Geothermal is the Answer
0:00 Welcome back to Energy 101. We haven't been on here in a while and I'm really excited to be recording again. Really, really welcome back. Yeah, the game is back together. Sorry for the hiatus.
0:13 Um, today we have Joe Bittier. He's a geothermal lead at Tavera and I'm excited to learn about geothermal. We know nothing. Zero things. I feel like it's just a word that I keep hearing, but I
0:28 have no idea what it means Yeah, that's great. You want to tell us a little bit about your background and how you got started in geothermal? Yeah, absolutely. So, thank you for having me on the
0:39 show today. As you said, Joe Batier, I've got a PhD in geophysics. That's a fancy. I mean, it's just squiggly line. Dr. Joe. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Joe. Dr. Joe. My background is all geology,
0:59 all subsurface, went to school, grew up outside of Chicago, went to Iceland for my masters. That's where I went to Iceland to study geothermal energy and then ended up down in Dallas at SMU for my
1:18 PhD in geophysics. And that's where I kind of, I guess you could say that's where I started really becoming an expert in geothermal and stayed at SMU until 2020 through my PhD and then also doing
1:33 research. And now I'm with Tavera as the geothermal lead. So as a geothermal lead, are you still just doing research all day? So we do a lot of different stuff. There is a major research
1:47 component because I mean, as you all know, there are questions that are still not understood. And that goes from the simple basic of what is geothermal, all the way to how do we actually know what
2:03 and where this energy is. So we're doing early stage research in exploration and helping companies and utilities and entities know what resources they have. And then we are also developing new tools,
2:23 new technologies to help understand, help monitor and help model the subsurface. Okay. So - Cool. So Professor Bhatir, that's who you are today. Okay. Yeah, you're gonna wow. Wow. This is in
2:37 session. Yes. Dr. Joe. Yes. Question number one. What is geothermal energy? What is geothermal energy? And how is it generated? 'Cause I feel like that can - Ooh, so yes, I can answer that
2:50 part, but geothermal energy is so much more than just generation.
2:55 I'll answer the what is and then we can talk about how do you utilize geothermal energy. So what is geothermal energy? If you break it down, geo and thermal, it is heat, the thermal part, coming
3:10 up out of the earth. So this is primarily two different heat sources. There's the remnant heat of formation. So when the earth kind of conglomerate it in coalesced, it basically created this
3:27 little fusion reactor, which is the core, and it is constantly spinning, constantly trying to cool off. All of that heat's coming to the surface. And then there are also natural radioactivity,
3:41 naturally radioactive isotopes and materials in the subsurface, and those as they are decaying, sending out these isotopes, that is also generating heat.
3:56 So those two heat sources combined make geothermal energy. Interesting. Did you have a follow-up on that? I mean, half the words you said went over my head, but that's okay, 'cause I'm not gonna
4:07 try to be a geologist. I feel like I'm back in middle school, like science class. I mean, an earth score, you know, like all the layers, and you know, that's what I had a picture of the core,
4:17 or the layers in my head when you were talking
4:21 So it comes from those two sources. How do you then capture those sources? Yeah, that's a good question. When you think about that heat coming out, like you don't walk around feeling heat coming
4:36 up out of the ground, unless you're like standing on asphalt, and it's a hot sunny day in Houston. So that heat, while there are terra watts of heat coming up out of the ground, it's very
4:49 dissipated So it's kind of like, it's very hard to. collect together and actually utilize. So there's, I mean, there's two ways that you can basically find that heat. There's either naturally
5:04 occurring hot springs where the heat is just more concentrated and it is flowing up out of the earth or the other main idea is that you would drill down, go very deep and just get to the point where
5:18 there's plenty of that heat because it hasn't all gotten out yet So the deeper you go, the hotter it gets and once you get deep enough, you should have hot enough rock there that you can drill a
5:32 well and start extracting that heat. So all of it is, I mean, in order to get that energy out, you have to drill wells and for, I would say the equivalent of conventional oil and gas, like a
5:49 conventional geothermal or traditional geothermal,
5:53 You would hit a water source that is going to flow water fast and that flowing of the water will produce that heat to the surface or to the surface. And then an unconventional geothermal would be
6:09 drilling down and creating those fractures, basically fracking or stimulating the subsurface and then flowing the water through the subsurface So now you're literally pumping water down to then
6:23 produce it.
