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Deep Dive: Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Energy for Canada's Future

• David Evans / Steve Grasby • Season 2 • Episode 1

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Canada is the only country in the Pacific Ring of Fire that doesn't utilize geothermal energy production. Why aren't we taking advantage of this renewable resource right below our feet?

In Canada ~80% of our energy use is for heating. In Northern Canada where average temperatures are -20 C, you don't need a lot of hot water t make a big impact to offset your heating needs.

In today's episode you'll hear from Dr. Steve Grasby the President of Geothermal Canada. For more information about Geothermal Canada Click Here.

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David Evans:

Welcome to today's deep dive episode where we're going to learn all about geothermal energy with Dr. Steve grads be from geothermal Canada. Did you know that we have volcanoes in Canada and that we actually have the potential to create power from geothermal energy are the only country on the ring of fire the entire Pacific Ocean ring of volcanoes Canada's the only country that doesn't produce a yet why we dig into this and a lot more. So sit back, relax and get ready to learn a little bit more about geothermal energy potential in Canada that sir, G. nippy, oh me go low in zero to marry a cheap, Chinese way. Why water we doing? And how can we do better? Your one stop shop for everything water related from discussing water its use and the organisms that depend on it for all the global issues that you really never knew all had to do with water. I'm your host, David Evans from the aquatic biosphere project. And I just want to ask you something. What are we doing? And how can we do better? Hi, and welcome to another deep dive episode. We're talking about geothermal energy production with Dr. Steve Grasby. So, Dr. Grasby, do you mind just introducing yourself to our listeners and giving a little bit about your background.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Sure, yes. I'm Steve Grasby, and I'm a research scientist with a Geological Survey of Canada. And I've been working on looking at the federal research and geothermal potential in Canada for about the last 20 years or so.

David Evans:

Nice. Well, I'm talking to the right person then about geothermal energy. Alright, so how do we use water? Because this is a Water Podcast? How is water involved in the process? And how do you actually get energy from geothermal potential?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Sure. So basically, the Geothermal energy is just heat us in the rocks in the subsurface. And normally, the deeper you go, the hotter rocks get. So we look at that rate of increase in temperature with that, the faster it increases, that means that shallower, you can reach hot rocks that have enough heat that you can develop a geothermal system. So drilling is expensive and difficult. So you want to find those hot rocks as close to the surface as possible. But that's not enough because that heat is stored in the rock. So you need a way to move that heat in the rock from the subsurface to the surface where you can extract it and turn it into electrical potential. Or you can just use the heat directly for things like you know, heating greenhouses or buildings. So normally, or typically what's used is just water that's in the rocks, so that you produce the water in a well comes up to surface and then you extract the heat from that water, just like you might have a radiator in a house that you pump hot water through a radiator to heat a room. Normally, we just use the generic term of fluid because other things could be produced, like co2 is actually a higher heat capacity than water. So you can transport more heat with co2. So people have looked at things like combining co2 sequestration system as a geothermal development as well. So you're using the co2 you store underground to produce this green renewable energy source at surface at the same time. But the vast majority of geothermal developments is related to producing this this hot water to surface as this heat transport mechanism. And that water is then just reinjected back into the ground. Because you know, it's a closed loop system. So you just keep the water you produce it, you put it back down, right? And you need to maintain the pressure of the reservoir in the subsurface and you need that water to transport the heat. So you keep it circulating all the time.

