, it's always on.

SPEAKER_02

So the thing that took me onto geothermal was an interview with Robert Friedland on um Eric Townsend's Smarter Markets podcast. Truly uh, you know, like I started with the promise of geothermal. He really did come out guns blazing, full sales pitch. This can a hundred percent uh solve the renewable energy problem. The question is just drill drilling a little bit deeper. So if we're talking about 16,000 megawatts being online now, uh with every kilometer further you get, you have a step function increase of output, more or less, not exactly, but basically, if you can go 15-20 kilometers down, you can uh extract gigawatts and gigawatts and gigawatts, like you said, 24-7 baseload uh for 50 years, 100 years, whatever it is. So um, can you fill in the gaps there? How much is he overpromising? You know, I know that you say that you fully believe that it's possible, but it's this engineering feat that needs to be overcome uh to realize that. Is it simply a case of improving drilling technology, or is there more to it to get deeper?

SPEAKER_00

There's a lot more. Um the the technology side, the capacity to handle that power um is getting there. But geothermal, even though if you drill deep enough, is theoretically anywhere, you're still drilling into indigenous peoples' communities, you're still drilling into city structures, um, they're there it's it's it would be theoretically invasive to people that otherwise aren't on board with having a massive drilling rig and drilling infrastructure be installed in their untouched um you know forest lands. Uh we see that a lot in in Latin America. Uh Chile, for example, has enormous geothermal potential, enormous potential. Much of that power is at the very top of the mountain ranges. Most of the community that would benefit from the power lives at sea level. And so not only do you have to drill in um significantly more challenging environments such as snow, 20 feet of snow, mostly year-round. You're also then having to install transmission lines all the way down the mountain range and largely through indigenous um peoples communities that are have no interest in seeing that. Now, that is a specific example of a of a region that has enormous potential, that is seeing that sort of social licensed operate hurdle, and the economics of getting the power from the source to the end user. Um in other places, it it is uh in Japan, for example, they are currently working with the government to um drill either directionally or to obtain access to some of the national forests and national parks, which are quote unquote sacred and you can't touch, but an enormous amount of geothermal potential is beneath those regions. And so, yes, you can drill deeper to then 10x the power. Yes, the technology is getting very close to being able to do that to not only drill that deep, but to drill there deep faster, which then saves money. But really, it's it's access, it's the incentive to be able to sell that power to a utility that could check that um that renewable portfolio standard by getting solar and wind. Um so some of the utilities and some of the governments that are forced to or encouraged to purchase cleaner energy, it's more of a how can I do that by checking the boxes I need to check most cost effectively. That's where geothermal. Um has a bit of a challenge, not not impossible, and you see that every day being developed worldwide, especially now. But the deeper you drill, the more expensive it is, and the less economic it would be to then sell those kilowatts to the grid for those end users to use. And so there's just to kind of sum up, yes, there is that enormous powerful potential. And if I could make that sales pitch at the top of a mountain, I would, and I do often. But the the commercially viable projects are are where they are. And the the the amazing technologies that are being developed to do this drilling, deeper drilling, faster drilling, cheaper drilling, are on the front end of development. And if not, or if they are being commercially proven right now, are still very um new in terms of it hasn't been widespread, it hasn't been utilized in Indonesia or in the Northern California or places where it's it's conventional geothermal drilling. So there's a lot of a lot of wait and see, a lot of excitement, a lot of momentum, um, and enormous potential. But but there's it's a a juggling act.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and it does seem like there that is a kind of immovable barrier, the proximity from where it's drilled to where it's consumed. Um if it is the case that you have to drill close to where it's consumed, then that does make it immediately far less attractive of a prospect than does say oil, which like you said, you can just barrel and ship wherever you want for it to be locally consumed. Um maybe it's a good time then to introduce quase energy, um, because Carlos Araque and what they're doing over there, I think it sounds like an ingenio again, coming from complete outsider, so I don't know how much of it is sales, but an ingenious uh solution to that problem where they just drill in existing coal plants. Since the coal plants are already there, it's essentially dead infrastructure because they're not going to be turned back on, but they're already within proximity to the towns. So, what do you make of that company and Carlos and everything that they're doing? The technology for drilling, I should also mention that they are the ones trying to go 20 kilometers deep and really get that super high leveraged output.

SPEAKER_00

I love it. I love it, and I won't be I won't be this uh gray, gray-haired uh conventional geothermal guy white knuckling the uh resistance to change and what why can't we just drill more conventional work with all this untapped potential? I think what Quase is doing and what several other of their uh quote-unquote startups, uh, new momentum, new money, new ideas are doing for our industry is fantastic. And I champion them and their accomplishments. Um the idea of converting existing assets such as coal uh plants and and the land that those coal um mines are essentially consuming uh is amazing. Um in fact, what we're trying to do for with JRG Energy is to to leverage that energy transition wave for oil and gas and for mining in general, to how can they become more energy efficient? How can they specifically consume less power by being more independent, leveraging existing assets? So essentially it's while while what I do is a people business, an engineering business, uh, an extension of your respective respective technical teams, what Quase is trying to do with the technology and the mindset to do that um via coal is applauded. I think it's it is um where we should be spending some time and attention.

SPEAKER_02

Um in the industry, w who are the most exciting companies that you guys sort of talk about? Like who are the Quay's competitors? Who are these startups that are experimenting with different types of drilling tech? Because if you do look at it from the very rosy spectacled view that I'm looking at it from, the type of potential is ridiculous, and I almost feel like I've stumbled across something which is is like a hidden secret. Could it really be the case that if Quay's or X Company drills 20 kilometers deep, they genuinely create the new wave of energy, they become the Rockefeller of the next generation? Am I too hyperbolic in the way I think about this?

SPEAKER_00

No, you're not. And I think we need more people to think that way to channel that energy to further champion the word geothermal so it can be more synonymous with renewables such as solar and wind. We need this type of podcast to go mainstream. We need this type of messaging to be out there and the the the quases and the others. Um I I can't speak definitively on on who's competing against Quase per se on on drilling deeper, faster, cheaper. Um, but there are the technologies of of plasma drilling, of water hammers, of air hammers, of lasers. That sounds kind of space age Star Wars-y, but but it's really where it's going. I mean, the the drilling bit technology is fascinating. And geothermal, traditional geothermal is in some of the hardest granites and volcanic formations that you've ever encountered. Um, and so it it eats up these these um these different types of drilling bits um faster than you could ever imagine, especially from an oil and gas perspective. They're just mind-blown that you go through multiple bits to drill a single well. Um, and so any investment in the technology, whether it's quase or it's uh it's someone else, to um to obtain and to approach drilling either faster or in a different way is welcome. Um there are companies that are are um the Strata Global, I believe, is doing something pretty pretty exciting. Um there are um amazing technologies that are uh so ever um the closed loop uh company that's proven projects both in um Canada and in Germany, they are essentially drilling drilling two wells and then and intersecting basically like this. So the technology to intersect these wells is is fascinating. Um there's so the whole closed loop enhanced or engineered geothermal systems is something we actually haven't even started talking about here on this discussion, but essentially it's leveraging the heat where there may not be permeability or resource and circulating a fluid that is heat heated by that rock um through a closed loop system, whether it's Ever that's doing um the intersection like this, or green fire energy and and others that are exploring ways to optimize geothermal resources.