6:26 In the simplest sense, you can think of a U-type form. You've got an injection well, then you've got your producer well, and you're going to create a fraction network across those. So that way
6:38 you're connecting your producer and your injector. Okay. So that's unconventional. So what does the shape of a conventional look like? A conventional You've got a fault, so a natural, nationally
6:50 occurring fault. that is flowing water from deep below. You're just trying to hit that and then produce it. Okay. Yeah. I had no idea that there were two types. Yeah. There's a lot of
7:01 similarities with oil and gas. Yeah, there are. There are a lot of similarities. And I think that's one of the things that
7:10 we don't emphasize or we don't promote enough, the fact that there is this huge skill set and knowledge base and almost like a knowledge bank in oil and gas that can very easily transfer over into
7:27 geothermal and through that knowledge transfer, I think you could also make geothermal grow in an exponential rate compared to right now where it's like very small little stepwise function, very
7:41 slowly increasing in market share. Is it because why are people like skeptical about geothermal?
7:49 And like, has it been around for like, is it a new concept or? So it's definitely not a new concept. The first electricity for geothermal was produced in, I think it was 1904, 1905. Oh, wow.
8:05 It's been around for a hundred years. Yeah. Actually taking that heat and producing electricity from it. And even before that, it's, I mean, wherever there's hot springs, there have been people
8:18 who have been using those hot springs Either for medicinal purposes or just leisure, just enjoying the natural heat coming up out of the area. That's like a tourist thing. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of
8:29 cities. Yeah, absolutely. Like is Yellowstone kind of going off a little bit, but like
8:33 geysers. So yeah,
8:35 Yellowstone is a super volcano. It is this huge geothermal resource. Yeah. It's also a national park. So we're never - Yeah, I've been there. Yeah. So we're never gonna produce energy from
8:47 there, but that is.
8:51 I guess you could call that another way to utilize the geothermal. So instead of directly utilizing it for energy, this is purely ecotourism that only exists because of the volcanic activity and the
9:07 geothermal resources there. In theory, even though it's National Park, I'm assuming I've never been Yellowstone, but I would assume they have
9:17 things there, like buildings and yeah. So in theory, could they power those buildings with the energy from? Yeah, they could, in theory. In theory, but they won't. But they won't. But in
9:29 theory, they could though, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Interesting. So I have a question kind of about the history. So it's 100 years old, but it seems like it's just now like maybe getting people
9:44 are excited about it. interested in it, you're trying to get other people interested in it, but it's been around for so long. Yeah. What is, what happened in that timeline? Yeah. So
9:55 traditionally, and I think this is, this is why it was growing so slowly because traditionally, we would be looking for those faults. So think of the same way of conventional oil and gas. We're
10:06 looking for a specific play that is very much geographically constrained So for geothermal, you're talking about anything along the ring of fire. Think California, Alaska and the Aleutian Islands
10:24 over into Indonesia, Japan. Those are the areas that have active volcanism. That's where you have active, active geothermal energy, very relatively easy to go and find And so that is where the
10:42 majority of exploration and the majority of interest has been.
