June 22, 2022 • 25 mins
Canada is the only country in the Pacific Ring of Fire that doesn't utilize geothermal energy production. Why aren't we taking advantage of this renewable resource right below our feet?
In Canada ~80% of our energy use is for heating. In Northern Canada where average temperatures are -20 C, you don't need a lot of hot water t make a big impact to offset your heating needs.
In today's episode you'll hear from Dr. Steve Grasby the President of Geothermal Canada. For more information about Geothermal Canada Click Here.
The ABP is establishing a conservation Aquarium in the Prairies to help tell the Story of Water.
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Evans (00:05):
Welcome to today's deep dive episode where we're
going to learn all aboutgeothermal energy with Dr. Steve
grads be from geothermal Canada.
Did you know that we havevolcanoes in Canada and that we
actually have the potential tocreate power from geothermal
energy are the only country onthe ring of fire the entire
Pacific Ocean ring of volcanoesCanada's the only country that
(00:27):
doesn't produce a yet why we diginto this and a lot more. So sit
back, relax and get ready tolearn a little bit more about
geothermal energy potential inCanada
that sir, G. nippy, oh me go lowin zero to marry a cheap,
(01:10):
Chinese way. Why water we doing?
And how can we do better? Yourone stop shop for everything
water related from discussingwater its use and the organisms
that depend on it for all theglobal issues that you really
(01:32):
never knew all had to do withwater. I'm your host, David
Evans from the aquatic biosphereproject. And I just want to ask
you something. What are wedoing? And how can we do better?
Hi, and welcome to another deepdive episode. We're talking
(02:00):
about geothermal energyproduction with Dr. Steve
Grasby. So, Dr. Grasby, do youmind just introducing yourself
to our listeners and giving alittle bit about your
background.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (02:11):
Sure, yes. I'm Steve Grasby, and I'm a
research scientist with aGeological Survey of Canada. And
I've been working on looking atthe federal research and
geothermal potential in Canadafor about the last 20 years or
so.
David Evans (02:24):
Nice. Well, I'm talking to the right person then
about geothermal energy.
Alright, so how do we use water?
Because this is a Water Podcast?
How is water involved in theprocess? And how do you actually
get energy from geothermalpotential?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (02:39):
Sure.
So basically, the Geothermalenergy is just heat us in the
rocks in the subsurface. Andnormally, the deeper you go, the
hotter rocks get. So we look atthat rate of increase in
temperature with that, thefaster it increases, that means
that shallower, you can reachhot rocks that have enough heat
that you can develop ageothermal system. So drilling
(02:59):
is expensive and difficult. Soyou want to find those hot rocks
as close to the surface aspossible. But that's not enough
because that heat is stored inthe rock. So you need a way to
move that heat in the rock fromthe subsurface to the surface
where you can extract it andturn it into electrical
potential. Or you can just usethe heat directly for things
(03:21):
like you know, heatinggreenhouses or buildings. So
normally, or typically what'sused is just water that's in the
rocks, so that you produce thewater in a well comes up to
surface and then you extract theheat from that water, just like
you might have a radiator in ahouse that you pump hot water
through a radiator to heat aroom. Normally, we just use the
generic term of fluid becauseother things could be produced,
(03:44):
like co2 is actually a higherheat capacity than water. So you
can transport more heat withco2. So people have looked at
things like combining co2sequestration system as a
geothermal development as well.
So you're using the co2 youstore underground to produce
this green renewable energysource at surface at the same
(04:04):
time. But the vast majority ofgeothermal developments is
related to producing this thishot water to surface as this
heat transport mechanism. Andthat water is then just
reinjected back into the ground.
Because you know, it's a closedloop system. So you just keep
the water you produce it, youput it back down, right? And you
need to maintain the pressure ofthe reservoir in the subsurface
and you need that water totransport the heat. So you keep
(04:27):
it circulating all the time.
David Evans (04:30):
Yeah, so it's just a closed loop system. As the
water cools at the top andyou've extracted that heat, then
you just pump it right backdown, just so that you don't run
out if that's your basically theexchange source. Right. Yeah.
Awesome. So it sounds like youneed kind of certain conditions
(04:50):
for this kind of energyproductions. And I mean, you
need to be going down pretty farI assume. So what are some of
the good areas for producinggeothermal energy.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (05:02):
Yeah, so I mean, of course you need,
you need that heat, right, andyou want it as close to the
surface as possible. So they canlook at areas that are that are
going to be hotter in theEarth's crust. So, volcanic
systems are, of course, anobvious place. So right now
we're doing some researchprojects on volcanoes in British
Columbia and looking at those asa heat source for geothermal.
(05:24):
Oh,
David Evans (05:25):
sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just gonna quickly
jump in here is anyone else'smind blown that we have
volcanoes right here in BritishColumbia, I can't even believe
it. It's crazy. Sorry, read backto you, Steve.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherma (05:38):
Oh, and you know, there you can find
temperatures as high as 250degrees Celsius within a
kilometer and a half depth. Sothis very hot, and in relatively
shallow depths, compared to thedepths, people drill for oil and
gas, you can also then look atregions that just produce more
heat. And most of the heat inthe Earth's crust is produced
(05:59):
from radioactive decay of threeelements, uranium, thorium, and
potassium. So these just occurnaturally in the rock and the
radioactive so they decay andproduce heat. So the more you
have that in Iraq, the more heatthat rock produces. So we can
use our geologic know how anddefine where in Canada that you
would expect to have thosehigher heat producing rocks. So
(06:22):
that's one element, right? Sowhere's the heat. And then the
second element is going back toyour question on water is that
we need a way to get that heatfrom the rock to the surface,
and we're using water to dothat. So critical to that is
that the water needs to be ableto move easily through the rock
so that it can extract heat, andthen you can pump it up. So
(06:43):
finding, you know, hightemperature rocks isn't enough,
you need to find the hightemperatures, but also rocks
that are naturally permeable,which is the term for what we
measure is how easy water canmove through the rock. So a high
permeable rock is one that watercan easily move through. So we
want to look for these areasthat we know or can predict high
permeability occurs in thesubsurface that we can get the
(07:05):
heat, as well as the watermoving through the rocks to
extract the heat, so we can getit to surface.
