TNW
Summary
The invasion of Ukraine has led European leaders to reconsider their dependence on Russian natural gas for electricity and heating. While other countries are working hard to offer alternatives like Liquid Natural Gas (LNG), this still leaves the continent dependent on foreign supply.
Luckily, literally everyone on Earth is standing right on top of a virtually limitless energy source; geothermal energy. Recently, an American startup called Quaise made headlines with their plan to drill super deep holes to access the Earth’s heat – which is very cool and spectacular, but also mostly science fiction at the moment.
There are the companies such as Yeager Energy, or giants like Vattenfall on the usage side, that invest in infrastructure that takes the heat from geothermal wells to store and distribute through district heating systems, which is crucial to actually use the Earth’s heat.
Eavor recently picked up a large funding round — backed by the venture arms of BP and Chevron — and has projects lined up around Europe. Eavor-loops would provide between 12 and 15 MW of energy each — similar to the capacity of the largest wind turbine, but independent of weather. The big difference is that since these are low-temperature systems, they’d be connected to district heating networks, not power generators.
Then again, as more European cities seek to shed their dependence on natural gas for heating purposes — and install more district heating networks — they might consider AGS as a possible source (or complement) for carbon-emission-free heating systems. Münich is a great example of this, with construction already started on a series of wells and district heating that would provide 1,5 million citizens with geothermal heating and cooling.
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#News#Geothermal#DistrictHeating