10:47 that is a very small portion of the world. It's a very, and it's a very small portion of where there is in general heat. So because of that, once you find that and you know where the good, easy
11:06 resources are, there hasn't been the same progress to try and figure out where else to go and produce And then the other side of it is that up in, well, even now, geothermal is still, it's kind
11:23 of a low sum game. So it's the same kind of risk and the same kind of cost at the same scale as oil and gas. But you're talking now about producing electricity and we always go back and forth on
11:42 what the equivalent is but for barrel of oil, you're getting something like 70. a barrel. For a barrel of hot water, for geothermal, you're getting a couple cents. So a good geothermal well is
11:55 producing something like 50, 000 barrels of water a day, and that is what makes it economic so that you can get five to seven megawatts of power from it. Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things
12:07 we wanted to talk about too, speaking of being cost effective, I know geothermal is considered a renewable energy. So compared to other renewables, I know we just compared to kind of oil and gas,
12:18 but compared to other renewables, what does that look like side by side? That is, it's a pretty tough comparison because we have to go back and understand renewables in general. Yeah. So
12:32 geothermal is what's called base load, which means it is something that is secure, reliable, can be always on producing. Most power plants are at a 95 capacity factor. meaning they're on 95 of
12:49 the time. Whereas if you've got - Because of the factors of the wind, the sun.
12:56 Yeah, it's not beholden to the clouds in the sky or the weather patterns. Can it be stored? You can. There's different ways to think about that. You can store energy in the subsurface and treat
13:11 it like geothermal. That would be thermal energy storage. That's one of the things that we work on at Tavera But then there's also
13:20 the simple fact that the energy's already there. So this is where you start talking about dispatchable power where you can just kind of, you can more or less shut down the power plant when you don't
13:34 need the energy and then you're not producing it. So that in a way is storing it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense 'cause it's not just always going So when you think about the. the energy mix,
13:49 you said it's base load. So it can be comparable to oil and gas, how oil and gas we have to use as our base load. It wouldn't be more so like where it's intermittent. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So
14:03 geothermal can be always on and it is always there and you can also ramp it up and down fairly easily. Whereas something like nuclear, I was just on a, I was moderating a panel with geothermal and
14:16 nuclear. And the one thing that there's a lot of differences, but I think the most important difference to me that
14:26 kind of differentiates us in a maybe negative way is that for nuclear, you really don't want to be ramping it up and down. You want that to be as super flat and as super steady as possible. Whereas
14:40 for geothermal, you can ramp it up and down. I think you went that with nuclear.
14:46 I honestly don't know. I think it's because of the nuclear fission process. So you don't want to just be like moving your nuclear fuel all around. Yeah, that could be. And disaster. We're the
14:58 nuclear person on that. We're the nuclear person, I am so interested and I don't understand that. Calling all nuclear people,
15:04 let us know. Yeah, I'll make some introductions, yeah. But yeah, it is, so for geothermal, the idea of dispatchable storage and also being base load, we can do that because of the way that
15:20 basically what geothermal is, it's already all there, it just needs to be produced kind of when you want it. Got it, okay. So the question for me then is, why aren't more people paying attention
15:33 to geothermal versus wind solar? Yeah, and this is where understanding that deep level is important, because geothermal. has that value of base load. But the average price for geothermal power is
15:53 more on the scale of five to 10 cents a kilowatt hour versus wind and solar, you can get really like three to five cents a kilowatt hour, maybe sometimes less, sometimes more. So it comes down to
16:09 economics right now So somebody looks and says, okay, I can spend 20 million for that 20 million, I can go, just hypothetically, I can go and install 20 megawatts of solar or I can go and install
16:25 five megawatts of geothermal. Well, depending on the whole financial model, that five megawatts of geothermal is probably worth more because you're gonna be able to generate that same amount of
16:38 electricity in like three years versus how much you would need from the solar. But you don't think about that, you just hear, oh, I can install 20 megawatts. 20 megawatts. Oh, that's great.
16:50 I'll just do that. When it comes to equipment, how is that, is it expensive for people to kind of get started with geothermal? Yeah. And so with wind, I think, I don't think they know how long
17:05 the turbines last, right? Like they are probably more maintenance than they initially anticipated. So there might be more costs, which just doesn't seem like it at first, is that accurate, like
17:16 do you have to like, what does the equipment cycle look like? Yeah, so the equipment cycle, when you're talking about a geothermal power plant, the whole life cycle is exploration and doing your
17:29 initial drilling and production testing, that's where you start needing to drill wells. And wells are the primary input as far as new equipment or maintenance across the life of the power plant.