David Evans (07:11):
Yeah, so it's not just good enough to have just
some hot rocks, we need to havethe right types of rocks at the
right depth.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (07:20):
So it's, it's a combination of
things. And probably the lastthing too, is really how you
want to use that heat energy. Soyou know, one and members
electricity generation, andthat's done around the world
already. There isn't any inCanada to date, but you need
very high temperatures to dothat. And then you can also just
use the heat directly forheating and building heating,
(07:42):
your green hosts many other useswhere heat is needed. So in that
case, you can just produce thehot waters, and you don't need
nearly as hot water for thosedirect heat uses. So if that's
your goal, then you don't haveto drill as deep and you don't
need to produce as much watereither. So that kind of depends
on how you want to use thegeothermal energy.
David Evans (08:01):
Yeah, it's, there's many different uses for it. And
then that kind of narrows whatyou actually need to look for
and drill down for.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geo (08:10):
Remember, in Canada, like 80% of our
domestic energy use is heating.
So most of the energy we consumeis for heating and not
electricity. And especiallyplaces in northern Canada, where
average air temperatures areminus 20. On an annual basis.
That doesn't, you don't needvery hot water to make a big
impact on on just offsetting theheating needs for those
(08:31):
communities.
David Evans (08:34):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And that kind of
leads me into does Canada havemuch potential for this kind of
geothermal energy production? Iguess there's differences if
you're looking at it forelectricity or just for heating.
But do we have potential?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherm (08:52):
Yes, so we did. An analysis of this
report was published in 2012.
Looking at Canadian geothermalresource potential, and there's
Yeah, tremendous potential, it'sacross the country. There's
areas that are, you know, muchhigher potential for things like
electricity. So the volcanicCelts of Western BC, the Yukon,
are some of the hot sedimentarybasins in parts of BC, Alberta,
(09:15):
Saskatchewan and northwestterritories and and then if you
want to then move into moredirect use heat systems, and
this was more broad spreadacross the country that there's
potential. So it's all there.
It's been used to a minor extentso far in Canada, but we have
hopes that this is going to be asignificant increase in the use
(09:37):
of geothermal energy in thefuture.
David Evans (09:39):
Yeah, so we don't currently produce any
electricity from geothermal inCanada. But what's the actual
history of geothermal energy?
And what countries are leadingproducers?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (09:50):
Yeah, the the biggest producer in the
world is the United States, justto the south of us. The US is
the biggest in terms of youknow, total megawatts produced.
But if you want to look at Asort of the degree of
integration of geothermal intothe energy supply Iceland, it's
about 60% of their energysupplies now from geothermal.
And there's countries likeIndonesia, it's rapidly growing
(10:12):
a New Zealand, Kenya has a veryrapidly growing geothermal
development and other countriesin East Africa are looking very
seriously at this. So it's, it'srapidly growing around the
world, any country along theRing of Fire. So I mean,
Canada's a kind of unique is theonly country in what's called
the ring of fires, or thePacific Ocean ring that doesn't
(10:35):
have geothermal developmenttoday. So we we kind of stand
out as not, not having developedthis resource.
David Evans (10:42):
Wow, that's really interesting. places like Kenya
are leaders in in this, but Ialways assumed geothermal energy
with volcanoes. And maybe Idon't associate that with Kenya,
maybe that's just my lack ofknowledge about geography of
Africa, or something like that.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (10:58):
Yeah, there's this called the East
African Rift. So the easternpart of Africa has been part and
there is some volcanic systemsthere. So they do have some very
high temperatures along the RiftValley. And this is the area
that there's some focusexploration. But it's not just
volcanoes, if you look inGermany, there's a very similar
(11:19):
geologic setting in Barberia,has called them the last basin.
And it's very similar to what wecall the Alberta basin, the
sediments that hold all the oiland gas in Alberta. And in
Germany, they're developing thema lot of space in for hot waters
and developing district heatingsystems for the city of Munich
and, and other areas. And that'sreally been going successful.
(11:40):
You know, Paris has been heatedby geothermal power for decades
now. So there's many otherlocations that don't have
volcanoes that are still usinggeothermal power for district
heating systems and other directuse.
David Evans (11:54):
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And good
places,
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (11:57):
I think, for Canada to look at as
a analog rate, as you know,we're not going to be Iceland,
Iceland is a special case, it'sa country sitting on those
spreading ridge of the AtlanticOcean, and they have a lot of
really high temperature systemsthere. But we can look at other
places like Germany and Franceand elsewhere, that are
developing geothermal and verysimilar geologic settings to
(12:20):
what we have.
David Evans (12:22):
Yeah, exactly.
We're never going to be Iceland.
But we can still harness thisenergy. Are there any
consequences or risks to thiskind of technology? Because I
mean, is drilling down so deep?
