Energi panas bumi 2.0: Solusi energi bersih atau risiko baru? | @DWPlanetA

Can we use energy from the earth's core? Iceland has done it. Two thirds of the energy for primary needs is obtained from unique renewable energy sources, namely earth's heat or geothermal. They bring access to huge hot water storage places underground. Their success is wanted to be praised by many countries. Geothermal power plants. The geothermal power industry. But there are obstacles.

This can only be done where there is a hot water storage in the ground, and that is not much in the world. But there is a new idea in this field, or in this stone. The new generation of geothermal technology will make energy from the center of the earth accessible from anywhere in the world. It's even available in downtown Paris that you can just simply, if you can drill, you can access to it.

Google even uses geothermal to operate its data center that needs a lot of energy. Now is the time to see how we can leverage new energy areas and who can get the benefits. First, the basics. This is the conventional geothermal energy leverage.

There are variations, but all are located in the depths of hundreds to 3,000 meters, where the hot water storage is usually located. Water is pumped to the surface for heating or electricity in the area near it. As a comparison, the oil or gas source is usually located deeper, up to 4,000 meters. Meanwhile, what is called geothermal 2.0 can be deeper and does not require water storage.

If you want this heat to be everywhere in the world, you go beyond 4,000. This is Amy Bahar from Badan Energi Internasional. She is one of the writers of large-scale reports on geothermal capacity. Once you go beyond 4,000, between 4,000 and 7,000, it's basically like a wind resource or a solar resource, right? So it's everywhere.

The earth has several layers, the deeper the people, the warmer it gets. The closer to the center of the earth, the temperature can reach 5000 degrees Celsius. The deeper, the average temperature increases by 25 degrees to 30 degrees Celsius every kilometer. So the deeper, the more energy can be obtained. Let's see this map.

These are the promised locations for geothermal energy. In an area of 2000 meters, the temperature is more than 150 degrees or more. This is enough to generate energy for heating and electricity. The location is as much as this in an area of 4000 meters and 7000 meters.

If the Earth's heat from all these locations is combined, its energy can meet 150 times the global electricity needs per year. However, deeper radiation will not make the energy rise to the surface. So how?

One of the ways is to be studied in a small village in Bayern, South Germany. The company Canada Ever plans to open the first commercial geothermal energy generator in 2026. The special thing about our technology, it's not only the pure depth where we drill.

Daniel Böck won the operation in Germany. It is that we can drill many different wells out of one mother well, so we can fan them out. We can drill them very very long beyond 8000 meters length. And then we can interconnect them, seal them and build this large subsurface radiator.

They call it "everloop", a closed-loop system. Most importantly, this system does not require the storage of groundwater because it draws heat from dry rocks. This is the reconstruction of the process. Two wells are dug up to a depth of 5,000 meters vertically. Under the ground, several lateral bore wells are dug that connect the two core wells.

Then the water is pumped through one of the points and flows to the lateral well. When passing through high-temperature stones, the water absorbs heat and brings it to the surface. It can be used as a home heater, through the heating system in the location, or changed to electricity using a water steam turbine. Ever planted a 350 million euro capital in geothermal energy and held several patent rights for their technology.

A second project has been planned. The energy received will meet up to 20% of the heat needs in Hanover, which has a population of about 500,000 people. However, Ever is not the only one that is active. Google plays an active role.

They need a lot of renewable energy, namely to operate a data center. Therefore, in 2021 they made a promise with start-up Vervo Energy, which builds a new geothermal installation in Nevada. Their way is to create a hot water reservoir. For that, Vervo dug two ponds of about 2,500 meters. After that, they turned the bore head and continued the digging horizontally.

The idea is that horizontal drilling makes the process of carrying hot energy more efficient and pushes the flow of water. Thus reaching the ideal position, water or other liquid is pumped into the ground with very high pressure, causing small or large rocks to collapse. Then water is pumped into the swamp and through the cracks in the rocks. After that, the hot water is pushed back to the surface.

Do you feel familiar with this process? Yes, this process is also used in fracking techniques to mine oil and gas on the earth. This has also been done previously in geothermal research since the 1970s, especially in Europe. However, Vervo brought this system to the next level. In the short period of time, they were able to reduce the cost by 50%, drilling time by 70%,

And now they are basically drilling for a 370 or almost 400 megawatt project in Utah. This is where the excitement is coming from. If compared, the installation prototype in Nevada has a small capacity of 3.5 megawatts. However, the installation is smooth and this industry is planning a second installation in Utah to evaluate whether it can really consume 100 times more energy.