17:46 And that the drilling in wells is anywhere from 40 to 60 of total lifetime cost. And that includes all the, all the prospecting, all of the new drills, all of the infield drilling, all of that.
18:01 And,
18:03 and so that is something that you'll have every, depending on what you think, maybe five or 10 years, you'll have to be drilling new wells.
18:12 Other than that, there's the power plant itself, which I think is around 40, 20 to 40 of the rest of the cost. Everything else that another major potential cost is transmission lines. So those
18:29 are, I think, roughly a million dollars a mile. So if you've got this great resource, but it's 50 miles away from the near substation, then you're going to have 50 million dollars of just
18:41 transmission. Yeah. And you've got You've got to make that worth it. So you're not going to do that for like a 20 megawatt power plant. And if you've got 200 megawatts, now maybe it makes sense,
18:55 but you really have to have all of those pieces come together. And I think the important part here that people always forget is that all of this is upfront cost. So you have to literally spend all
19:11 of your money, including building the power plant, drilling all the wells you think you need to have minus the infill drilling later, and do all of that. And you don't actually start generating
19:22 any revenue until you turn that system on. And that is now the average cost is about three to five million dollars a megawatt So if you got a 20 megawatt
19:37 plant, then could be
19:41 30 to.
19:44 60 to 200 million dollars. I think that math isn't quite right, but somewhere around there. Sounds good to me. Yeah. So it's still, I think it's important to realize that's still less than, say,
20:01 a new unconventional can that, wells 20 be that drilling you're if pads well some about talking you're there 'Cause. Right. development
20:11 200 million or significantly more But as soon as you start doing that, you know when you can turn those wells on and you can start generating revenue. Whereas here, you're hoping you understand the
20:25 reservoir properly. Otherwise, you may be out your 200 million waiting and you don't know what to do then. Yeah, that's fun. Yeah, that's fun. Risky. Risky. Risky mess mess. Sorry, I didn't
20:41 mean to interrupt. No, no, no, I interrupted.
20:45 In terms of global capacity, would you thermal? I mean, it's a renewable, it's natural, it's coming from the earth, so in my mind, I would think that there's a infinite supply? Yes, I would,
20:60 so
21:03 for our intents and purposes, yes, I would say there is an infinite supply. Obviously the earth is going to, it's going to stop one day, but once we've lost all the heat, once all the heat's
21:20 gone, the earth's going to stop spinning, magnetic core is going to be gone, or the magnetic field is going to be gone, we're all going to fry up. That's at that point, it doesn't matter, right?
21:31 So yes, let's call it an infinite resource, and really it can be found anywhere. It's just a matter of being able to concentrate it enough Well, that was gonna be my next question. In terms of
21:46 geographic locations, it can be found anywhere. Are certain countries kind of leading the way? Is our other countries adopting this method other than the US? Yes. What's happening around the
21:58 world? So there is a one of my favorite websites. I think they're one of the best ones for geothermal information is think geoenergy And they always have a, at the end of the year they'll have like
22:14 a year in review and have like the top 10 countries. And that goes by installed capacity. So as I was saying earlier, the ring of fire is where a lot of the traditional geothermal exploration is
22:30 taking place. And that's where you're naturally getting that heat to concentrate. So if you think like there's a volcano, you can go and tap that volcano a lot easier than trying to drill well
22:42 outside of Houston. So naturally, those areas are going to have more, but I'm just doing a. Yeah, I was going to say, can we look up and see what the. Yeah, if I can get
22:57 the right map, the right figure.
23:05 Here we go. Whatever you pull up, you'll have to send it to us so we can. Yeah. Yeah, we'll insert. Yeah, so this one is old, but for some reason, this was the first one that popped up. Here
23:15 we go. 2020 is better. It doesn't really change between 2018 and 2020, but.