Is that dangerous? Is this thesame technology that we use in
Alberta? We've been usingsimilar technology to this for
oil and gas? Is that the sametechnology? Or is this different
(12:45):
somehow?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherm (12:48):
Yes, I mean, drilling technologies is
the same. And if anything, youknow, in Canada, we have
probably some of the mostadvanced drilling technology in
the world, probably far moreadvanced than has been used in
other countries developinggeothermal. So I think there's a
real opportunity to applyCanadian technology and know how
to renewable green energyresource, you know, so if
(13:10):
anything, we know we canadvanced the nature of the
drilling technology by justapplying the petroleum drilling
to this other area. So if anydrilling, there's in
development, I mean, there'srisk with everything, right. So
whether it's hydro, or wind, orsolar, and geothermal has risks
associated with it. So so you'redrilling a, you know, a, well,
then you're trying to producethat water to surface, right. So
(13:32):
there's always risks of thewater, you know, leaking into
shallow aquifers, and maybecontaminating things. But we
also have a very strong historyof developing petroleum here and
very strong regulatoryenvironment and understanding of
how you can properly case a welland seal off protect the potable
water aquifers. And so, youknow, I think we know how to do
(13:55):
it very well. There was a longhistory of learning from
drilling in the petroleumindustry to make it you know,
what's a world leader now. Andwe can use that knowledge of how
to apply those safety measuresto geothermal. And so I think
there's always risks, but Ithink they're relatively low.
Yeah, I
David Evans (14:12):
guess what you mentioned earlier that we're
looking at the idea of injectingco2 with water as a way to
transfer the heat up. So I'mcurious, what kind of fluids are
we looking at? Or what happensif some of these fluids that are
being used for transporting thisheat? What if they escaped into
(14:34):
our water system? You alreadykind of mentioned that there but
we're putting a lot of resourcesto making sure it doesn't
happen. But what are theconsequences? Is this a really,
really bad scenario?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (14:47):
Yeah, I mean, so basically, what
you're producing would be verysimilar to its water right, but
the tends to be a far more saltywater than then even seawater.
So in Alberta to some of thedeeper bass and Brian's can be,
you know, 10 times the salinityof seawater. So you can imagine
then if that was, let's sayleaking into a freshwater
(15:10):
aquifer that's going to causesome solid nation problems and
things like this. And that'sjust something that you would,
you know, monitor for in anydevelopment, right, and it
doesn't move fast. I mean, ifyou have a leakage issue,
groundwater moves relativelyslowly as you get lost to time
to realize there's somethinggoing wrong. And then and then
it's just a matter of stoppingthe well, you know, resealing
(15:32):
the casing or dealing withwhatever the problem is. So I
think, you know, just as withany other development, a key
aspect is just the monitoring ofthe system to ensure that things
are going well and to have timeto respond to any issues that
may occur. Yeah.
David Evans (15:48):
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense.
Groundwater is notoriously slow.
Just for any listeners who maynot really know the true
meaning, can you define what arenewable energy is? And does
geothermal energy fall into thatcategory as a renewable energy?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (16:06):
I mean, it's just really, I guess,
in my own perspective, I wouldjust consider renewable
something that would beavailable on a long term human
timescale, right. So if we lookat things like oil and gas, I
mean, we might have a couple of100 years of supply left, right.
But you know, at some point,you're going to run out, if you
look at wind and solar, I mean,those are both driven by the
(16:28):
sun. So as long as the sun stillshining, then we're going to
have that right. And in forgeothermal energy, it's produced
by this radiogenic decay ofelements in the crust. And if
you look at the amount of heatproduction that's still going to
go on in the earth, the sun willprobably explode before we ever
run out of geothermal energy. SoI think in that perspective,
(16:50):
it's easily to considerrenewable because we have other
problems to worry about at thatpoint. So Exactly, yeah, we have
about 4.5 billion years left arethe predictions.
David Evans (17:00):
Yeah, so we're good for a little bit. So with this
being a renewable energy, I'malways hearing about solar and
wind technology. But I reallynever hear much about
geothermal. So why are we so inlove with the solar and wind?
And that kind of steals theheadlines?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (17:18):
Yeah, it's it has been a bit of a
mystery. I mean, and that's abit unique to Canada, right?
Because in other countries, likeI mentioned, and Iceland, and
Kenya and places, geothermal,get the headlines. But in
Canada, we had a largegeothermal research program in
the late 70s, early 80s, much ofthe knowledge we have today of
the geothermal potential in thecountry. But that was ended, it
(17:40):
was driven by the energy crisisat the time. And when the energy
crisis ended in 1985. So did theinterest in alternative energy
resources. So since that time, Ithink partly, we just haven't
had a successful project to showthat this is possible. And so it
becomes a chicken and egg typeof scenario that tell somebody
(18:01):
sees a geothermal development inCanada, and no one kind of
believes in it, right. Sothat's, that's one aspect. So
you know, we're hoping to seesome successful projects in the
next year or two that will showthat this is a viable source of
energy here. And then there'salso has been a lack of
regulatory environment inCanada. So each province and
(18:21):
territory is responsible for forregulating any resource
development. But in Canada,today, there's only been British
Columbia that has a geothermalact. And just recently, Alberta
has announced one as well. Butthen in any other jurisdiction
is difficult for industry tothink, well, we're going to
spend money to drill a well, andnot know if we can actually have
(18:42):
rights to produce that resource.