SPEAKER_02

So we've got Strata, Eva, Quase. I'd just be fascinated for my own interest um to be able to look at others. Are there any others that come to mind? The experimental, the ones who are really operating at the end, where if they do hit it, they've got the leverage.

SPEAKER_00

So the two other the two other companies that come to mind are um Jefe Energy and uh Serafee. Both companies are um pushing the boundaries. Jefe is is working on higher temperature uh drilling tools, and um I I can't speak in great detail about about the others uh just because I don't want to misrepresent them um from what I'm gleaning from their website or or my just general insight. Um but but a quick a quick search on thinkgeeoenergy.com is gonna give you one of the greatest pulses of what's happening in geothermal worldwide. Then you could you could imagine. Um uh Alex Richter, the founder of Think GeoENergy, created this kind of media website uh with a dream to just share news, and it's exploded into one of the most um sought-after and and reputable platforms for anything geothermal, and whether it's the advertisers on the website or it's the headlines that the companies are making via the just news generation, anything and everything you want to know about uh geothermal can be found on ThinkGeo if I'm at all misrepresenting or misexplaining no, it's good.

SPEAKER_02

I actually emailed uh Richter, I wanted um to have him on. Um but I didn't hear back. What about access to financing on these guys? Um I know Quays, I think they raised 20 million or something. Um it's chump change compared to what a random, you know, automated chatbot uh stats company would get. If you think about the difference in its its sort of role for humanity, but also the potential upside, could this be a bad signal that perhaps the research behind it backing it up isn't as much as they say it is? Since the people giving out the money, they're totally incentivized to find these sort of cheap returns. But maybe they have a look at it and they decide that it's too risky. Is this a bad signal, or is this just more a reflection on um venture capital not looking in the right direction?

SPEAKER_00

Um that's a that's a great question. Um so financing in general for geothermal uh has always been considered um I need to choose my words wisely here because I don't want to misrepresent the the the beauty of my industry. Um risky. And I say that because um uh what I've alluded to previously in that to drill a well, you are investing in the idea that your exploration studies have warranted enough of a reason to pump millions of dollars into drilling that well, with the chance that there it could be a dry well. And so the people that are financing that have to hedge their bets, have to be highly selective. It requires sometimes um temperature gradient wells or core wells or slim wells to be drilled to prove that the temperature is there, to prove the resources there. So there's a lot of a lot of uh risk associated with proving that the resource is even there to then get the the second round of finding financing that is a more sizable number that can actually move the needle. When you talk about investing in technology, 20 million here, 10 million there, uh what have you, I think it kind of goes along the same mindset, even though it's technology and not the resource, the application and use of that technology, the proof of concept required to leverage that technology to give the investors the confidence to pump more money into the company is tied to proving that concept in a well that is highly risky to drill, um, if that makes sense. So so I think um the the amount of money that that you referenced there um is minuscule comparatively to the next app or the next social platform or what whatever that's generating NFT.

SPEAKER_02

Some completely forgettable SaaS product that's gonna add some marginal value to a giant audience.

SPEAKER_00

Sorry, you'd be shocked that this energy transition wave, this pivot that we've seen over the last couple years, has seen the most money to date ever invested in our industry. Ever. Whether it's these startups like Quase or it's oil and gas companies like Shell and Exxon and Oxy and BP investing their own money into drilling companies or development projects themselves. And this could be in the 510s, 15s, hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm not quite sure a lot of that's private. But the the fact that the needle is being moved, the fact that there is money coming in that's not just Department of Energy, you know, research money, um, is fascinating and encouraging to say the least. And the the the $20 million number that you referenced in context is pennies comparatively to that random SaaS project. But it is it is the first sign that that kind of money is available and that money is going into our industry. And so we're going to we're gonna leverage that as much as we can. Uh, we as in the industry, and uh, and if it's Quase or if it's Ever or if it's Criterion Energy or Greenfire or any of these companies out there that are doing something new for Fervo Um and all the existing conventional leaders, um, we're gonna leverage every dollar that's made available to us to to continue developing geothermal conventionally, unconventionally, and or for for these um incredibly high energy consuming industries like oil and gas or mining or food processing that aren't looking to sell it to a utility but are looking to leverage it to offset their own consumption. There's there's no shortage of um uh outlining an end use um for geothermal.

SPEAKER_02

Does geothermal have a bad track record on offering return on investment? Or is it too young of an industry to even know?

SPEAKER_00

It's um that's a great question. So it it's not it, it's not too young of an industry, technically. It's been around since the 1960s on a commercial scale, and it's been around to the beginning of days if you look at it more as operational or sorry, direct use, hot springs, um, agriculture and whatnot. Um the the challenge is the time it takes from drilling that first well to putting an electron on the grid is a bit longer than a mo than the average investor wants to see that return. So there would there will be a return when it's a successful project. But unlike oil and gas, where you drill a well, you can literally sell that barrel of oil the next day, or it's solar or wind, where you're it's a uh theoretically a shorter installation period from from start to finish with a bit less of a risk associated with it. The the the length of time from start to finish on a geothermal project, even though that's shortening with the incredible advancements in technologies with modular power plants and power generation systems and drilling projects and whatnot, and the size of a project, um, it's the general length of time is why geothermal has seen a little riskier and less less attractive to the average investor. Um it also depends on who you're talking to.

SPEAKER_02

It's interesting. I mean, it sounds like the risk profile is just maybe not attractive to traditional money that can look at way more variables on a run sheet to determine that a SaaS investment is going to be a much higher return on their money, a much shorter return on their money, and maybe a little bit more safe, maybe a little bit more status and signal as well, because you know you get to be in those circles with all the famous people. Um and perhaps the geothermal maybe just isn't sexy enough, which really does surprise me. I don't know, maybe it's just a consequence of geothermal not riding the sexy wave of um solar and wind, because I I I completely understand uh your argument you said earlier about using the Chile example on top of the mountain. Yeah, it would be a terribly invasive thing to put a large commercial operation on a beautiful idyllic mountaintop and then run electricity lines down it into the main town. But that surely that's an outlier example. The majority of these um wells are going to be in just forgettable places where people aren't going to be paying attention to it. And so if you take out that one small variable, geothermal is clean, energy, and abundant. It can easily be roped in with the solar and the wind. Um why did it miss the wave? You know, like what happened?

SPEAKER_00

I I think I think it all goes back to sort of the narrative I've been sharing about um it takes a little bit longer, it does take a bit more money up front, um, and it does rely sometimes on government subsidies and incentives to de-risk.

SPEAKER_02

So does solar and wind. They exist off government subsidies.