23:24 So this is what it is, and I can share it with you all. Cool. But those are the top 10 countries. There are a total of, I think. The US is number one in install capacity. We've got 37 gigawatts.
23:43 of installed capacity,
23:46 and then as you would expect, Indonesia and the Philippines, both on the Ring of Fire, have both high installed capacities, and then actually Turkey. So Turkey has 13 gigawatts. New Zealand has
24:01 about one gigawatt, and then Mexico and Italy are both just under one gigawatt. I think now one of those is above one gigawatt, 'cause this figure here is old. Where in the US. are like the hubs?
24:24 So I wouldn't, I don't know if hubs is a correct term, because really it's a, you've got the geysers, which is in Northern California, and that is
24:36 two to two and a half gigawatts of that three and a half gigawatts of install capacity. The majority of it is in the geysers. And then in the Salton Sea, which is Imperial Valley, kinda that area
24:52 where you've got that separating. So you've got like Baja California and then Mexico, that goes up into the Imperial Valley Salton Sea area. So those two sections, which are volcanic, those have
25:06 the majority of the generating capacity for the US. And those are conventional Those are conventional. And then Nevada has 95 of the rest of it. And those are all conventional, but those are lower
25:22 temperature in what's called just an extensional setting. So they don't have volcanoes associated with them. They're just kind of the whole section of the earth is spreading out and thinning there.
25:35 So that's giving you those deep faults that will have water flowing up that you can find and drill to. produce high water from. I have a really stupid question. It might be really stupid. There
25:49 are no stupid questions. Are we supposed to ask stupid questions? I know. It's okay.
25:55 Could you use an oil well that has been drilled? Could you like reuse that for a geothermal, but just like key question, really? I don't, it might be really stupid. Yes, yeah, so that's
26:11 another one of the things that we work on is this re-utilization or repurposing oil and gas wells. So yes, absolutely, there are a lot of wells that are
26:24 hitting the right temperatures and have sufficient flow rates that you could probably go in and just produce the water as is and generate electricity. Now, we've been talking about megawatts and
26:37 gigawatts for an oil and gas well,
26:42 because of where those are being drilled, they are gonna be lower temperature. And the way that the oil and gas wells are designed, they're smaller diameter. So they're smaller wells in general.
26:57 And because of that, they're going to have a natural limitation of how much fluid you can produce. Okay. So that's the long way to say most oil and gas wells, if you were to repurpose them, are
27:10 probably going to be more on the kilowatt scale of electricity. So when you think about a kilowatt, one kilowatt is probably just call it enough to run one house. So for an oil and gas well, if it
27:24 can be repurposed, it's probably going to be around 100 to 200 kilowatts. So would the economics not make sense? It - If it's like a dry well, it's no longer producing and you're like, how can I?
27:37 Yeah, so economics is a big question. because we've looked at areas and there's spots where we think the economics look very good, like comparable to a traditional oil and gas kind of play. But
27:55 then for a lot, a larger majority of wells, the economics are a little bit less somewhere in that maybe saying IRR anywhere from zero up to 15. And depending on who you're talking to, like that's
28:14 not attractive. And I think for people who are just focused on the economics of it and just looking for that return, that I don't think that it's ever really gonna make the,
28:33 there's always going to be some limitation there because it's either how long you're waiting for that payback or the total. ROI or just something about it is ultimately not going to be the best
28:48 investment you can make. There's always gonna be something that you can make more money from. And I think that's where we have to go back to like the value of it. Is there more intrinsic value than
29:01 just the cash that you can make from it? Do I have another question? What's like the tension between like the oil and gas industry and like geo thermal people is that a thing or did I just make that
29:13 up? Like, doiling gas, people are skeptical about it. Yeah. Well, why is that? Yeah, so there is this tension and I think that that ultimately goes back to this idea of economics and business
29:31 model and going a little bit further going into public markets when you are looking at something that is geo thermal. you are looking at something that is going to be a long-term project. Most
29:48 geothermal systems and most geothermal power plants are business models are based on a 30-year lifetime. So you build out this 30-year lifetime model, you have your estimated rate of return that is
30:06 in a good power plant, maybe in that upper end of double digits and
30:15 then you're selling electricity and you're building out PPA's and you're doing that. Whereas for oil and gas, you're looking at drilling wells, you're looking at significantly higher returns,
30:31 you're looking at making your money back in two years and ultimately you're selling oil and gas, you're selling a commodity. So it's.
