Recycling Fossil Fuel Infrastructure

In Japanese culture, kintsugi is the art of repair. Artists use golden lacquer to mend damaged pottery, infusing new purpose and meaning into old structures. Originating in the 15^th century, kintsugi is part of a larger movement embracing beauty in human flaws.

In the 19^th century, humanity embarked on an extraordinary effort with a fatal flaw. Coal powered the industrial revolution, and with it, unprecedented prosperity. Transportation, agriculture, and medicine changed civilization forever, further aided in time by oil and natural gas. But the rise in global temperatures as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels is putting all that hard-won prosperity in jeopardy.

Now, nearly every nation has signed a pledge to slash carbon emissions by mid-century. That means dramatically altering the energy industry of the last two centuries within the next two decades. Around 80% of global energy still comes from fossil fuels. Should we really let all that compounded infrastructure go to waste?

A truly sustainable energy transition leverages existing resources to reduce waste and accelerate buildout. Geothermal is the kintsugi of renewable energy, it is the source most capable of transforming fossil fuel infrastructure for a clean energy future.

Yet, many are doubling down on building a new system from scratch with renewables like wind and solar. The infrastructure implications of such a shift are far-reaching. For wind and solar to match the reliability of fossil fuels, they need three things: extensive overbuilding of capacity, long-duration storage on the scale of days to decades, and vastly more transmission lines. Existing transmission lines are the only aspect of today’s energy infrastructure that could be adapted to wind and solar, but they will still need significantly more.

Geothermal, on the other hand, could potentially reuse much more of our existing energy infrastructure. That’s because geothermal and fossil fuels share a focus on the subsurface. The fossil fuel industry extracts hydrocarbons from the ground, while the geothermal energy industry extracts heat from the ground. That presents numerous opportunities to transfer knowledge and skills from fossil fuels to geothermal, such as geologic data and infrastructure.

Drilling is where the golden lacquer shines brightest; the rigs and tools of today are directly transferable to geothermal. By leveraging oil and gas infrastructure worldwide, we can jumpstart the expansion of geothermal energy. The new Geothermal Energy from Oil and Gas Demonstrated Engineering (GEODE) consortium, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy and of which Quaise is a member, aims to do just that: catalyze oil and gas resources for geothermal.

Recently, around 200 wells have been drilled worldwide each year for geothermal power production. Yet in the United States alone, about 20,000 oil and gas wells are drilled every year. The potential of drilling more wells for geothermal is enormous.

However, traditional and enhanced geothermal systems have strong geographic limitations. They can only operate where there is existing underground water or highly specific geologic conditions. Deep geothermal, though, changes the game.

Not only does deep geothermal leverage fossil fuel infrastructure, but it also slashes the geographic constraints hampering previous generations of geothermal. By going hotter and deeper for geothermal, we can better match the power density and scalability of fossil fuels. It is the fastest path to net zero by mid-century, and that is why Quaise is developing millimeter wave drilling technology to unlock the full potential of deep geothermal.

Like it or not, fossil fuels have gotten humanity far and won’t easily go away. The art of kintsugi implores us to take a new approach to the clean energy transition. Geothermal, particularly deep geothermal, is best positioned to take the energy infrastructure of today to power the sustainable future of tomorrow.

Energy is everything. At Quaise, we look at the big picture to see where the world is and where it needs to go. Today, fossil fuels still dominate global energy by a long shot. A smoother transition to clean energy requires a bold new vision grounded in science, scale, and speed. Join us as we explore the future of energy and the power of deep geothermal.