SPEAKER_00

True, and they get a lot more because it's it's a numbers game. So the there's there's there's 10x number of people in solar and wind as an industry and in lobby firms, etc., compared to geothermal. Um I mean my my background's in sales and marketing, my background's in brand management, my background is in positioning and promoting geothermal to the masses, to educate them one person at a time. That's why I got into the kind of consulting business and and and what I'm what I've accomplished. Um and I've helped, uh at least I'd like to think I've helped carry that torch with uh with different organizations that that embody that bringing sexy to geothermal, so to speak. Um the and we've seen that as well in kind of the evolution of branding and messaging geothermal. So the formerly known Geothermal Resources Council of the United States was rebranded to Geothermal Rising, which is way cooler of a name. And it um embodies kind of the idea that we're harnessing the heat beneath our feet. Um and and what we've learned in that process of rebranding Geothermal Resources Council to geothermal rising, I say we again as an industry, I wasn't part of the agency that helped them rebrand, um, is is that communicating uh the concept of solar, uh marketing the idea of wind energy are easier to message and convey and visualize to the layman than geothermal. Oftentimes we find ourselves, at least the the conventionalists that we are explaining, instantly explaining what geothermal is, and we we all of a sudden put on our science teacher's hat or our geologist hat, and we start talking in these terms that are being you know glazed over when you talk about them to people. And so it's how do we distill the idea of geothermal to then again become more synonymous with uh with in renewables like solar and wind, and that is I think largely messaging it around harnessing the heat beneath our feet and um leveraging that the the earth that is hot at our at its core. The the outlier example that I gave you um in in Chile is is definitely an outlier because there is a lot more untapped, low-hanging fruit, what have you, around the Pacific Ring of Fire, uh around the Eastern African Rift, that are being explored as we speak. Um some of it is as bottlenecked with um the instability of governments and administrations changing, and you get you finally make the you you finally make progress with one administration and it changes and you have to start over and oftentimes educate them from ground zero. Again, that's a that's a gross stereotype that can be applied to some countries that have constantly changing administrations and governments. Um, and I say that because those are the people holding the purse strings, those are the people that are incentivizing some of the state-owned um operations to develop geothermal. And I'm not specifically tying that to Indonesia, but my next comment is about Indonesia and that they literally have somewhere around 29,000 megawatts of untapped potential. And they've currently have less than 2,000 developed. At what depth? Ranging from uh I'm gonna just range this, but uh six to twelve thousand feet.

SPEAKER_02

Um so without technology we have that accessible.

SPEAKER_00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, yes.

SPEAKER_00

So that's why there is um the again, I I I I say this in in jest, but the conventional geothermal side of the business oftentimes rolls their eyes at all of these amazing startups getting all of this funding when there's still a significant amount of untapped potential in conventional methods around the world with existing megawatts online. So proven infrastructure, it's just a matter of doing the work and getting that that well drilled or that that project developed.

SPEAKER_02

Why is there so much inefficiency in this market? Because you say that right there, that that Indonesia has access to 20-ish thousand uh megawatts with technology we already have. So it's simply a case of people organizing the capital and labor to go and extract it. Mining companies uh print money, uh not mining companies, oil um drilling companies print money. Why haven't they just redistributed some of their resources and gone after these markets? Like, why is there so much inefficiency here? Um, or am I just being too harsh and it's just way harder than it all looks?

SPEAKER_00

No, I mean a lot of us ask those same questions, um, maybe differently, but essentially it's it's why hasn't this happened? Um, and again, I I don't want to sound redundant, but I I think a lot of it boils down to the fundamentals of it's it's not as simple as it sounds in terms of drilling a well. The the technologies are there, the the The infrastructure is there, but there are still risk. Um, there's still um resource optimization challenges. Again, the sun shines, the wind blows, it's pretty understandable and pretty easy to maintain. Again, forgive me for the gross oversimplification. I'm not a solar or wind guy. Um, so I don't want to offend anyone by simplifying that, but essentially, when the sun shines, the wind blows, you're generating power with minimal maintenance. Even though geothermal is clean, sustainable, renewable based on how you manage the reservoir, in many cases, Indonesia specifically, the the wells are so acidic, the resources so caustic, that the the multi-million dollar wells you're drilling have so much scale and corrosion buildup after just a couple years that they essentially have to redrill that same well to open up that production again. Um, again, that is a another finite example that can be applied largely around the world, but it is a really good example of saying that it it's it's it's not drill it and walk away from it, and it's gonna produce through the lifespan of the reservoir. Sometimes that reservoir is nasty for lack of a better term, and it can really eat up a well and its well head components, and and those that's just recirculating multi-millions of dollars to maintain that well or that's that well pad to to meet that production capacity that the power plant demands, to then meet that power agreement. It's a cycle, right? That makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_02

Perhaps they're not the most cost-efficient megawatts available. Are there big gaps in the market of very cost-efficient megawatts that are available, which simply no one has gone and realized?

SPEAKER_00

I don't I don't want to say no, but I I don't I can't speak definitively on that because I think with the the evolution of these technologies that we've referenced, we're going to discover ways to obtain the resource more efficiently. And perhaps that resource is cleaner in some regions around the world that we haven't explored to its fullest potential yet. Um but I think that uh the the resource, whether it's steam that you find in Northern California and parts of Italy, or it's a a brine fluid, geothermal fluid uh that has components that eat away at the integrity of wells that need to be processed at the surface, um both both require significant maintenance over the lifespan of its project, which is just another hurdle and another um element in the the lifespan of a geothermal project that you can't can't really get around.

SPEAKER_02

Um did you listen to that Robert Friedland podcast that I mentioned earlier?

SPEAKER_00

Parts of it, but don't quote me on it.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Just because um something you were saying before about the overall brand of geothermal and perhaps where it fell short and how it could be improved. I think the way that Robert um laid it out there, you know, is as much of a call to action as I could imagine. I haven't heard you know uh equ equally emotive language used for wind, for example, which I think is largely quite a boring industry, although it gets shit tons of ASG money. But um, yeah, I guess I just wanted to bring that up to see if you'd if you'd if you'd heard it to know really um I'm definitely gonna go check it out from start to finish after this conversation, but um I don't have the detailed. Do you know of his doing anything specifically? In it, he mentions a company called iPulse, and they were innovating on the drilling technology. Although when I look at their website, it hasn't been updated for about three years, so I assume maybe they're kind of defunct, but do any of that.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know a lot. No, I don't know a lot about his commercial involvement.