30:41 It's almost like the business models, while both of these are profitable investments, it is hard to make the case that
30:55 a smaller return is still good for your shareholders. And then your shareholders say, Hey, why are you investing 200 million when you don't expect a return in five years? Yeah. What do you tell
31:08 people to combat that thing, that
31:11 say that because it is an issue. So how do you almost convince them that it's worth putting your money in? Yeah. I think the easiest way to help people understand it is when you're looking at
31:27 something like stocks versus bonds, those bonds are long-term, they're stable, and they're still a return. So that is something that I think everybody can see and value. And it's just a real,
31:43 really, it's just a question of, is that value going to be, would you rather have a long, stable return? And it may be a little bit less, but you know it's coming. Or do you wanna kind of shoot
31:59 for the moon and chase those high returns, high risk, high reward situation and the volatility? Yeah. Okay, that makes sense. Are there people, 'cause I know we talked a little bit that one of
32:14 the methods is fracking to get down to the heat source. Are there people that resist your thermal because of that? I know that's just a huge, an oil and gas, obviously. Like that's what it meant
32:28 to with California. But it's interesting, right. 'Cause fracking, you know, it's so bad for the earth, but it's, in this case, it's a much more sustainable, renewable source like does that
32:40 offset? the stigma around fracking or people are still like, nope, no fracking no matter what the outcome is. I think that there is still that stigma because ultimately the why people are
32:55 concerned about fracking, like they're worried about their water, they're worried about creating these earthquakes that are gonna destroy their houses. And they have these
33:07 legitimate, legitimate emotions legitimate emotions, like their emotions are real, like I don't want my house to be destroyed and I don't wanna be drinking, drinking gassy water. Like I get that,
33:20 but it's still the same, it's the same lack of understanding that the groundwater safe and the area that you're fracking or stimulating is still highly controlled because ultimately you And I would
33:39 say more so in geothermal because ultimately you need to know exactly where those fractures are because you need to drill a new well into that so that you can flow between the two wells. Right. So
33:50 it has to be even more precise. And yeah, I think people don't fully understand that and they are still, still concerned about it. Oh, absolutely. Most people don't, and I think, yeah, I
34:04 don't. Before we go into rapid fire and wrap everything up, I think from our conversation today in your mind, what does the future look like? Doing all this research, going forward geothermal,
34:18 what does the future look like? And how do you see geothermal playing a role in just meeting energy demands? Yeah. I know that's a loaded question. Well, and of course, I'm a little bit biased
34:31 because I've been doing geothermal more or less my entire career and I'm all for geothermal. So I really do think geothermal is going to play a vital role as we go to this more diverse energy mix.
