Eavor has a new piece in Politico written by our own Malcolm Ross entitled: The Goldilocks effect: the quest for the perfect energy source. Why advanced geothermal systems could be ‘just right’ for the long-term.
Here is a short excerpt:
The world has been driving toward low-carbon renewable energy at a dizzying pace that seems to be accelerating.
But enthusiastically diving headfirst into unknown waters risks banging your head on unknown or unseen obstacles; the water feels good right up until your head meets an unmovable object.
Maybe it is time to take a breath and think more strategically about carrying out this much-needed revolution.
Wind and photovoltaic (PV) solar panels have been steaming rapidly forward, but are they the best long-term choice? Wind and PV come with some significant drawbacks: intermittency (operating only when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining) is chief among them. The hope for intermittency smoothed by long-term battery storage gets less practical with every industrial battery fire and recall notice on an electric vehicle.
Wind and PV alone can achieve up to about 70 percent of the market (if assisted by storage technologies to fill the gaps), but beyond that, the grid needs something more stable and resilient to provide reliable power.
That begs the question — if we dive into these waters, what would be the characteristics of the ideal long-term renewable energy power source to complement wind and PV? Ideally, it would replace high-carbon non-renewable fossil fuel supplies with a clean, locally-sourced, globally-available, low-cost, socially-acceptable, grid-stabilizing, zero-emission, load-following, resilient and reliable energy source.
As Goldilocks would say, we need an energy source that is ‘just right’. The good news is that we have it, and it is poised to take off.
Continue reading “The Goldilocks effect: the quest for the perfect energy source” on POLITICO.