SPEAKER_02

Of the promise of geothermal, should it be realized at 15 kilometers plus depth? One of the most amazing second-third order consequences of realizing that energy potential is the geopolitical shift and uh and the effect on overall geopolitics that you would see from it because it would change energy dependence and it would change this idea of being reliant on other nations for energy, and there are so many great examples of why that is really bad to rely on someone else for your foundation for society without energy, everything stops. Um, can you comment on that and then also give a current state of the union? What are the nations that are most invested in geothermal? Um, and I'm sorry, that's a rambling question, but take it where you will.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. If if geothermal can be developed at the deeper um regions in this world with newer technologies, it will be a seismic shift, no pun intended. In in having geothermal be more prominent, uh having it a have a larger seat at the table when it comes to the renewable energy mix that countries can explore, especially countries that are incredibly dependent upon uh importation of diesel and other fossil fuels for any sort of survival or operation. Um a lot of island nations come to mind when you when you say that. Um the the uh limiting factor of conventional geothermal is that it's very regional to the ring of fire and tectonic and seismic shifts. So if we can drill deeper, we theoretically open up the doors to development worldwide. Now we're not tied to Hawaii, or we're not tied to Southern California or in the mountains of Mexico. We we have potential in Scotland, we have potential in I don't know, Algeria. Wherever wherever there's surface to drill, you theoretically could find it. Now it depends on if it's heat, if it's hot rock, if it's steam, if it's uh if it's a brine. I mean, all of that will be determined as studies show more uh evidence of of proof of concept, etc. But it would it would literally be a game changer. We would be laughing at the times that we were talking about 16,000 megawatts online because we'll be talking about 100,000 megawatts and gigawatts. So I hope that happens in my lifetime, to be honest, and I don't think that that's too far off. But it's not just about drilling faster and drilling deeper and then obtaining that resource. It's it's what infrastructure is required to channel that power. And I think that obviously you build a larger power plant or you um develop more robust um pipelines and or um more cutting-edge transmission lines to optimize your grid. I mean, these are questions and topics that I have not uh experienced to discuss further, but a lot more goes into it goes into the the holistic nature of developing more renewable energy, geothermal at a deeper depth, or or solar, what have you, hydro, biomass, etc. Um, so yes, it it could it could shift the way we look at the world and what the way we we think about energy and the way some countries um are second or third world could could catapult themselves into economic relevance um based on energy independence and the affluence that it would provide them. Yeah. But that's a bit far farther than I can reach right now in terms of seeing that come to realization. Because we're talking about the quays, we're talking about these other companies that are that are on the precipice of greatness, but what do we do with that resource um once it's a once it's a once it's um reached? And I think that that part of the conversation um largely on the grid optimization is something that that cannot be overlooked. And I know it's a huge and polarizing topic in the states here, so um something not to consider. Um the second part of your question was was which were the what can you repeat the second part of your question?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, what was the second part?

SPEAKER_00

Something about nation nations.

SPEAKER_02

Oh yes. Um, it's like a current geopolitical lay of the land. You have already mentioned it many times, the Pacific Rim of Fire, uh uh Italy, Iceland, the United States, California. I think we can skip that to be honest. It it was me waffling a little bit.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Um I mean essentially, um so the the US, Indonesia, and the Philippines have been the top three countries with megawatts online for many, many years. In a blink of an eye, i.e. about 10 to 15 years, Turkey and Kenya have gone from zero to top five in the world. And um Mexico is is in that kind of top five to top 10-ish, um, New Zealand and Iceland as well. Um, and that's kind of the the breadwinners in terms of leveraging the conventional geothermal that they have. Um, and then there's many, many, many, many, many more countries that have anywhere from 10 to 300 megawatts, some of which, like El Salvador, Costa Rica, are that's more than they need to power their countries. Um, and others are just a blip on the radar, but have the potential to be much larger.

SPEAKER_02

You're saying Costa Rica has available to them, with the current technology that we have, access to enough geothermal to run their country.

SPEAKER_00

As well as El Salvador. Now they have a they have a renewable mix, so it's not just geothermal, but geothermal provides a significant percentage of their total power consumption.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, so that's that's already realized, that's not potential.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

See, that's a great story. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it is. It's fascinating. And and they're they're not largely considered um well, they are there are leaders within the geothermal space, um, but as a country that you know they have varying perceptions of of safety and of um uh governmental ethics, but um they are prominent in the development and and and thought leaders when it comes to geothermal.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. Um, what are some creative solutions uh to the grid issue or to the um distribution issue from when the energy is converted into electricity and then ultimately consumed? Apart from Quay's doing it in old defunct coal plants, um, have you heard of any really exciting solutions to that potential problem?

SPEAKER_00

When it comes to uh the grid, I can't I can't, nor do I want to speak on that because it is such a um conversation beyond my ability to to comprehend. Um I know that it's inefficient, at least in the States, and there's a massive, massive uh movement to to optimize grid stabilization and and and what have you. From from creative um from a creative standpoint, I guess, thinking along the sides, along the lines of what Quase is trying to do with coal, um, there are several companies, including my own, that are trying to be in JRG energy, that are trying to be on the forefront of the energy transition, and that is educating and providing solutions to um these energy consuming industries such as oil and gas and mining and food processing or timber or IT server farms that are just consuming amounts of energy that that would blow your mind and spending millions and millions and millions of dollars to operate. And let and yet they are on top of the same heat beneath our feet that some of these conventional geothermal projects are. I mean, if you look at the the mining industry, uh many mines, not all, but many mines are there because of the the product that the volcanic activity that created geothermal created these precious minerals. Um, gold, copper, um, silver, what have you, and wherever, whether it's in the middle of nowhere Nevada in the US or it's in southern Peru, there's a huge mining industry consuming an insane amount of water and electricity to operate, and they're on top of geothermal. And so I refer back to the Papua New Guinea Lahir gold mine that that has is probably the best case study for geothermal development on a mine. Um that that can be replicated in many places around the world where there's a mining industry. Um, same with timber, same with with oil and gas, maybe in different scales, but the the idea to convert non non-performing or non-productive assets in oil and gas into geothermal is not uh not a pie in the sky idea that people are doing that. Now, not every oil and gas well that is being abandoned or that is not producing enough to make it economic to keep producing qualifies for co-production or for geothermal conversion, but enough do that they should be paying attention to that option because it's not just a comparison to what is it gonna cost me to plug this well and walk away, and what is it gonna cost me to convert a megawatt or kilowatt of electricity, but it's the renewable tax credits, it's the boost to your ESG status from a stakeholder's perspective, it's um perhaps the revenue stream of power generation, or the cost savings of power generation, or the goodwill gained by producing desalinated water from the brine of an oil and gas well to a community in West Texas or in Sumatra, Indonesia. Um so there's so much potential, and there's companies like transitional um transition, oh my goodness, excuse me, one second, I don't want to want to represent them correctly. Transitional Energy is um is a company that's leveraging oil and gas conversion. Uh PetroLearn is doing some really exciting things in the US. Um not only PetroLearn P-E-T-R-O L E R N, PetroLearn, and even JRG Energy. Um again, JRG is a is a people business. Um we're engineers, project managers, consultants that that you know help you internally, like as an extension of your respective technical team, whereas transitional energy and and others are providing a uh like a more turnkey solution. Um but it's exciting. It's exciting to see that that the pivot that the energy transition is opening the eyes to what what has long been the dinosaur in the room and the the money-hungry fossil fuel industry is exploring the greener side of the business.