34:46 And as we bring on more renewables, I think the way that we utilize the subsurface is going to be even more important. And that is geothermal energy, both traditional and unconventional. It's
35:00 gonna be thermal energy storage in the subsurface And it's going to be understanding all of the poor space and how to best utilize it, whether that's for energy storage, CCS or carbon sequestration
35:16 or for ultra low-carbon oil and gas production. Right. Well, and I like the idea of being able to reuse the wells because I think oil and gas could such a bad rep, but if you could tell people,
35:30 Hey, we can actually use these wells to in the. pretty much the exact same way, get some renewable resources as well. I think it kind of makes it worth it, in my opinion. Like you're not just
35:42 drooling for no reason and then you're done and it just goes away. Let me give one example that I just presented up in Fort Worth, I guess a few months ago now, but in Fort Worth, you've got
35:56 several different companies. They've got well pads in this city Like you're driving around and you see tank batteries and wells and all of this stuff right there in the city. And so those wells
36:12 drilling into the Barnett Shale, they are not hot enough to produce electricity, but what you could do though with those wells is you could hook all those up and use the thermal energy they're
36:25 producing for heating and cooling for those areas Some of these are in low income areas. Yeah. Some of them are in industrial areas where now you could repurpose these wells as the barnette and as
36:40 the Fort Worth basin drops out of favor or becomes too expensive to produce. Right. Now convert that to geothermal and now you've got a direct correlation to positive low carbon energy for the city
36:57 of Fort Worth. Especially in the low income areas, we've been talking a ton about energy poverty and how just this energy mix that I think is becoming at the forefront of the energy conversations is
37:10 going to help contribute to getting some of these lower incomes. But I don't think people realize that there are still people in the United States that are considered energy poverty. What's the poor
37:22 energy for? I was going to say poverty. I don't think it's a bad word. I mean energy for it. It's even cool use case just knowing that and then applying that to their world countries. Yeah, yeah,
37:34 yeah, we, well, I have talked to probably more people from Nigeria asking about well, more repurposing than, than anywhere else except for the US. So it is, I, I love that that it's this area
37:51 that has is
37:56 still a developing country, yet they have produced all of this oil and all of this great resource for the world, yet somehow they're still this, this, this poor country that can't get up out of,
38:08 out of poverty. And what's going to happen if you leave all of those wells and they're just sitting there now, now they become a wasteland. So instead, why don't we start working towards
38:20 converting that? Yeah. And it's a way to have like it, maybe I'm wrong, but like a gridless infrastructure, right? Could you have where you're like directly into communities? Like that's,
38:32 that's cool and that's what's needed for. Yeah, it's. For, you know, places like, I think they're doing Bitcoin mining in - Kenya? Yeah, Kenya. Yeah, where they're using,
38:46 what are they using? Whatever sources there is in hydro? I don't know, they're powering the miners on hydro to help smaller, like, there's no infrastructure at all So to power those, but also,
39:02 like, generating revenue through that, to be able to build up to have an infrastructure, which, I don't know, I find that very fascinating. And anywhere where you can, you know, go direct to
39:16 communities, I think is very cool. Yeah, and I think that's, that almost works better because then you start distributing the energy in a distributed energy network kind of system and you're f -
39:30 fixing some of the problems directly that we have today where with the winter storm, Yuri, like the big problem is once you start losing too much power or some of the big power plants, now you're
39:42 at a huge risk. Whereas if you've got a hundred little power plants, okay, maybe one or two or even 10 of them go down, but you still have a lot more energy, they can be passed around. Yep,
39:56 rapid fire, rapid fire, ready? What's the number one misconception about the geothermal industry? Number one misconception is that it is new or
40:11 old in terms of old technology or that it's just for electricity. You can use geothermal for electricity, for heating, for cooling, for hydrogen generation, for growing plants. There's a lot of
40:25 things you can use it for. This is rapid fire, so I'm done. Why should we care? Like coming into this, we didn't know anything about geothermal, so why is it important that other people should
40:35 care about it? Other people should care because it is everywhere. There is heat beneath our feet, even right here in this studio. Heat beneath the feet. And - That's the name of the episode.
40:47 Yeah, we got two names now. That's great. And it, and ultimately this can be that foundational energy for the entire energy mix. And then last one, what's your most embarrassing story? And your
40:56 career.
41:04 And your career. Most embarrassing story in my career.
41:16 He's like, I don't have one of those.