Because there's not even alegislation that dictates how
that's done, right. So if youcompare that to, you know,
forestry or mining or fishing,there's a very clear, regulatory
environment. So you know, thatif you spend this much money and
do this, follow all theseregulations, at the end, you
have a resource that you cansell, you know, until the that
is developed across the country,it's difficult to have that type
(19:05):
of investment. And then I thinkthe last aspect is just a higher
risk than wind and solar. Soit's pretty easy to figure out
where it's sunny and where it'swindy in the country, but it's
more difficult to figure outwhere it's hot, you know, two
kilometers under your feet,right. And you can use your
geology know how to predictwhere those areas are, but then
you still have to drill a well,to really prove it up, right. So
(19:27):
you have to put a lot of moneyand just to get to that final
stage of the resourcedefinition. So there's that
higher risk, but this isbalanced by geothermal being the
most reliable, renewable powersource there is, of course, you
know, wind and solar only workwhen it's sunny and windy out,
right. And so I suppose 30% ofthe time that they produce the
(19:48):
power they're rated for ageothermal power plant runs at
about a 95% efficiency rate. Sothey're just always on always
going. So they're highlyreliable source of power. Power
and other aspects thatsubtractive is that it's a term
called dispatchable, which meansthat you can quickly ramp up and
down the power production. So weall know the electric rush hour
(20:09):
or so people come home at theend of the day, and they all
turn on the lights and turn onthe oven around six o'clock. So
you need as big increase inelectrical generation to meet
that demand. And wind and solar.
I mean, well, even if it happensto be sunny at that time, you
can't just ramp up solarproduction, right? So it's you
can't change that productionrapidly and easily, whereas
(20:32):
geothermal you can. So it has ahigher, higher risk and cost
associated with it, but muchmore valuable source of energy
as well as compared to any otherrenewable. This is why we see it
as an attractive thing to keepworking on and moving forward
with.
David Evans (20:47):
Yeah, exactly. It's something that you it's not
dependent on anything else. Ithink another thing that might
be a problem, maybe from thepublic's point of view is you
can see a windmill, you can seeand understand a solar panel,
but you can't see a pipe goingtwo kilometers down straight
(21:07):
into the ground. It's not inyour face, it's not a visceral
thing you can identify withreally?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (21:13):
Yeah, I mean, the power plants, they
are quite small, right. But toturn that around in terms of the
footprint, like per gigawatt ofenergy you produce the
geothermal plant issignificantly less than any
other source of energy. So it'sone of the lowest land
footprints of any type of powerproduction.
David Evans (21:31):
Yeah, I think that's something we don't really
take into consideration too muchon the actual land per energy
output for our power sources.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (21:41):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, even just imagine
like a hydro dam, and how muchland is, is used to store water,
right, so as the clean renewablesource, but you're using a large
amount of land to, to developit. Whereas if you compare that
to a geothermal plant, it's justa fraction of the footprint?
David Evans (21:59):
Well, for anyone who's listening to this podcast
gets really jazzed up aboutgeothermal energy production,
where again, they go to find outmore.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (22:08):
Well, there's lots of information on
the web, if you just search forit. And I'm also president of an
organization called geothermalCanada. So we are trying to just
promote the wider understandingand work on geothermal. And if
you want the background, you cansearch for the report, we
published geothermal energypotential of Canada. And that's
available for download online.
So there's lots of intro spotslike that, and many other
(22:29):
resources around
David Evans (22:31):
awesome. And I just wanted to ask one final
question, what was your careerpath that landed you in this
field of geothermal energy? Andwhat led you down that road?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherma (22:42):
Oh, it was all just a side. Chance
thing, right? So it was just itwas really started as a class
project back 25 years ago, whenI had to do an independent study
project. And I decided to dosome work on hotsprings. And,
and that just got me interestedin well, why are these waters so
hot? And where does he comefrom, and it's just kind of led
(23:03):
me down this path ever since. Soit's started with trying to try
to soak in a hot spring in themountains.
David Evans (23:09):
Well, that doesn't sound that bad at all. Thanks so
much for talking with me today.
It's been fantastic. And I'm soexcited about geothermal energy,
and I hope to see more of it inthe future here in Canada.
All right. Thank you so much forlistening to today's deep dive
(23:30):
episode all about geothermalenergy in Canada, with our
guests, Dr. Steve Graphviz. Andthank you so much, Steve, for
meeting with me and discussingthis. And going through all of
the technical trouble setting upthis interview. I really
appreciate it. And I'm soexcited to see what we get in
the next couple of years interms of geothermal energy
production in Canada. Can'twait. If you want to find out
(23:51):
more about geothermal energy inCanada, you can look them up at
geothermal Canada, dot o RG, oryou can follow them on Twitter,
LinkedIn, or even on YouTube.
I'll leave links in the shownotes for all of these websites,
be sure to go check them out.
I'm the host and producer DavidEvans. And I just like to thank
the rest of the team,specifically Paula Pohlmann, Lee
(24:11):
Burton, and the rest of theaquatic biosphere board. Thanks
for all of your help. And tolearn more about the aquatic
biosphere project and what we'redoing right here in Alberta
telling the story of water, youcan check us out at aquatic
biosphere.ca. And we also havelaunched our new media company,
ABN aquatic biosphere network,which you can find that the
(24:34):
public place dot online andsearch for the aquatic biosphere
network channel, where we willactually be posting all of the
video episodes that we're goingto be creating this year. So
tune in. They will be out forthe next little while but very
excited to start sharing videocontent as well as our
interviews. Make sure you'resubscribed because next week,
(24:55):
you won't want to miss our deepdive episode with Dr. Greg
Stone, an underwater explorerAarhus explored basically every
inch of the ocean, but also nowis super involved with the
metals company. And looking athow we can get all of the
battery metals we need for thefuture of electric vehicles in
this world, from the bottom ofthe ocean and doing it with
(25:16):
environmental safety in mind.
