In remote Nevada, a sign the geothermal 'tide has turned'
Story by Jenn Gidman with Newser.AI
• 10h •
Stock photo of a remote part of Nevada. ©Getty Images/Christopher Thienel© Newser AI
A geothermal startup says it's made what it believes is a major discovery in Nevada that could reshape the geothermal energy sector. Wired reports that Zanskar, a company that leverages artificial intelligence to pinpoint hidden geothermal resources deep below the Earth's surface, claims to have located a new commercially viable site for a possible power plant—the first such find by the industry in three decades, according to Zanskar.
·Per Axios, company scientists used AI-driven computer models to hunt down geothermal activity after high heat flow was found at the site called "Big Blind." The discovery follows years of R&D aimed at overcoming the long-standing challenge of finding such resources, which are often buried deep underground with no visible surface clues.
·"When we started this company, I think the most common message we heard was that geothermal was dead—it was a history of bones, a graveyard of so many failures," says Zanskar co-founder Carl Hoiland. "To get to this point where, thanks to these new tools and these new capabilities, you can systematically find these sites and systematically derisk them ... this is the first full-scale signal that the tide has turned."
·Geothermal power, which uses underground reservoirs of hot water to generate electricity, is considered one of the simplest forms of tapping into renewable energy. However, most viable systems are difficult to find without significant guesswork, or luck. Historically, many geothermal power plants have been built over resources discovered purely by accident.
·Zanskar's co-founders say the energy potential for blind geothermal systems could greatly surpass what has been previously estimated. In 2008, the federal government put out a report on geothermal resources in the US, estimating that undiscovered geothermal systems boasted a mean power potential of 30 gigawatts of electricity—enough to send electricity to upward of 25 million homes.
·A University of Nevada professor says those estimates may be an undercount, adding that "tens to hundreds of gigawatts are likely from blind systems" in the United States. "This is the start of a wave of new, naturally occurring geothermal systems that will have enough heat in place to support power plants," Zanskar co-founder Joel Edwards tells MIT Technology Review.
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