Say Hi to the Future podcast recently hosted Eavor Technologies Inc engineer Colin Brown to explain how Eavor is the leader of next-generation geothermal energy worldwide.
Ken Tencer, CEO of Spyderworks, a marketing and management consultancy company, hosts the video podcast. Tencer started his podcast in early 2021 to shed light on “the human side of human ingenuity: clever, inventive, and original thinking.”
Colin Brown, a technology development engineer at Eavor, is a young Calgarian who grew up surrounded by the dominating oil and gas industry of Alberta. The articulate engineer says he’s excited to be part of the revolutionary energy pivot driven by social and environmental morality shifts and regulatory pressures.
Host Tencer describes himself as a layman when it comes to understanding the technical side of geothermal energy, and asks Brown many questions his listeners are wondering themselves – allowing the audience to understand the scientific processes behind the innovative closed-circuit Eavor-LoopTM technology.
Labelled as a green energy source, geothermal is often compared to other renewables such as wind and solar. But as Brown points out, there are a few key differences that set Eavor’s take on geothermal apart, like intermittency issues and surface area land use.
To watch or listen to the full conversation, see below.
An important takeaway from the interview between Brown and Tencer is the learning curve associated with the Levelized cost of energy (a measure of the lifetime cost of operation divided by the value of energy produced). Brown notes Eavor’s main criticism is the high cost of energy production but says like any technology, the price will come down as the technology is perfected.
For example, solar energy has reduced its LCOE from over $360/mWh in 2009 to $36/mWh in 2021. The Eavor-Lite project in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, currently produces electricity at a rate of $130/mWh, but given the trajectory of solar’s LCOE reduction, Brown is confident these costs will become competitive as the company grows.
And growing it is. Eavor’s recently announced commercial project in Geretsried, Germany, is estimated to be operational within a year, providing district heating and electricity to local communities and businesses.
Eavor is also pursuing a second round of funding, after receiving government grants and cash infusions from oil and gas supergiants BP and Chevron in 2021.