Tune in, you won't want to missit. If you have any questions or
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forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review. It
really helps us out. Thanks andit's been a splash
Welcome to today's deep dive episode where we're
going to learn all aboutgeothermal energy with Dr. Steve
grads be from geothermal Canada.
Did you know that we havevolcanoes in Canada and that we
actually have the potential tocreate power from geothermal
energy are the only country onthe ring of fire the entire
Pacific Ocean ring of volcanoesCanada's the only country that
(00:27):
doesn't produce a yet why we diginto this and a lot more. So sit
back, relax and get ready tolearn a little bit more about
geothermal energy potential inCanada
that sir, G. nippy, oh me go lowin zero to marry a cheap,
(01:10):
Chinese way. Why water we doing?
And how can we do better? Yourone stop shop for everything
water related from discussingwater its use and the organisms
that depend on it for all theglobal issues that you really
(01:32):
never knew all had to do withwater. I'm your host, David
Evans from the aquatic biosphereproject. And I just want to ask
you something. What are wedoing? And how can we do better?
Hi, and welcome to another deepdive episode. We're talking
(02:00):
about geothermal energyproduction with Dr. Steve
Grasby. So, Dr. Grasby, do youmind just introducing yourself
to our listeners and giving alittle bit about your
background.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (02:11):
Sure, yes. I'm Steve Grasby, and I'm a
research scientist with aGeological Survey of Canada. And
I've been working on looking atthe federal research and
geothermal potential in Canadafor about the last 20 years or
so.
David Evans (02:24):
Nice. Well, I'm talking to the right person then
about geothermal energy.
Alright, so how do we use water?
Because this is a Water Podcast?
How is water involved in theprocess? And how do you actually
get energy from geothermalpotential?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (02:39):
Sure.
So basically, the Geothermalenergy is just heat us in the
rocks in the subsurface. Andnormally, the deeper you go, the
hotter rocks get. So we look atthat rate of increase in
temperature with that, thefaster it increases, that means
that shallower, you can reachhot rocks that have enough heat
that you can develop ageothermal system. So drilling
(02:59):
is expensive and difficult. Soyou want to find those hot rocks
as close to the surface aspossible. But that's not enough
because that heat is stored inthe rock. So you need a way to
move that heat in the rock fromthe subsurface to the surface
where you can extract it andturn it into electrical
potential. Or you can just usethe heat directly for things
(03:21):
like you know, heatinggreenhouses or buildings. So
normally, or typically what'sused is just water that's in the
rocks, so that you produce thewater in a well comes up to
surface and then you extract theheat from that water, just like
you might have a radiator in ahouse that you pump hot water
through a radiator to heat aroom. Normally, we just use the
generic term of fluid becauseother things could be produced,
(03:44):
like co2 is actually a higherheat capacity than water. So you
can transport more heat withco2. So people have looked at
things like combining co2sequestration system as a
geothermal development as well.
So you're using the co2 youstore underground to produce
this green renewable energysource at surface at the same
(04:04):
time. But the vast majority ofgeothermal developments is
related to producing this thishot water to surface as this
heat transport mechanism. Andthat water is then just
reinjected back into the ground.
Because you know, it's a closedloop system. So you just keep
the water you produce it, youput it back down, right? And you
need to maintain the pressure ofthe reservoir in the subsurface
and you need that water totransport the heat. So you keep
(04:27):
it circulating all the time.
David Evans (04:30):
Yeah, so it's just a closed loop system. As the
water cools at the top andyou've extracted that heat, then
you just pump it right backdown, just so that you don't run
out if that's your basically theexchange source. Right. Yeah.
Awesome. So it sounds like youneed kind of certain conditions
(04:50):
for this kind of energyproductions. And I mean, you
need to be going down pretty farI assume. So what are some of
the good areas for producinggeothermal energy.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (05:02):
Yeah, so I mean, of course you need,
you need that heat, right, andyou want it as close to the
surface as possible. So they canlook at areas that are that are
going to be hotter in theEarth's crust. So, volcanic
systems are, of course, anobvious place. So right now
we're doing some researchprojects on volcanoes in British
Columbia and looking at those asa heat source for geothermal.
(05:24):
Oh,
David Evans (05:25):
sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just gonna quickly
jump in here is anyone else'smind blown that we have
volcanoes right here in BritishColumbia, I can't even believe
it. It's crazy. Sorry, read backto you, Steve.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherma (05:38):
Oh, and you know, there you can find
temperatures as high as 250degrees Celsius within a
kilometer and a half depth. Sothis very hot, and in relatively
shallow depths, compared to thedepths, people drill for oil and
gas, you can also then look atregions that just produce more
heat. And most of the heat inthe Earth's crust is produced
(05:59):
from radioactive decay of threeelements, uranium, thorium, and
potassium. So these just occurnaturally in the rock and the
radioactive so they decay andproduce heat. So the more you
have that in Iraq, the more heatthat rock produces. So we can
use our geologic know how anddefine where in Canada that you
would expect to have thosehigher heat producing rocks. So
(06:22):
that's one element, right? Sowhere's the heat. And then the
second element is going back toyour question on water is that
we need a way to get that heatfrom the rock to the surface,
and we're using water to dothat. So critical to that is
that the water needs to be ableto move easily through the rock
so that it can extract heat, andthen you can pump it up. So
(06:43):
finding, you know, hightemperature rocks isn't enough,
you need to find the hightemperatures, but also rocks
that are naturally permeable,which is the term for what we
measure is how easy water canmove through the rock. So a high
permeable rock is one that watercan easily move through. So we
want to look for these areasthat we know or can predict high
permeability occurs in thesubsurface that we can get the
(07:05):
heat, as well as the watermoving through the rocks to
extract the heat, so we can getit to surface.
