Forbes Story: Is Geothermal The Magic Bullet For Renewable Baseload?

Sage Geosystems CEO Cindy Taff meets with employees at Starr County, Texas project site. SAGE GEOSYSTEMS

[Note: This story was also published at Forbes.com]

One of the chief challenges that will have to be solved if the world is to engage in a real energy transition is the one of displacing baseload power generation currently provided by natural gas, oil and coal with some form of zero-emission generation.

The current array of proposed solutions to that issue consist mainly of nuclear generation, which is costly and can take 10 to 15 years to permit and build, or renewables like wind and solar, weather-reliant sources whose intermittent nature must be somehow solved to be truly scalable and viable. For renewables, the focus of solutions thus far has centered on stationary battery technology, with lithium-ion making up the bulk of installed capacity thus far. But lithium-ion tech suffers from weather-related issues of its own, and billions are being invested in research and development into alternatives like vanadium, solid state and liquid metal technologies that have seen varying degrees of success to date.

Can Geothermal Provide The Storage Solution?

Now, another alternative is on the horizon. The viability of geothermal projects to provide energy storage at scale and competitive cost has been gaining momentum in recent years, and I was able to discuss this and other geothermal-related topics in a recent interview with Cindy Taff, the CEO of Sage Geosystems, Inc. Based in Houston, Sage has developed a proprietary CO2 turbine that it says doubles the amount of electricity that can be created from geothermal heat when compared to the current technology.

As important as electricity generation, though, is its potential to serve as a storage mechanism for electricity generated by renewables. “I think it is important for us to educate not only on what geothermal is and how it can be sited just about anywhere in the world, but also about energy storage and how it can be combined with solar to expand its capacity for producing electricity,” Taff says. “When we are able to put our energy storage together with solar, we can actually generate baseload power. Solar plus our energy storage gives you 24/7 baseload.”