Getting fuel to farflung military forces, always a challenge, is even tougher in the vast Pacific. But a new take on an old energy source may soon ease the burden.
On Tuesday, the Pentagon’s Defense Innovation Unit announced that it is doubling to six the number of technology companies involved in a project to try out advances in geothermal energy, which draws upon liquid heated by the Earth, is carbon neutral, and doesn’t require long and vulnerable supply lines.
“With the addition of three more novel technology companies in this ‘groundbreaking’ initiative, DoD is doubling its efforts to leverage advancements in geothermal commercial technologies for energy resilience and support DoD carbon free energy goals,” Michael Callahan, the project manager for the Defense innovation Unit’s energy portfolio, said in a statement.
The idea of using the earth’s heat to produce energy goes back centuries. Vikings used it for bathing and to heat homes before Icelanders used it to run turbines and produce electric power. But not every place can be Iceland, which boasts abundant underground water as well as high geothermal activity.
New techniques called engineered and advanced geothermal systems are greatly expanding the areas where the Earth’s heat can be tapped for power.
With engineered, Callahan said, “You’re providing the fluids. You’re drilling deep enough into the earth to pump fluids into the earth and extracting the same fluids that you use to generate electricity. And then ‘advanced’ is where you have a closed-loop system” that reuses fluid “so it doesn’t come in contact with the reservoir.”
And AI tools are helping to identify places with safe, close-to-the-surface geothermal activity.
Last September, the Defense Innovation Unit announced the hiring of three companies: Eaver Inc., Teverra, and Zanksar at four U.S. Air Force and U.S. Army installations in Alaska, California, Idaho, and Texas.
They will now be joined by Fervo Energy, GreenFire Energy, and Sage Geosystems for new projects at Naval Air Station Fallon, Nevada; Naval Air Facility El Centro, California; and the Army’s Fort Bliss in Texas.
Right now, the power from geothermal energy is limited. Last summer, Fervo said its Utah system had reached 3.5 megawatts, enough to power a small town or a Google data center. That amount of power could also keep a Pacific island installation fighting in the event of cyberattack or fuel-supply disruption.
Compared to other forms of energy, geothermal presents far fewer supply and resupply issues. There’s also no concern that by acquiring it, the Defense Department may be giving an economic boost to a potential adversary. Russia, for instance, is paying for its war against Ukraine with money it derives selling oil. Even solar power relies heavily on components from China. None of those concerns are present with geothermal energy, said Callahan.
“There’s no critical materials issue, you know, like with batteries and energy storage. It’s all local,” he said.
Callahan said big tech companies’ interest in geothermal power is helping to give the nascent industry new support. But it’s still a capital-intensive industry, which can limit its appeal, especially among venture capital investors who are used to the relative ease of funding software companies.
“There’s drilling rigs, infrastructure, transformers, power plants. So it’s a significant valley of death, a big valley, compared to a software startup,” he said.
That’s part of the reason why government investment, through the Defense Department but also the Department of Energy and other sources, is so critical to bring next-generation geothermal power to a new phase, increasing its desirability to tech companies and investors, Callahan said.
“There’s been challenges with capital. And having these agreements, having real-world projects and the DoD involvement, is a help to these organizations,” he said.
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