David Evans (07:11):
Yeah, so it's not just good enough to have just
some hot rocks, we need to havethe right types of rocks at the
right depth.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (07:20):
So it's, it's a combination of
things. And probably the lastthing too, is really how you
want to use that heat energy. Soyou know, one and members
electricity generation, andthat's done around the world
already. There isn't any inCanada to date, but you need
very high temperatures to dothat. And then you can also just
use the heat directly forheating and building heating,
(07:42):
your green hosts many other useswhere heat is needed. So in that
case, you can just produce thehot waters, and you don't need
nearly as hot water for thosedirect heat uses. So if that's
your goal, then you don't haveto drill as deep and you don't
need to produce as much watereither. So that kind of depends
on how you want to use thegeothermal energy.
David Evans (08:01):
Yeah, it's, there's many different uses for it. And
then that kind of narrows whatyou actually need to look for
and drill down for.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geo (08:10):
Remember, in Canada, like 80% of our
domestic energy use is heating.
So most of the energy we consumeis for heating and not
electricity. And especiallyplaces in northern Canada, where
average air temperatures areminus 20. On an annual basis.
That doesn't, you don't needvery hot water to make a big
impact on on just offsetting theheating needs for those
(08:31):
communities.
David Evans (08:34):
Yeah, that's a very good point. And that kind of
leads me into does Canada havemuch potential for this kind of
geothermal energy production? Iguess there's differences if
you're looking at it forelectricity or just for heating.
But do we have potential?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherm (08:52):
Yes, so we did. An analysis of this
report was published in 2012.
Looking at Canadian geothermalresource potential, and there's
Yeah, tremendous potential, it'sacross the country. There's
areas that are, you know, muchhigher potential for things like
electricity. So the volcanicCelts of Western BC, the Yukon,
are some of the hot sedimentarybasins in parts of BC, Alberta,
(09:15):
Saskatchewan and northwestterritories and and then if you
want to then move into moredirect use heat systems, and
this was more broad spreadacross the country that there's
potential. So it's all there.
It's been used to a minor extentso far in Canada, but we have
hopes that this is going to be asignificant increase in the use
(09:37):
of geothermal energy in thefuture.
David Evans (09:39):
Yeah, so we don't currently produce any
electricity from geothermal inCanada. But what's the actual
history of geothermal energy?
And what countries are leadingproducers?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (09:50):
Yeah, the the biggest producer in the
world is the United States, justto the south of us. The US is
the biggest in terms of youknow, total megawatts produced.
But if you want to look at Asort of the degree of
integration of geothermal intothe energy supply Iceland, it's
about 60% of their energysupplies now from geothermal.
And there's countries likeIndonesia, it's rapidly growing
(10:12):
a New Zealand, Kenya has a veryrapidly growing geothermal
development and other countriesin East Africa are looking very
seriously at this. So it's, it'srapidly growing around the
world, any country along theRing of Fire. So I mean,
Canada's a kind of unique is theonly country in what's called
the ring of fires, or thePacific Ocean ring that doesn't
(10:35):
have geothermal developmenttoday. So we we kind of stand
out as not, not having developedthis resource.
David Evans (10:42):
Wow, that's really interesting. places like Kenya
are leaders in in this, but Ialways assumed geothermal energy
with volcanoes. And maybe Idon't associate that with Kenya,
maybe that's just my lack ofknowledge about geography of
Africa, or something like that.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (10:58):
Yeah, there's this called the East
African Rift. So the easternpart of Africa has been part and
there is some volcanic systemsthere. So they do have some very
high temperatures along the RiftValley. And this is the area
that there's some focusexploration. But it's not just
volcanoes, if you look inGermany, there's a very similar
(11:19):
geologic setting in Barberia,has called them the last basin.
And it's very similar to what wecall the Alberta basin, the
sediments that hold all the oiland gas in Alberta. And in
Germany, they're developing thema lot of space in for hot waters
and developing district heatingsystems for the city of Munich
and, and other areas. And that'sreally been going successful.
(11:40):
You know, Paris has been heatedby geothermal power for decades
now. So there's many otherlocations that don't have
volcanoes that are still usinggeothermal power for district
heating systems and other directuse.
David Evans (11:54):
Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And good
places,
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (11:57):
I think, for Canada to look at as
a analog rate, as you know,we're not going to be Iceland,
Iceland is a special case, it'sa country sitting on those
spreading ridge of the AtlanticOcean, and they have a lot of
really high temperature systemsthere. But we can look at other
places like Germany and Franceand elsewhere, that are
developing geothermal and verysimilar geologic settings to
(12:20):
what we have.
David Evans (12:22):
Yeah, exactly.
We're never going to be Iceland.
But we can still harness thisenergy. Are there any
consequences or risks to thiskind of technology? Because I
mean, is drilling down so deep?