David Evans:

Yeah, so it's just a closed loop system. As the water cools at the top and you've extracted that heat, then you just pump it right back down, just so that you don't run out if that's your basically the exchange source. Right. Yeah. Awesome. So it sounds like you need kind of certain conditions for this kind of energy productions. And I mean, you need to be going down pretty far I assume. So what are some of the good areas for producing geothermal energy.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, so I mean, of course you need, you need that heat, right, and you want it as close to the surface as possible. So they can look at areas that are that are going to be hotter in the Earth's crust. So, volcanic systems are, of course, an obvious place. So right now we're doing some research projects on volcanoes in British Columbia and looking at those as a heat source for geothermal. Oh,

David Evans:

sorry, sorry, sorry, I'm just gonna quickly jump in here is anyone else's mind blown that we have volcanoes right here in British Columbia, I can't even believe it. It's crazy. Sorry, read back to you, Steve.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Oh, and you know, there you can find temperatures as high as 250 degrees Celsius within a kilometer and a half depth. So this very hot, and in relatively shallow depths, compared to the depths, people drill for oil and gas, you can also then look at regions that just produce more heat. And most of the heat in the Earth's crust is produced from radioactive decay of three elements, uranium, thorium, and potassium. So these just occur naturally in the rock and the radioactive so they decay and produce heat. So the more you have that in Iraq, the more heat that rock produces. So we can use our geologic know how and define where in Canada that you would expect to have those higher heat producing rocks. So that's one element, right? So where's the heat. And then the second element is going back to your question on water is that we need a way to get that heat from the rock to the surface, and we're using water to do that. So critical to that is that the water needs to be able to move easily through the rock so that it can extract heat, and then you can pump it up. So finding, you know, high temperature rocks isn't enough, you need to find the high temperatures, but also rocks that are naturally permeable, which is the term for what we measure is how easy water can move through the rock. So a high permeable rock is one that water can easily move through. So we want to look for these areas that we know or can predict high permeability occurs in the subsurface that we can get the heat, as well as the water moving through the rocks to extract the heat, so we can get it to surface.

David Evans:

Yeah, so it's not just good enough to have just some hot rocks, we need to have the right types of rocks at the right depth.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

So it's, it's a combination of things. And probably the last thing too, is really how you want to use that heat energy. So you know, one and members electricity generation, and that's done around the world already. There isn't any in Canada to date, but you need very high temperatures to do that. And then you can also just use the heat directly for heating and building heating, your green hosts many other uses where heat is needed. So in that case, you can just produce the hot waters, and you don't need nearly as hot water for those direct heat uses. So if that's your goal, then you don't have to drill as deep and you don't need to produce as much water either. So that kind of depends on how you want to use the geothermal energy.

David Evans:

Yeah, it's, there's many different uses for it. And then that kind of narrows what you actually need to look for and drill down for.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Remember, in Canada, like 80% of our domestic energy use is heating. So most of the energy we consume is for heating and not electricity. And especially places in northern Canada, where average air temperatures are minus 20. On an annual basis. That doesn't, you don't need very hot water to make a big impact on on just offsetting the heating needs for those communities.

David Evans:

Yeah, that's a very good point. And that kind of leads me into does Canada have much potential for this kind of geothermal energy production? I guess there's differences if you're looking at it for electricity or just for heating. But do we have potential?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yes, so we did. An analysis of this report was published in 2012. Looking at Canadian geothermal resource potential, and there's Yeah, tremendous potential, it's across the country. There's areas that are, you know, much higher potential for things like electricity. So the volcanic Celts of Western BC, the Yukon, are some of the hot sedimentary basins in parts of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan and northwest territories and and then if you want to then move into more direct use heat systems, and this was more broad spread across the country that there's potential. So it's all there. It's been used to a minor extent so far in Canada, but we have hopes that this is going to be a significant increase in the use of geothermal energy in the future.

David Evans:

Yeah, so we don't currently produce any electricity from geothermal in Canada. But what's the actual history of geothermal energy? And what countries are leading producers?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, the the biggest producer in the world is the United States, just to the south of us. The US is the biggest in terms of you know, total megawatts produced. But if you want to look at A sort of the degree of integration of geothermal into the energy supply Iceland, it's about 60% of their energy supplies now from geothermal. And there's countries like Indonesia, it's rapidly growing a New Zealand, Kenya has a very rapidly growing geothermal development and other countries in East Africa are looking very seriously at this. So it's, it's rapidly growing around the world, any country along the Ring of Fire. So I mean, Canada's a kind of unique is the only country in what's called the ring of fires, or the Pacific Ocean ring that doesn't have geothermal development today. So we we kind of stand out as not, not having developed this resource.