But even though there is a big enthusiasm, there is an important side effect Earthquake

The Korean government has designated the quaked port city of Pohang in the nation's southeast as a special disaster zone. Korea 2017 Earthquakes of 5.4 on the Richter scale in Pohang caused dozens of people to fall and 1,700 to collapse. Earthquakes are caused by widespread geothermal exploration. It produced a big shock and that was the end of that project unfortunately.

This is William Ellsworth, professor at Stanford University and expert in seismic activity and risk assessment. So it was a very serious event. And this was a case where we later identified that their attempt to create the geothermal reservoir had instead stimulated a fault. And one of those earthquakes ran away.

Making rock cracks underground so that water can pass through, sometimes causing a small series of earthquakes. This is potentially uncontrolled and causes a snowball effect. And we also know that as we go deeper into the earth, the forces get larger. So there is potential for more release of energy in earthquakes. Earthquakes are risky, causing challenges to society and prohibitions in several areas. Vervo stated that their operations are safe and the process is closely monitored.

Monitoring very carefully is one of the key goals. Also doing very careful assessment of the geology beforehand so that we avoid known faults and other things that may be problematic during the development or operation of a plant.

Another thing that causes rejection of wide geothermal technologies is the use of a lot of water. The closed loop system in Germany requires more than a little water and does not cause too much disturbance underground, so the risk of earthquake is not too high. However, deep-sea drilling costs a lot of money. Like many other nuclear technologies considered "cool", the biggest factor that becomes a challenge is money. This is the key point.

Whether geothermal will take off or not. The International Energy Agency estimates that without subsidies, electricity from geothermal energy sources will be several times more expensive than solar and wind energy. It is important to sort of posit this as a fast-changing technology suite where we are getting better at it every day and demonstrating it more every day.

Tara Rogers is the head of the Stone Mining Research Unit at the NGO Clean Air Task Force. But within that first of kind, which is where we are today, we expect that most of the first of kind facilities are going to occur where that heat is most shallow. The reason is simple. Digging up to 4,000, 5,000, even 10,000 meters allows for greater energy consumption, but the cost is also very high.

To reduce the cost, this clean renewable energy can be combined, even supporting non-clean fossil energy sources, namely oil, earth, and gas. Candidly, from a climate perspective, we need that size of player in order to meet our expectations of climate. They are the ones that can move this fastest.

and a deploy and a timeline that really matters. Basically drilling, cementing, finishing, closing the wells, even managing the large projects which involves underground there, knowledge of subsurface environment and so on and so forth. It's 80%, which means that if you spend $100, 80% of this is basically oil and gas industries bread and butter.

The mining techniques used by Vervo Energy and Ever are largely based on technology and methods created for fracking in the early 2000s.

Now, at Vervo, 90% of the time is used by staff in the oil and gas field. And the founder of Vervo, also Ever, and his management have a long history in the fossil fuel industry. There has even been talks to divert oil and gas sources for geothermal energy. However, so far, the fossil fuel industry has only invested $140 million in geothermal development. There are many rumors, but it almost doesn't make sense.

They are waiting and trying to see whether an innovation breakthrough is going to happen for geothermal as well. This causes a shortage because this innovation will not be broken without a large budget. According to the IEA, the geothermal sector needs $1 trillion in the next 10 years to fully open its potential. In addition, better regulations are needed if you want to start. Now the number of countries that have such regulations is less than 30.

On the positive side, the countries also provide support, debt or insurance systems to mitigate the risk and initial costs that are too high. Ever is supported by the European Union with funds of more than 100 million euros. Meanwhile in the United States, Vervo Energy also gets government support.

The next generation geothermal technology is potentially an energy source for locations that previously had no access. This technology is likely to be able to ensure electricity supply in Asia by replacing coal or supporting solar and wind energy in Europe. These next generation geothermal projects will not only provide a profile of electricity that is very unique, this 24 by 7 firm clean profile, but it also simultaneously provides

China, the United States and India are valued areas that promise. Together they hold 3/4 of the global geothermal market potential.

If geothermal technology continues to grow, it will remain safe and its cost can be lowered, this technology can cover at least 15% of global electricity needs in 2050. If the drilling is deepened, even more. This is a new and sustainable business method that continues to use a method that has been well known, Drill Baby Drill, but leaving fossil fuels in the ground.