Is that dangerous? Is this thesame technology that we use in
Alberta? We've been usingsimilar technology to this for
oil and gas? Is that the sametechnology? Or is this different
(12:45):
somehow?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherm (12:48):
Yes, I mean, drilling technologies is
the same. And if anything, youknow, in Canada, we have
probably some of the mostadvanced drilling technology in
the world, probably far moreadvanced than has been used in
other countries developinggeothermal. So I think there's a
real opportunity to applyCanadian technology and know how
to renewable green energyresource, you know, so if
(13:10):
anything, we know we canadvanced the nature of the
drilling technology by justapplying the petroleum drilling
to this other area. So if anydrilling, there's in
development, I mean, there'srisk with everything, right. So
whether it's hydro, or wind, orsolar, and geothermal has risks
associated with it. So so you'redrilling a, you know, a, well,
then you're trying to producethat water to surface, right. So
(13:32):
there's always risks of thewater, you know, leaking into
shallow aquifers, and maybecontaminating things. But we
also have a very strong historyof developing petroleum here and
very strong regulatoryenvironment and understanding of
how you can properly case a welland seal off protect the potable
water aquifers. And so, youknow, I think we know how to do
(13:55):
it very well. There was a longhistory of learning from
drilling in the petroleumindustry to make it you know,
what's a world leader now. Andwe can use that knowledge of how
to apply those safety measuresto geothermal. And so I think
there's always risks, but Ithink they're relatively low.
Yeah, I
David Evans (14:12):
guess what you mentioned earlier that we're
looking at the idea of injectingco2 with water as a way to
transfer the heat up. So I'mcurious, what kind of fluids are
we looking at? Or what happensif some of these fluids that are
being used for transporting thisheat? What if they escaped into
(14:34):
our water system? You alreadykind of mentioned that there but
we're putting a lot of resourcesto making sure it doesn't
happen. But what are theconsequences? Is this a really,
really bad scenario?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (14:47):
Yeah, I mean, so basically, what
you're producing would be verysimilar to its water right, but
the tends to be a far more saltywater than then even seawater.
So in Alberta to some of thedeeper bass and Brian's can be,
you know, 10 times the salinityof seawater. So you can imagine
then if that was, let's sayleaking into a freshwater
(15:10):
aquifer that's going to causesome solid nation problems and
things like this. And that'sjust something that you would,
you know, monitor for in anydevelopment, right, and it
doesn't move fast. I mean, ifyou have a leakage issue,
groundwater moves relativelyslowly as you get lost to time
to realize there's somethinggoing wrong. And then and then
it's just a matter of stoppingthe well, you know, resealing
(15:32):
the casing or dealing withwhatever the problem is. So I
think, you know, just as withany other development, a key
aspect is just the monitoring ofthe system to ensure that things
are going well and to have timeto respond to any issues that
may occur. Yeah.
David Evans (15:48):
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense.
Groundwater is notoriously slow.
Just for any listeners who maynot really know the true
meaning, can you define what arenewable energy is? And does
geothermal energy fall into thatcategory as a renewable energy?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal (16:06):
I mean, it's just really, I guess,
in my own perspective, I wouldjust consider renewable
something that would beavailable on a long term human
timescale, right. So if we lookat things like oil and gas, I
mean, we might have a couple of100 years of supply left, right.
But you know, at some point,you're going to run out, if you
look at wind and solar, I mean,those are both driven by the
(16:28):
sun. So as long as the sun stillshining, then we're going to
have that right. And in forgeothermal energy, it's produced
by this radiogenic decay ofelements in the crust. And if
you look at the amount of heatproduction that's still going to
go on in the earth, the sun willprobably explode before we ever
run out of geothermal energy. SoI think in that perspective,
(16:50):
it's easily to considerrenewable because we have other
problems to worry about at thatpoint. So Exactly, yeah, we have
about 4.5 billion years left arethe predictions.
David Evans (17:00):
Yeah, so we're good for a little bit. So with this
being a renewable energy, I'malways hearing about solar and
wind technology. But I reallynever hear much about
geothermal. So why are we so inlove with the solar and wind?
And that kind of steals theheadlines?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (17:18):
Yeah, it's it has been a bit of a
mystery. I mean, and that's abit unique to Canada, right?
Because in other countries, likeI mentioned, and Iceland, and
Kenya and places, geothermal,get the headlines. But in
Canada, we had a largegeothermal research program in
the late 70s, early 80s, much ofthe knowledge we have today of
the geothermal potential in thecountry. But that was ended, it
(17:40):
was driven by the energy crisisat the time. And when the energy
crisis ended in 1985. So did theinterest in alternative energy
resources. So since that time, Ithink partly, we just haven't
had a successful project to showthat this is possible. And so it
becomes a chicken and egg typeof scenario that tell somebody
(18:01):
sees a geothermal development inCanada, and no one kind of
believes in it, right. Sothat's, that's one aspect. So
you know, we're hoping to seesome successful projects in the
next year or two that will showthat this is a viable source of
energy here. And then there'salso has been a lack of
regulatory environment inCanada. So each province and
(18:21):
territory is responsible for forregulating any resource
development. But in Canada,today, there's only been British
Columbia that has a geothermalact. And just recently, Alberta
has announced one as well. Butthen in any other jurisdiction
is difficult for industry tothink, well, we're going to
spend money to drill a well, andnot know if we can actually have
(18:42):
rights to produce that resource.