David Evans:

Wow, that's really interesting. places like Kenya are leaders in in this, but I always assumed geothermal energy with volcanoes. And maybe I don't associate that with Kenya, maybe that's just my lack of knowledge about geography of Africa, or something like that.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, there's this called the East African Rift. So the eastern part of Africa has been part and there is some volcanic systems there. So they do have some very high temperatures along the Rift Valley. And this is the area that there's some focus exploration. But it's not just volcanoes, if you look in Germany, there's a very similar geologic setting in Barberia, has called them the last basin. And it's very similar to what we call the Alberta basin, the sediments that hold all the oil and gas in Alberta. And in Germany, they're developing them a lot of space in for hot waters and developing district heating systems for the city of Munich and, and other areas. And that's really been going successful. You know, Paris has been heated by geothermal power for decades now. So there's many other locations that don't have volcanoes that are still using geothermal power for district heating systems and other direct use.

David Evans:

Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And good places,

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

I think, for Canada to look at as a analog rate, as you know, we're not going to be Iceland, Iceland is a special case, it's a country sitting on those spreading ridge of the Atlantic Ocean, and they have a lot of really high temperature systems there. But we can look at other places like Germany and France and elsewhere, that are developing geothermal and very similar geologic settings to what we have.

David Evans:

Yeah, exactly. We're never going to be Iceland. But we can still harness this energy. Are there any consequences or risks to this kind of technology? Because I mean, is drilling down so deep? Is that dangerous? Is this the same technology that we use in Alberta? We've been using similar technology to this for oil and gas? Is that the same technology? Or is this different somehow?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yes, I mean, drilling technologies is the same. And if anything, you know, in Canada, we have probably some of the most advanced drilling technology in the world, probably far more advanced than has been used in other countries developing geothermal. So I think there's a real opportunity to apply Canadian technology and know how to renewable green energy resource, you know, so if anything, we know we can advanced the nature of the drilling technology by just applying the petroleum drilling to this other area. So if any drilling, there's in development, I mean, there's risk with everything, right. So whether it's hydro, or wind, or solar, and geothermal has risks associated with it. So so you're drilling a, you know, a, well, then you're trying to produce that water to surface, right. So there's always risks of the water, you know, leaking into shallow aquifers, and maybe contaminating things. But we also have a very strong history of developing petroleum here and very strong regulatory environment and understanding of how you can properly case a well and seal off protect the potable water aquifers. And so, you know, I think we know how to do it very well. There was a long history of learning from drilling in the petroleum industry to make it you know, what's a world leader now. And we can use that knowledge of how to apply those safety measures to geothermal. And so I think there's always risks, but I think they're relatively low. Yeah, I

David Evans:

guess what you mentioned earlier that we're looking at the idea of injecting co2 with water as a way to transfer the heat up. So I'm curious, what kind of fluids are we looking at? Or what happens if some of these fluids that are being used for transporting this heat? What if they escaped into our water system? You already kind of mentioned that there but we're putting a lot of resources to making sure it doesn't happen. But what are the consequences? Is this a really, really bad scenario?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, I mean, so basically, what you're producing would be very similar to its water right, but the tends to be a far more salty water than then even seawater. So in Alberta to some of the deeper bass and Brian's can be, you know, 10 times the salinity of seawater. So you can imagine then if that was, let's say leaking into a freshwater aquifer that's going to cause some solid nation problems and things like this. And that's just something that you would, you know, monitor for in any development, right, and it doesn't move fast. I mean, if you have a leakage issue, groundwater moves relatively slowly as you get lost to time to realize there's something going wrong. And then and then it's just a matter of stopping the well, you know, resealing the casing or dealing with whatever the problem is. So I think, you know, just as with any other development, a key aspect is just the monitoring of the system to ensure that things are going well and to have time to respond to any issues that may occur. Yeah.