41:22 I think. I'm
41:30 trying to. So, during my master's defense, somebody asked me about indecisability and
41:41 I said,
41:44 Well, no, I don't think. And I was working on a project in Iceland for that. And I said,
41:53 Well, the due size MISTI isn't really a problem because it's not high energy. We're only talking about threes and less. And at that time, that was true. And I said, And besides that, there's
42:08 probably nobody living out there anyway anyway, so they probably, so it's probably doesn't matter and so this was taking place in Iceland and all of a sudden all of the Icelanders in the room
42:23 started to chuckle because even though I had been to the site and been to the power plant and actually collected the data for my thesis, I didn't realize that there are multiple small like towns of
42:39 like 5, 000 people that are literally just on the other side of the hill because we didn't go there and most people don't matter. I was like, oh geez. So then somebody told me this great story
42:51 about, yeah, you know, they're these three towns that I can't pronounce are right there. And you know, they did have earthquakes. They did feel them, but they actually liked them because they
43:03 know when you get those earthquakes, that means that the system is working and that means that you can produce more energy. So that's a nice way to look at it Yeah, it's a different perspective.
43:14 on when you get those earthquakes, you know something's happening. Awesome. Interesting. That's very interesting way to look at it. Yeah. To tell everybody that. There's been earthquakes in
43:27 Midland, guys. We're just producing energy. We're just getting energy. We're just getting energy over here. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Joe, thank you so much for coming to John. Yeah, thank you all
43:36 for inviting me. Yes, this is fun. We'll have to do it against this time. This was very fun. We've needed a geothermal expert for a while So, yeah, I'm glad I learned a lot. Me too. Good,
43:46 good. I feel like there's so much more to say. I know, we need to
43:51 start too. I feel to keep going forever. I feel like I'm like very pro-geothermal now. I'm like, this sounds good. Yeah. That's the answer. Geothermal is the answer. Geothermal is the answer.
43:59 I like it. All right, bye. I'll catch you next time. Well, should we - Is there a sign off? Do y'all have a sign off? Do we have a - Do we have a sign off? We do it every time, we all - Do we
44:10 have any announcements? Uh, energy tech name, Midland. coming up June 14th. Learn more. I'm excited to take some of the team to Midland. I've never been to Midland, and I - You've never been
44:22 to Midland to be the one. No, I'm not from Texas. I've only been working here for a year, so I was not in energy or anything related to that before I came over here, so. You as well? I'm from
44:33 Texas, but yeah, never been to Midland. Okay. Yeah. Wow. The fun place. Yeah, yeah, it's a fun place. You can't say anything fan about it, 'cause you're talking to a Midland right here.
44:47 Very enjoyable. Yeah. Very enjoyable. Yes, yes. Only I can say bad things. That's super convincing. Yeah, it's a great place to raise your children. From what I hear, from what I hear. I've
44:57 heard that too. Literally everybody says that. That is what everybody says. Are you being serious? Are you being sarcastic? Yeah, so I was out there for a summer working with Whiting. And every
45:08 time I would tell people, yeah, everybody's super nice It's great out here. Like I'm enjoying my time, but you know, I don't think I would want to raise a family here. And then they always say,
45:21 you know, actually it's a really great place to raise a family. You know, I would have to disagree. I loved being from Midland. I love Midland. I think it's an amazing place. But the, it was a
45:36 culture shock moving to Houston where you're around so many different people, like, so diverse, I always talk about this. But I wasn't exposed to anything in Midland. And I don't want that for my
45:48 children. I want them to, my, I, y'all have heard this a thousand times. My youngest, his best friend is Chinese. And he's like learning Chinese from their family. And I think that is amazing.
45:58 Like you get to learn about different religions, cultures, everything. You don't get that in Midland. And, you know, some people are okay with that. It's very,
46:07 yeah, I can, I don't know. People are, it's a certain lifestyle isolated yeah you're just it's Culturally, culturally not diverse. Yeah, and I felt like I forget the road, but whatever that
46:20 road is that you go under, which is like going through the main city center, once you go under the road, then it's like, that road feels like it's a separating. It's like going across the tracks.
46:35 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, I don't, but okay Yeah, but now they're the tracks, yeah, like, across the tracks is a completely different place. Like,
46:46 it doesn't feel like the same place. I was like, actual Midland. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Anyway, we'll get to know. Anyway.
46:56 Is that what you love? Yeah, yeah. All right, signing off. Bye. Bye.