Because there's not even alegislation that dictates how
that's done, right. So if youcompare that to, you know,
forestry or mining or fishing,there's a very clear, regulatory
environment. So you know, thatif you spend this much money and
do this, follow all theseregulations, at the end, you
have a resource that you cansell, you know, until the that
is developed across the country,it's difficult to have that type
(19:05):
of investment. And then I thinkthe last aspect is just a higher
risk than wind and solar. Soit's pretty easy to figure out
where it's sunny and where it'swindy in the country, but it's
more difficult to figure outwhere it's hot, you know, two
kilometers under your feet,right. And you can use your
geology know how to predictwhere those areas are, but then
you still have to drill a well,to really prove it up, right. So
(19:27):
you have to put a lot of moneyand just to get to that final
stage of the resourcedefinition. So there's that
higher risk, but this isbalanced by geothermal being the
most reliable, renewable powersource there is, of course, you
know, wind and solar only workwhen it's sunny and windy out,
right. And so I suppose 30% ofthe time that they produce the
(19:48):
power they're rated for ageothermal power plant runs at
about a 95% efficiency rate. Sothey're just always on always
going. So they're highlyreliable source of power. Power
and other aspects thatsubtractive is that it's a term
called dispatchable, which meansthat you can quickly ramp up and
down the power production. So weall know the electric rush hour
(20:09):
or so people come home at theend of the day, and they all
turn on the lights and turn onthe oven around six o'clock. So
you need as big increase inelectrical generation to meet
that demand. And wind and solar.
I mean, well, even if it happensto be sunny at that time, you
can't just ramp up solarproduction, right? So it's you
can't change that productionrapidly and easily, whereas
(20:32):
geothermal you can. So it has ahigher, higher risk and cost
associated with it, but muchmore valuable source of energy
as well as compared to any otherrenewable. This is why we see it
as an attractive thing to keepworking on and moving forward
with.
David Evans (20:47):
Yeah, exactly. It's something that you it's not
dependent on anything else. Ithink another thing that might
be a problem, maybe from thepublic's point of view is you
can see a windmill, you can seeand understand a solar panel,
but you can't see a pipe goingtwo kilometers down straight
(21:07):
into the ground. It's not inyour face, it's not a visceral
thing you can identify withreally?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (21:13):
Yeah, I mean, the power plants, they
are quite small, right. But toturn that around in terms of the
footprint, like per gigawatt ofenergy you produce the
geothermal plant issignificantly less than any
other source of energy. So it'sone of the lowest land
footprints of any type of powerproduction.
David Evans (21:31):
Yeah, I think that's something we don't really
take into consideration too muchon the actual land per energy
output for our power sources.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (21:41):
Yeah, yeah. I mean, even just imagine
like a hydro dam, and how muchland is, is used to store water,
right, so as the clean renewablesource, but you're using a large
amount of land to, to developit. Whereas if you compare that
to a geothermal plant, it's justa fraction of the footprint?
David Evans (21:59):
Well, for anyone who's listening to this podcast
gets really jazzed up aboutgeothermal energy production,
where again, they go to find outmore.
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geother (22:08):
Well, there's lots of information on
the web, if you just search forit. And I'm also president of an
organization called geothermalCanada. So we are trying to just
promote the wider understandingand work on geothermal. And if
you want the background, you cansearch for the report, we
published geothermal energypotential of Canada. And that's
available for download online.
So there's lots of intro spotslike that, and many other
(22:29):
resources around
David Evans (22:31):
awesome. And I just wanted to ask one final
question, what was your careerpath that landed you in this
field of geothermal energy? Andwhat led you down that road?
Dr. Steve Grasby, Geotherma (22:42):
Oh, it was all just a side. Chance
thing, right? So it was just itwas really started as a class
project back 25 years ago, whenI had to do an independent study
project. And I decided to dosome work on hotsprings. And,
and that just got me interestedin well, why are these waters so
hot? And where does he comefrom, and it's just kind of led
(23:03):
me down this path ever since. Soit's started with trying to try
to soak in a hot spring in themountains.
David Evans (23:09):
Well, that doesn't sound that bad at all. Thanks so
much for talking with me today.
It's been fantastic. And I'm soexcited about geothermal energy,
and I hope to see more of it inthe future here in Canada.
All right. Thank you so much forlistening to today's deep dive
(23:30):
episode all about geothermalenergy in Canada, with our
guests, Dr. Steve Graphviz. Andthank you so much, Steve, for
meeting with me and discussingthis. And going through all of
the technical trouble setting upthis interview. I really
appreciate it. And I'm soexcited to see what we get in
the next couple of years interms of geothermal energy
production in Canada. Can'twait. If you want to find out
(23:51):
more about geothermal energy inCanada, you can look them up at
geothermal Canada, dot o RG, oryou can follow them on Twitter,
LinkedIn, or even on YouTube.
I'll leave links in the shownotes for all of these websites,
be sure to go check them out.
I'm the host and producer DavidEvans. And I just like to thank
the rest of the team,specifically Paula Pohlmann, Lee
(24:11):
Burton, and the rest of theaquatic biosphere board. Thanks
for all of your help. And tolearn more about the aquatic
biosphere project and what we'redoing right here in Alberta
telling the story of water, youcan check us out at aquatic
biosphere.ca. And we also havelaunched our new media company,
ABN aquatic biosphere network,which you can find that the
(24:34):
public place dot online andsearch for the aquatic biosphere
network channel, where we willactually be posting all of the
video episodes that we're goingto be creating this year. So
tune in. They will be out forthe next little while but very
excited to start sharing videocontent as well as our
interviews. Make sure you'resubscribed because next week,
(24:55):
you won't want to miss our deepdive episode with Dr. Greg
Stone, an underwater explorerAarhus explored basically every
inch of the ocean, but also nowis super involved with the
metals company. And looking athow we can get all of the
battery metals we need for thefuture of electric vehicles in
this world, from the bottom ofthe ocean and doing it with
(25:16):
environmental safety in mind.
Tune in, you won't want to missit. If you have any questions or
comments about the show, we'dlove to hear them. Email us at
conservation at aquaticbiosphere.org. Please don't
forget to like, share andsubscribe. Leave us a review. It
really helps us out. Thanks andit's been a splash
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