David Evans:

Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. Groundwater is notoriously slow. Just for any listeners who may not really know the true meaning, can you define what a renewable energy is? And does geothermal energy fall into that category as a renewable energy?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

I mean, it's just really, I guess, in my own perspective, I would just consider renewable something that would be available on a long term human timescale, right. So if we look at things like oil and gas, I mean, we might have a couple of 100 years of supply left, right. But you know, at some point, you're going to run out, if you look at wind and solar, I mean, those are both driven by the sun. So as long as the sun still shining, then we're going to have that right. And in for geothermal energy, it's produced by this radiogenic decay of elements in the crust. And if you look at the amount of heat production that's still going to go on in the earth, the sun will probably explode before we ever run out of geothermal energy. So I think in that perspective, it's easily to consider renewable because we have other problems to worry about at that point. So Exactly, yeah, we have about 4.5 billion years left are the predictions.

David Evans:

Yeah, so we're good for a little bit. So with this being a renewable energy, I'm always hearing about solar and wind technology. But I really never hear much about geothermal. So why are we so in love with the solar and wind? And that kind of steals the headlines?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, it's it has been a bit of a mystery. I mean, and that's a bit unique to Canada, right? Because in other countries, like I mentioned, and Iceland, and Kenya and places, geothermal, get the headlines. But in Canada, we had a large geothermal research program in the late 70s, early 80s, much of the knowledge we have today of the geothermal potential in the country. But that was ended, it was driven by the energy crisis at the time. And when the energy crisis ended in 1985. So did the interest in alternative energy resources. So since that time, I think partly, we just haven't had a successful project to show that this is possible. And so it becomes a chicken and egg type of scenario that tell somebody sees a geothermal development in Canada, and no one kind of believes in it, right. So that's, that's one aspect. So you know, we're hoping to see some successful projects in the next year or two that will show that this is a viable source of energy here. And then there's also has been a lack of regulatory environment in Canada. So each province and territory is responsible for for regulating any resource development. But in Canada, today, there's only been British Columbia that has a geothermal act. And just recently, Alberta has announced one as well. But then in any other jurisdiction is difficult for industry to think, well, we're going to spend money to drill a well, and not know if we can actually have rights to produce that resource. Because there's not even a legislation that dictates how that's done, right. So if you compare that to, you know, forestry or mining or fishing, there's a very clear, regulatory environment. So you know, that if you spend this much money and do this, follow all these regulations, at the end, you have a resource that you can sell, you know, until the that is developed across the country, it's difficult to have that type of investment. And then I think the last aspect is just a higher risk than wind and solar. So it's pretty easy to figure out where it's sunny and where it's windy in the country, but it's more difficult to figure out where it's hot, you know, two kilometers under your feet, right. And you can use your geology know how to predict where those areas are, but then you still have to drill a well, to really prove it up, right. So you have to put a lot of money and just to get to that final stage of the resource definition. So there's that higher risk, but this is balanced by geothermal being the most reliable, renewable power source there is, of course, you know, wind and solar only work when it's sunny and windy out, right. And so I suppose 30% of the time that they produce the power they're rated for a geothermal power plant runs at about a 95% efficiency rate. So they're just always on always going. So they're highly reliable source of power. Power and other aspects that subtractive is that it's a term called dispatchable, which means that you can quickly ramp up and down the power production. So we all know the electric rush hour or so people come home at the end of the day, and they all turn on the lights and turn on the oven around six o'clock. So you need as big increase in electrical generation to meet that demand. And wind and solar. I mean, well, even if it happens to be sunny at that time, you can't just ramp up solar production, right? So it's you can't change that production rapidly and easily, whereas geothermal you can. So it has a higher, higher risk and cost associated with it, but much more valuable source of energy as well as compared to any other renewable. This is why we see it as an attractive thing to keep working on and moving forward with.