SPEAKER_02

Honestly, um you addressing all that low-hanging fruit is so exciting for me to think about because as I've been obsessing over geothermal energy just as you know, something that runs in the back of your mind, I've been thinking there are all these applications. Uh, you give this great example of the gold mine in Papua New Guinea, and then a myriad of other potential applications that it could have for tons of developments that are happening throughout the world, Sweden alone, anywhere. So much low-hanging fruit, it's so much good business that's addressable. Is it is this like if I spin up a little company that's going to start installing existing technology, I don't have to reinvent the wheel. I just have to, you know, organize labor and capital. Is it really accessible, or am I again just getting a little bit ahead of myself? Is it too hyperbolic? Or can you see worldwide there are so much applications for the existing geothermal tech that we have, and it's not simply the case of all of the eggs are in the bucket of hitting 15-20 kilometer depths?

SPEAKER_00

I think um I think there is an opportunity for a creative startup to to carve out a niche in this industry and do that, um, and to do that in lockstep with some of the companies we've just rattled off. Um JRG is is is doing that as well. As I said, JRG is a people business, and our sister startup company is more of a technology solution. Um, it's very much in the detailed design phase right now, um, but it's leveraging, as I was mentioning, non, non-productive assets and oil and gas or other waste heat generating infrastructure to capture that waste heat and to turn it into clean energy and desalinated water. Um and that's a modular turnkey solution, similar to what uh some of the other companies are trying to do, but but there's no there's there's so much potential that if you wanted to do something, Ryan, you could, because it's a matter of talking to the right people, um, opening their eyes to the right problems with a solution. And that solution is leveraging that waste heat, that solution is capturing that hot water, um and in any other capacity, drilling a little deeper. You already have to drill the well, it's drill a little deeper, and you can open up these opportunities. I mean, there's there's no shortage of opportunity. And I I I honestly think that if we had this conversation a year from now or two years from now, it's gonna look a lot different. A lot in for the better, obviously.

SPEAKER_02

Very, very exciting. You probably the well, if not the best, one of the best people to ask this to, though. In terms of research to access to research reports and uh general over-industry knowledge, where should I look, you know, to do the most time-efficient education in where the real opportunities are and what it actually looks like, and who are the people to speak with.

SPEAKER_00

Um there's a more um uh brand name um places to look, like the World Bank and Irena. Um there's there's a bit more of the day-to-day commercial news from Think GeoEnergy, and then there's there's research outfits. Uh, Think Geo Energy conducts research. Um, a startup that I have my fingertips in is in the uh education, outreach, and data uh business, geothermal data services, um, and and several others. Uh the National Renewable Energy Lab in the US produces amazing reports. Um if if you look, you will find archives upon archives of current and historic data around geothermal that will really shape the narrative. Um most of it is available and some of it is uh for purchase, and um you will you will walk away an expert on geothermal.

SPEAKER_02

Nice. Because it really is the case. I mean, you've spoken about God, I'm sorry, I got frogging my throat. But um we've mostly spoken about US companies and potentially a European company. I mean, we haven't even touched on Asia, India, China, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh. Like these are the most populous places in the world that have shitloads of development going on that would a hundred percent be eyes open to this sort of stuff. Do you have any sort of idea of in the developing world? Uh oh, I suppose you didn't mention a lot of Latin America, but maybe in those countries I just mentioned, and perhaps other places in West Africa, do you have any idea as to what the um market looks like there, whether there are people operating and uh stuff like that?

SPEAKER_00

Um in in Asia Pacific, there there's a lot of crossover between the countries that have proven geothermal power, Indonesia, Philippines, Japan, uh, New Zealand, to name just a few, Papua New Guinea, um, where they're they're neighboring countries, as you as you rattled off, um, have potential, haven't quite built that infrastructure up for from a conventional power plant power generation standpoint, but have potential. And even if that's not mainstream, that's um land developers and um architectural firms that are looking to install geothermal heat pumps or uh other ways to you know smaller power plants on scale from what we've described earlier to then become a self-sufficient skyrise or district heating for a community. Yeah, those are all um absolutely uh on the table and are probably being explored or developed as we speak.

SPEAKER_02

There there must be grubby Australian pause all over the Indonesian and uh Papua New Guinea operations, right?

SPEAKER_00

Um I I will let you choose those words, uh, but there are definitely um Australian influence, um, whether it's from the Australian mining sector and/or from an engineering and standpoint, and and and in not too far off ago, there was a pretty uh exciting G. A thermal industry in Australia that never quite hit it off from a conventional standpoint. Um, and some of those companies, rather than dissolving, kind of shifted into you know alternatives, whether it was in Latin America, Australian known businesses operating in Latin America, or Australian own businesses operating through Asia PAC.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. I I I saw that. It was in uh I think near Cooper Pete in South Australia. They promised the world and then delivered nothing, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Um Yeah, there was a few a few hiccups there that that um you know Australia is a great example that there's heat. There's a lot of heat, but the permeability and the actual resource or reservoir was not as uh prominent or or was not reached as they thought they could get. So interesting.

SPEAKER_02

Um so as you know, I am record I am editing this, so I might end up deleting this, but I thought it was a good question at the time. I'm thinking less so now, but I want to ask it anyway and see what you think.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Um so this line of inquiry might have a negative inflection. So don't let me bring the energy down. But if you take a step back, very um high view of geothermal, uh you say from where I'm coming at it from, zero industry expertise, you know, literally just seen some things and gotten excited. You look at the mining drilling industries in a very superficial manner, the fact that these giant companies with um reservoirs of money uh haven't yet transitioned into geothermal, despite the fact that they have all of the um labour and knowledge and infrastructure pretty much already on their balance sheet. They don't have to go through the uh really hard effort of developing that all, attracting the people, uh X, Y, and Z. So if the promise is true and the upside of geothermal could potentially be the next oil, even more than the next oil. And there are really, really well-off companies perfectly situated to transition into it, and it's not happening. Could this be a really bad signal that in fact geothermal is not all it's cracked up to be? The geophysicists have decided, you know what, we just it we cannot do it at the moment, and um X, Y, and Z. So it's a negative question, but it's also one that you have to ask. If the smartest physicists in the world and the most in-the-know drilling engineers in the world are saying there actually isn't potential in this, do we take them at their words or are they wrong? Um, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00

