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Technically Speaking

Drill Deeper
Drill Deeper
and Deeper
and Deeper

by Dave Trecker
he thirst for energy is driving discovery everywhere. From of wonders, it’s apolitical. Both parties support it. Biden era tax
very small nuclear reactors to very large gas-fired power incentives for deep-well drilling have been extended to 2036 by the
T plants. You see it in Florida with sweeping solar fields in Trump administration.
Babcock Ranch and in Rhode Island with massive wind turbines in What are we talking about here? Writing in the WSJ,
Block Island waters. Christopher Mims chronicles the development of technology
Climate change is taking a back seat to artificial intelligence that will someday provide plentiful energy that’s far cleaner than
and its insatiable appetite for energy. Data centers are popping anything produced by fossil fuels and far cheaper than the most
up everywhere and those data centers don’t care where the energy economical of green fuels.
comes from. Fossil fuels? They’re okay. Green energy sources? Here’s what’s happening.
They’re okay too. In fact, all types of energy will be needed to Using fracking technology, Fervo Energy is piloting systems in
provide enough power for AI. Utah that blast open fissures through which water is pumped and
The average ChatGPT query uses 0.34 watt-hours of energy, or heated by hot rock. The hot water, upon returning to the surface,
so says the Wall Street Journal. That’s nothing compared with a 6 transfers the heat to lower-boiling fluids that generate steam which,
second video that takes between 20 and 110 watt hours. And that’s in turn, spins turbines to generate electricity.
today, just the start of what will be a steep climb. The future demand It’s old school fracking times two – geothermal on steroids.
will be mind-boggling. Projected costs, several years down the road, are claimed to compete
Many experts feel a home run will be needed – an energy break- with $3,000 per kilowatt costs now encountered in gas fired power
through that meets the staggering needs in the years ahead. And plants.
that break-through may well have to come from the earth itself. To be sure, there are plenty of naysayers. Some say heat variations
Everyone knows the earth’s core is pretty hot, even molten. In down deep will render any long-range planning impossible. Others
some places, like Iceland, the magma is very close to the surface and point to never-ending changes in drilling strata. Still others recall
can be readily tapped. But in most locales you have to fight Mother earthquakes triggered by deep drilling in South Korea in 2017.
Earth and go deep enough to make drilling cost effective. But most feel the prize is worth the risks.
Geothermal heat in some form has been around for a long time, In fact, even more radical approaches are being explored. At a
and shallow drilling is old hat. My wife and I lived in a high rise granite quarry in Texas, Quaise Energy, a Massachusetts Institute
in Naples for a number of years where modest drilling brought up of Technology spinoff, is looking to go deeper and hotter. Using
enough recovered warm water to heat a swimming pool. a gyrotron to create microwaves (like those from the oven in your
But the big prize isn’t to tap into shallow water. The big prize is kitchen), Quaise is trying to tap rocks that are so hot they turn
deep drilling, often through solid granite, to reach very large, very water into something that flows like steam and produces 10 times
hot formations. more energy.
And it’s starting to happen. This is Buck Rogers stuff. But experts say it’s coming. Just think
With start-up money from the likes of Bill Gates to supplement about it. If mankind can economically drill 6 miles deep, we can free
years of Department of Energy funding, companies are now testing enough energy to double all the electricity now used in the world.
new technologies that have astonishing promise. And, wonder And if that doesn’t boggle your mind, nothing will.
Dr. Trecker is a chemist and retired Pfizer executive living in Naples.
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