THE ENERGY TRANSITION IN FLUX, BUT TAILWINDS FOR GEOTHERMAL
The political narrative in the Western world about the Energy Transition has shifted sharply over the past 18 months, thanks to national and EU parliament elections in Europe and November’s US elections. The evolution of how we think about and consume energy continues, but in constantly changing forms.
As previously observed, the EU’s directive-led approach was always a case of ‘all stick and no carrots’, while the Biden administration was ‘all carrot (some very costly) and no stick’. Neither the EU nor the US took sufficient notice of how China’s approach to this, in the context of a broader drive to secure long-term control of its supply chains, left both languishing in terms of related technological research and development. This has been due to a typical failure of the political fraternity to think systemically and instead frame everything in terms of linear thinking ‘solutions’, which were inevitably going to be found wanting.
Be that as it may, one little-mentioned aspect of Trump’s “American Energy Dominance” plan is that while it excludes Solar, onshore Wind, Wave, and Tidal Power, it does include Geothermal. This is surprising given the lack of any related domestic US infrastructure east of the Rocky Mountains. But then again also unsurprising, given that Energy
Secretary Chris Wright was a prior CEO of Liberty Energy, which among other things helped to fund ‘advanced geothermal’ startup Fervo Energy.
BINARY CYCLE As observed, the Energy Transition will likely need to see the deployment of all forms of renewables, with affordability, security, suitability for purpose, scalability, distribution, and indeed geography being among the key determinants, along with regulation. By way of a very brief overview introduction for the layman, there are three types of geothermal power plants: dry steam, flash steam, and binary cycle. Dry Steam is the original form, using steam from a hydrothermal reservoir directly to spin generator turbines. Flash Steam is now the more common type, as it is much more energy efficient, with hot water from deep underground pumped to the surface, and due to a sudden pressure drop, a portion of the water rapidly vaporizes ("flashes") into steam, which then drives a turbine to generate electricity, with water that is not ‘flashed’ injected back into the hydrothermal reservoir for later use. Binary Cycle is the newest geothermal technology, in which hydrothermal reservoir water (often at lower temperature than is needed for other types of geothermal power plants) is used to heat another working fluid with a much lower boiling point. The hot water is reinjected back into the reservoir while the heated working fluid becomes vaporized, generating steam that spins a generator turbine. In terms of achieving emission reductions, its primary advantage is that there are marginal (on a life-cycle
36 | ADMISI - The Ghost In The Machine | Q1 Edition 2025
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