That's a that's a fantastic question. And I don't think it's negative, I think it's a reality check, um, or a calibration, if you will, not a check. So I think that we are on the front end of of a shift. Um, I've referenced Pivot several times. Uh the state of Texas, University of Texas, Austin, and Jamie Beard and team established Pivot 2020, and Pivot 2021 are these these virtual conferences that have attracted thousands upon thousands of people in the energy transition space, in the oil and gas space, um, that are getting a lot of people and a lot of money to pay attention to geothermal. I think it all boils down to money though. The price of oil, the um the incentives, the government subsidies, the perhaps corruption in some places around the world, etc. etc., that that line the pockets of people that can move the needle. Um, so geothermal is the most logical uh pivot point for a lot of people in oil and gas from, as we said, engineering, technology transfer, knowledge transfer. Um there's not a not a there there is a learning curve, it's a little bit different drilling, but theoretically it's transferable. And we're starting to see that. Why haven't we seen that in the last hundred years? That I think boils down to a little bit of dollar and cents and a little bit of uh a lot of lack of knowledge of what oil and gas and and other industries do to the climate. So the awareness of climate change, the pressure that people are getting to be more ESG compliant compliant, to uh achieve or make an effort to be net zero, or at least to make an effort to reduce emissions, all of these are compounding upon each other. And we're at that that breaking point where you know, a year ago when the price of oil was so low, um, a lot of that shift was happening, was being realized with these investments from these traditional oil and gas drilling companies, from these uh major brand names, uh BP, Chevron, Shell, etc., investing in these companies, these startup companies like Quase or development projects around the world, we were seeing that. Um it is to be determined over the literally the next couple months, maybe next calendar year, as oil has kind of rebounded back to its its heyday, how much of that attention is slowed down or shifted back, um, and and what sticks. Now, I believe that the pressure, the interest, the the the um trend of of climate change and climate action is actually going to overpower the dollar and cents conversation that um or side of the argument that we've seen kind of oscillate back and forth because those investments have just been made. Those investments are being made, and they're not going to pool that money. So I believe that at least what happened over the last 24 months it proves there's a vested interest in the global industry, from oil and gas specifically, that geothermal is something to take serious and invest further in. And you see that even with uh US specific Department of Energy opportunities, um, the geothermal technology offices that are investing twenties to hundreds of millions of dollars into projects available, grants available for the development of um underperforming oil and gas fields, the development of newer technologies, um, proof of concepts that um oil and gas companies are taking serious. Um I can't, it's too premature to say, but uh several have reached out to me to kind of gauge our interest in helping them with these potential applications that just further proves that they're taking this serious. So you asked a question that could have been answered or posed a negative frame of light on geothermal. Why is it taking this long? Why are there not enough or as much of a shift or people taking geothermal serious? And there is still a significant shift that still needs to happen without even completely turning their back on the industry that they know, but to embrace the one foot on in both doors, so to speak, um, to to see the potential of geothermal with that new blood and that that old money um and to see where that goes. And I I honestly think if we have this conversation a year from now, we'll be talking about a lot of different success stories and even more exciting news out of Quaze and Ever and all these others that we've that we've shared. Yeah, and the startup that I that that our company is is is um investing in could so be commercial then.

SPEAKER_02

It seems like you are only receiving really optimistic signals about the future of geothermal, which I know isn't a qualitative measure, but as a as a reality check is a you know a brilliant sign. I think we should uh lean on our instincts and learn from instinctual signals more so than whatever the uh the data might be saying. So that's really cool. Um if you could offer a very uh futile uh course of action, but nonetheless a fun one, could you make a prediction as to where you think geothermal is going to be in 10 years? If 16,000 megawatts is online right now, in optimistic and uh pessimistic view, what's our wattage in 10 years? What does the field look like?

SPEAKER_00

I'm known to be pretty conservative when it comes to these types of guesstimates, um, but I would say 10 years from now 30,000 megawatts, so just under doubling. Um, and a more pessimistic or even more uber conservative look would be probably 21,000. Um just based 21 to 22,000 because we're we're some years we put on two or three hundred megawatts, some years we're putting on six, eight hundred to a thousand uh megawatts, depending on these large-scale projects being developed. Um, but I'm I I think that there's it's a numbers game, and there's gonna be more projects, even if they're smaller projects at the start, that are all gonna start hitting online. There's um Kenya, as I mentioned, was a rising star, but Ethiopia has just as much potential, and they are on the front end of drilling for three years, so um there could be hundreds of megawatts coming online out of Ethiopia alone in the next three or four years, to be honest. And then that's a blueprint that a lot of comp countries are following. Um, so I I would say that um if I was a betting man, I would be north of 25,000 megawatts in 10 years, and I would be um I wouldn't be doing this anymore if we were at 30,000 megawatts.

SPEAKER_02

I was hoping you were gonna say a hundred thousand, couple of gigawatts. Um, but that's okay. I mean, I suppose it is much better to have a realistic worldview because at least then the expectations can only really go one direction. Not what expectations, the um realization.

SPEAKER_00

You know, Brian, I I think I think that if I said a hundred thousand and and it was quoted somewhere, you know, I'd have to I'd have to point to examples of how we got there. And I think knowing from a conventional standpoint, the comp the countries that are doing what they're trying to do, leveraging the proven technologies and methodologies and drilling practices and blah blah blah blah blah, the timelines for projects to commercialize, um 30,000 would be amazing. Would be amazing. It's more than double. I mean, we've been generating megawatts online since 1960, and so it's taken us this long to get to 16. Um, if we can more than double in the next 10 years, it's going to be amazing. Um, as I said, if quays can do what they're they're doing, and if if the 10 other versions of quays are doing that across the the energy spectrum, then maybe we will laugh at the 30,000 um prediction and then be 60,000. But I really think that it comes down to more than just proving we can get to that resource, proving that we can that we can convert coal plants or oil and gas wells, and actually doing that at scale. And what are we doing with that power and and how are we supporting that the supercritical geothermal resources we'd be obtaining at those depths? I think that that that's not an overnight conversation or just uh build another 100 megawatt power plant. Um you have to build a hundred hundred megawatt power plants to support that.

SPEAKER_02

Um I just have a f a few more for you. Uh you mentioned there, or at least you alluded to the fact that in a lot of developing countries, perhaps even in developing countries as well, there are just dishonest actors who move the needle that are working against, say, renewables of X, Y, and Z kind just because the palms can be greased elsewhere. Um, I'm currently watching this great Norwegian TV show called Likalandet, and it's brilliant because it really um highlights the success of the politicians and the bureaucrats who otherwise I'd be allergic to, but they really did a great job at um making sure that this uh natural resource was managed as best as anyone's ever managed it, really, in history, I guess. So that's a question of politics, it's a question of lobbyism, it's a question of uh varying interests, especially when there's big money involved. Can you talk a little bit about this? Um it seems like uh as you scale up, or I'm sure you deal with this all the time, especially if you're consulting with clients that are in other countries, you have to think about these issues. Um, you know, it it's it would just be fascinating to hear you think out loud on them.