David Evans:

Yeah, exactly. It's something that you it's not dependent on anything else. I think another thing that might be a problem, maybe from the public's point of view is you can see a windmill, you can see and understand a solar panel, but you can't see a pipe going two kilometers down straight into the ground. It's not in your face, it's not a visceral thing you can identify with really?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, I mean, the power plants, they are quite small, right. But to turn that around in terms of the footprint, like per gigawatt of energy you produce the geothermal plant is significantly less than any other source of energy. So it's one of the lowest land footprints of any type of power production.

David Evans:

Yeah, I think that's something we don't really take into consideration too much on the actual land per energy output for our power sources.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, even just imagine like a hydro dam, and how much land is, is used to store water, right, so as the clean renewable source, but you're using a large amount of land to, to develop it. Whereas if you compare that to a geothermal plant, it's just a fraction of the footprint?

David Evans:

Well, for anyone who's listening to this podcast gets really jazzed up about geothermal energy production, where again, they go to find out more.

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Well, there's lots of information on the web, if you just search for it. And I'm also president of an organization called geothermal Canada. So we are trying to just promote the wider understanding and work on geothermal. And if you want the background, you can search for the report, we published geothermal energy potential of Canada. And that's available for download online. So there's lots of intro spots like that, and many other resources around

David Evans:

awesome. And I just wanted to ask one final question, what was your career path that landed you in this field of geothermal energy? And what led you down that road?

Dr. Steve Grasby, Geothermal Canada:

Oh, it was all just a side. Chance thing, right? So it was just it was really started as a class project back 25 years ago, when I had to do an independent study project. And I decided to do some work on hotsprings. And, and that just got me interested in well, why are these waters so hot? And where does he come from, and it's just kind of led me down this path ever since. So it's started with trying to try to soak in a hot spring in the mountains.

David Evans:

Well, that doesn't sound that bad at all. Thanks so much for talking with me today. It's been fantastic. And I'm so excited about geothermal energy, and I hope to see more of it in the future here in Canada. All right. Thank you so much for listening to today's deep dive episode all about geothermal energy in Canada, with our guests, Dr. Steve Graphviz. And thank you so much, Steve, for meeting with me and discussing this. And going through all of the technical trouble setting up this interview. I really appreciate it. And I'm so excited to see what we get in the next couple of years in terms of geothermal energy production in Canada. Can't wait. If you want to find out more about geothermal energy in Canada, you can look them up at geothermal Canada, dot o RG, or you can follow them on Twitter, LinkedIn, or even on YouTube. I'll leave links in the show notes for all of these websites, be sure to go check them out. I'm the host and producer David Evans. And I just like to thank the rest of the team, specifically Paula Pohlmann, Lee Burton, and the rest of the aquatic biosphere board. Thanks for all of your help. And to learn more about the aquatic biosphere project and what we're doing right here in Alberta telling the story of water, you can check us out at aquatic biosphere.ca. And we also have launched our new media company, ABN aquatic biosphere network, which you can find that the public place dot online and search for the aquatic biosphere network channel, where we will actually be posting all of the video episodes that we're going to be creating this year. So tune in. They will be out for the next little while but very excited to start sharing video content as well as our interviews. Make sure you're subscribed because next week, you won't want to miss our deep dive episode with Dr. Greg Stone, an underwater explorer Aarhus explored basically every inch of the ocean, but also now is super involved with the metals company. And looking at how we can get all of the battery metals we need for the future of electric vehicles in this world, from the bottom of the ocean and doing it with environmental safety in mind. Tune in, you won't want to miss it. If you have any questions or comments about the show, we'd love to hear them. Email us at conservation at aquatic biosphere.org. Please don't forget to like, share and subscribe. Leave us a review. It really helps us out. Thanks and it's been a splash

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