SPEAKER_00

Sure. Let's see. Um I think that whether it's the the term corruption or it's lining the pockets in different ways, um, or it's just the the the current regime of of government X, um there there are varying hurdles that are not singularly responsible for any delay or or or steps backwards that that have slowed down geothermal from a macro perspective for development in either developing or or um emerging economies. I think the ingrained mindset for um the countries that are leaders within this world that may be considered second-third world or emerging or developing have proven that the resource is is commercially viable, that there's an infrastructure that can be counted on, that it provides sustainable clean energy to to a country that otherwise would have to import enormously expensive fossil fuels or other diesels and and whatnot to survive. And I think that the the balance of knowing that that they're that they depend on on this infrastructure or can depend on the infrastructure of geothermal, versus perhaps the lobbies for oil, gas, or for even solar or wind, for example, that may influence or cloud or confuse the the very same energy ministers that that I need to speak with to get geothermal projects on board. Um I think that they're trying not to talk myself in circles here. I think that there's a delicate balance between recognizing that geothermal doesn't have the numbers in people, in dollars, in lobbies, to to compete with solar, wind, oil and gas and mining. They just don't. I don't bump solar, gas, oil, and mining, um, solar and wind, oil and mining together. That's they're all in this one bucket, but but they all have more money and more sophisticated lobby lobbying firms worldwide than than GSM could ever hope for combined. Um so there's always gonna be an uphill battle for education, for for um claiming those tax incentives or those government programs that will that will incentivize development or de-risk development, um, that we're gonna face for as long as we continue on this path worldwide. It just it is what it is. But I do believe, and I'm an internal optimist, that I think the the proven status of geothermal in these comp these countries, whether it's El Salvador or Costa Rica or Nicaragua as as a Latin American example, or it's Indonesia for Asia Pac, um that it's proven and it offsets this alternative that would be polluting the the world and polluting the region, and that they see the potential, they see the value, they see infrastructure, they see jobs, they see votes, and I think that's gonna move the needle enough to where we're gonna see it continue to grow. How fast it grows in those regions, that's to be determined. Um, how many times we have to re-educate the next regime or next government, that's to be determined. We're sort of we're sort of um trained to to expect that. Um and I think that's the reality that we're facing is that it's gonna be until the quase and the others um develop that amazing technology and we can harness that power and commercially develop that power, um, what I just described will be the the reality for what we're living in.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So for the lobbyism, for the overall brand of geothermal, for access to uh all the ESG money that's coming in from a state from uh government perspective, geothermal needs to be proven at a deeper level so it can just scale further and it can have more impact. You think at the current level that we can drill at confidently with the current uh technology, it won't scale to the heights that it might then have influence over lobbies and so forth.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean I think that that the science is is is the science from conventional geothermal is not changing. Right? It's it's it's can we do it faster, cheaper, safer, um, deeper, uh like Quase is trying to do, or through alternative means like coal conversion, oil and gas conversion. That's that's gonna offset the the conventional spike of growth. The pathway that we're growing today from a conventional standpoint, that's gonna see this go go up. Yeah um how high that goes up and at what pace is is very unclear. Um but but it may it may revolutionize the concept I just tried to articulate probably poorly about the lobbies and the balance of powers and oil and gas influence, etc. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02

Are you seeing um really good talent coming into geothermal? You know, the best physicists, the best engineers, does um yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I think uh if you would have asked that question to me um 2019, I would have said no. I would have said that I was concerned for the future of geothermal. Um, because even though my hair is grayer than that was brown, um I was in this industry and had leadership positions on boards at a younger age, and the industry was a gray hair industry. Well, it was a very 60 and over people holding on a little too long, resistance to change, status quo kind of mentality that um was a turnoff to the youth of our of our of our world to to exciting opportunities and careers, and the industry was growing slowly, but there was not a lot of inform interest from oil and gas, there was not that pivot mentality, this is pre-pandemic. Um there was not a lot of movement today. I would say yes, and I say I think that's largely because of what I was what I was describing as climate change, climate action, the awareness of the future of our world that we're living in, and and how we can actually help uh turn back the clock or at least aid in the ability to fight climate change uh with careers in geothermal or careers in renewables. I think that's attracting a a wave of talent across the spectrum of the industry from sales to science and everything in between. Um but it has been a recent phenomenon, and I think a large part of that is the pivot that we've been talking about with you know the oil and gas between 2015 and 2020, and the uh how it's just gone up and down, up and down, and people are tired of losing their jobs every three to four years, and um they're looking for stability, and stability seems to be in climate change and in sustainability, and blah blah blah blah blah. So I think it's here to stay. I think that we have a wave of of great young talent. Um, I mean, my LinkedIn um connections are growing every day with with exciting people that are have engineers next to their titles or geophysicists next to their titles or financial planners, etc. etc. that have goals in sustainability or goals in renewables or even better geothermal. So I'm I'm very hopeful and excited to see where this goes.

SPEAKER_02

So cool. Uh I I couldn't um if you are a young person and you are really interested in energy, it seems like renewable energy is the only way you're gonna go. Um how much value are you gonna add to a windmill, to a solar panel? It feels like the real call to action is how much can you innovate a drill? Um and you know, I I wish I had a more technical degree. Um I'm actually looking into doing a master's now in a technical degree, so I can have some sort of uh conversational fluency on the technical side of things. Um but I just for me at least, and this is my own room. Coloured uh lens. There is there there couldn't be a more exciting industry, really, because the upside is so huge should you hit that um answer these and what's so exciting about it is you sort of you know the questions that you need to answer, which can't be said for a lot of the big step function changes in society. You know, they're sort of serendipitously uh come they're serendipitously tripped over. But with this particular issue, you know exactly the targets you need to meet, you know. You know where the hot rock is, you know the different types of rock it is, you just have to drill to it. And so, yeah, it's it's um it's an incredibly exciting thing. You mentioned that America, you mentioned that you have an insight into all the exciting things America is doing. I wonder if you could make a forward projection as to who the world leader for geothermal is, where the great companies are, the great innovation, the money, all the rest.

SPEAKER_00

So I think that the United States, being the leading country in the world on geothermal megawatts online, will continue to be the leader in megawatts online and in innovation and in thought leadership for years to come. That being said, a lot of the conventional geothermal power in America has been developed. And so the next phase of development will be on the outskirts of that known resource and we'll be leveraging the new technology. So we'll it will be putting the quays and the Evers and the Greenfires and the Criterions and Transitional, et cetera, et cetera, um, to the test to leverage that forward thinking of fervo energies, etc., to to um develop uh lesser known and lesser proven regions to to advance the US megawatts online. That being said, and I've said this prior, and I think the the number two and number three ranked countries, Indonesia and the Philippines, have so much untapped conventional potential that they could 10x the US if they fast tracked that development. And there are plans to be doing that. There are um the Philippines Department of Energy has has um sent out a solicitation for um a plan and a team to re-engen re-energize their development. They're one of the leaders, but they haven't actually done a lot of new development in 20 plus years. Um so they can they can quickly become two or three times as big as they are from a megawatts online. And then I've already said there's almost 30,000 megawatts in the Indonesia and there are myriad of island nations or islands in the in the country um that can be converted to power or can be developed into power, and that would be region changing. I mean they would be they could install underwater power lines and and and whatnot. So uh the US has the infrastructure, has the renewable energy laboratories, has a lot of the dollars and and and people, thought leaders and startups.

SPEAKER_02

Um, but on an untapped potential side, um I've I've just listed them, but Asia Pack is Is um in Indonesia, is the politics a huge speed bump there, or is it just the sort of acidity of the um ground that you mentioned earlier?

SPEAKER_00

Uh so so the the corrosion and scale buildup from the resource is less of a hindrance to development and more of a reason that some of the budget has to be allocated to to maintain and redrill rather than just new drills. Um I I will not pretend to understand or or know the latest in Indonesian politics, but I do know that it has changed and it's changed several times in my lifetime, and it seems to ebb and flow with um wide open door to geothermal to making it harder for geothermal, um, supporting fossil fuels to to embracing renewable energy, and I can't tell you why, and that's just my expertise kind of stops in in front of that. Um, but I have, I mean, my father's been in the industry for 45 plus years on the drilling side, and he was an expat in Indonesia for for six years, so he's shared a little bit from what he's understood, and it always seems like it's it always yeah, but it it does seem like it it's harder than it has to be. And I don't know how to fix that or what what solution needs to be put in place, but it does make it it seems like it's harder than it needs to be to just get things faster.

SPEAKER_02

That country is one of the uh most fascinating in the world, you know. I think they're the third largest rainforest, they're the largest Muslim population, they're spread out across this archipelago, there's so many different ethnicities. China sort of runs the business side of things, it's so fascinating. Um, if you're interested or anyone listening, Jared Diamond wrote a book called Upheaval, and uh he chapters Indonesia in it, and it's it's remarkable. Um, um look, if you're okay with it, there are a couple of questions that I would like to ask as many guests as possible. They're non-geothermal related, but if you have the time, I'll do my best to answer them. And before I answer them, uh ask them actually, I will um just hand it over to you if there was something more that you feel like we didn't address that is a hundred percent worth saying.

SPEAKER_00

Just that uh for everything that I said was a challenge for geothermal, there's there's an equal or greater opportunity and excitement behind it, as you've sort of alluded to just there. Um it's it's there's an endless source of heat beneath our feet if we can get to it. And there's there's an enormous amount of untapped potential from a conventional standpoint that doesn't require a whole lot of innovation, just requires the the organized uh leadership and and the right alignment of dollars and cents.

SPEAKER_02

Alright, Patrick, just two for you. The first, what is a country looking into the future that you're particularly bullish on?

SPEAKER_00

Um I um I will d d disqualify the US just because I I live here and I have a lot of insight into some of the incredibly exciting things that we're doing um from a geothermal standpoint. And I will go towards um I'm toying between Latin America and Asia Pac in East Africa. I think I think I'm gonna go with, uh and there's a there's a few, but I think I'm gonna go with Eastern Africa as a as a region, Kenya as like the um the specific leader within that region, but I have uh particular interest and am overly excited about the geothermal, and I I say that in italics, the geothermal potential of Ethiopia, not the um this this the civil situation um from a government standpoint and overall safety, but the geothermal potential of Ethiopia could could catapult themselves into energy independence and geothermal thought leadership um and follow quickly behind Kenya, which is setting the pace setting the standard um from for geothermal generation.

SPEAKER_02

Finally, Patrick, this is my favorite question. If you could listen to a witness, a conversation between any two people of history, dead or alive, no language barrier, uh who would you listen to? Who would you listen as a podcast, these uh two people?

SPEAKER_00

Uh I think this might be uh influenced from from uh a date that just passed, but um, I would love to listen to Barack Obama interview Jackie Robinson.

SPEAKER_02

Remind me who Jackie Robinson is.

SPEAKER_00

The first professional African-American baseball player um in the US.

SPEAKER_02

Are you a big baseball fan?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I mean, I'm lit I've got kids playing baseball. I am a baseball fan, but I think from a civil rights standpoint, um, the first black president in the U.S. interviewing the first black baseball player um in America and kind of sharing that sort of um title of being one of the first in a in a country that is still a bit polarized on that topic, um and then just being a general, just ath uh a fan of sports, and and I know uh former president Barack Obama is a is a a sports fan himself, um and it was uh Jackie Robinson Day um just a couple days ago, so it's it's uh present in my mind. And so I think that would be a fascinating discussion on civil rights and on the hurdles they overcame to become the leaders that they were and they are.

SPEAKER_02

Cool. No, absolutely. Barack is uh one of the most one of the greatest speakers uh I have ever heard, alongside Christopher Hitchens, just someone who can like really, really deliver a point, terrific sales, which I guess a good politician is at the end of the day. Yeah, well, uh Patrick, absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for that. I I I think I achieved the goal to get your worldview on geothermal, though I'm sure there is a lot more. Um, and when I am a little bit more literate in it, I think we should uh well, I'll follow up.

SPEAKER_00

I think, like I said, I think a year or two from now it's gonna be mind-blowing how different it looks with some of these startups actually being mature companies now and and mega watts online. So I'd love to revisit this in a in amazing.

SPEAKER_02

Well, thank you again, Patrick, for that. Really, really exciting to speak with you. And um, again, I just want to make this general appeal to anyone listening. If you're involved in geothermal, uh reach out. I would absolutely love to hear from you. Um, I have lined up several more guests actually to be coming on in the next few weeks who are working in the different parts of the geothermal engine industry from the investors that are providing the money to do it, to explain the limitations of investing in geothermal, the fact that you're working on 10, 15 year time horizons and all the sort of structural limitations that come to investment then to the actual engineers. What is required? What what are the what are the drilling innovations that they need to be able to go further deep, and so much more as well. I'm incredibly excited and passionate about geothermal, and so I am just making this appeal out to anyone as well who might still be listening. Again, get in touch. I'd love to hear from you. Finally, my ambition for this podcast. So, as you've heard before, I don't want to uh be too redundant. So, this is assuming this is the first time you've listened to this podcast. Hello. What my aim is with this podcast, as you might have seen, we're almost a hundred episodes in, and this episode is about geothermal. But as you will go through the list, it is a wide range of eclectic curiosities, and they're all a reflection of my own interests and curiosities. But my hope is that I can somehow corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever market it is you're listening in from, whatever country you're listening in from. So, how does one actually achieve that goal? Unfortunately, the all the podcast algorithms are completely in the stone edge. They're very unsophisticated when it comes to the nodes and variables that they interact with. At the moment, it's one thing, it's the amount of reviews that a podcast has. So on Spotify, you can give it a quick five stars. On Apple, you can give it a quick five stars and a comment. But really, that is the best and most helpful thing you could possibly do for me to help me realize my goal, or at least my ambition for this podcast, which is to corner the podcast market for eclectic curiosities in whatever country it is you're listening in from. And if you're still listening in now after this giant appeal, I just want to nail home one more time. If you're working in geothermal energy, I would be thrilled to hear from you. Thank you again, Patrick Hansen. Very generous with your time, very generous with your responses. It was a thrill and a pleasure to speak with you. And thank you as well to you, my dear listener. See you next week.