By Suzanne Forcese
Pronounced “ever”, Eavor™ is a technology based Energy company led by a team dedicated to creating a clean, reliable and affordable energy future on a global scale. With a fresh perspective on geothermal energy and oil industry technologies, Eavor’s team has created a path to restoring harmony to Earth’s ravaged terrain.
WATERTODAY had the pleasure of speaking with Eavor’s President & CEO, John Redfern, about the disruptive, revolutionary technology that mitigates and eliminates issues that have hindered traditional geothermal solutions while at the same time addressing the liabilities of the oil industry’s abandoned wells. No fracking. No GHG emissions. No earthquake risk. No water use. No aquifer contamination. “The downturn came early in the oil industry,” Redfern told WT. “There are 100,000 abandoned wells in Alberta alone. When the industry was growing this could be manageable but at this part of the cycle it’s an $80 Billion liability. There’s got to be something better to do with that money.”
Thinking geothermal would be a solution, Redfern and co-founder Paul Cairns soon came to realize that the traditional geothermal niche was “more niche than we thought”. Firstly, the amount of water that is required in sufficient volumes cannot be pumped fast enough in and out of an aquifer. Secondly, the parasitic pump load required to move the water in and out of an aquifer uses 50-80% of the total power.
The center of the Earth is the same temperature as the surface of the Sun (6000 ° C). If we were to convert the entire planet to geothermal the resource would last 17 Billion years.
Geothermal has remained a niche industry because of the need for permeable aquifers – something that adds risk, cost, and delays. In some cases fracking is also required to extract the water from an aquifer. The oil industry has neglected geothermal even though it is an alternate energy that builds on the industry’s expertise in building subsurface resources.
Again, the problem is the expense in extracting water. “We kept thinking why can’t we get this idea off the ground,” Redfern said. “We identified the main problem – it is not possible to get enough water in and out of the ground in sufficient volume. A lot of water has to come out of rock which requires electric pumping, not to mention the risks involved.”
The ‘aha moment’ came when the Company’s Director Paul Cairns said, “Why don’t we just drill down two wells and connect them horizontally below ground and we’ll connect them on the surface and make this big loop?” Eavor company’s engineer Matt Toews pointed out the brilliance of the solution. Unlike traditional geothermal, the Eavor-loop mitigates many of the issues that hinder other renewable energy sources and is not burdened by niche geography, process intermittencies, grid connectivity or locating concerns.
The Secret Sauce for Clean Energy Forever
The secret sauce is in the thermosiphon effect. The loop generates constant energy because of thermodynamics. Cold water is denser than hot water. In a pressurized self-contained loop where cold water is constantly heated underground and the heat is extracted at the surface by Rankine cycle turbines, the liquid constantly circulates without the need for a pump.
“We learned from the oil sands,” Redfern adds. “In the oil sands heat is injected into the ground. We’re just using that concept in reverse.” “For the past three years we’ve basically been tweaking and perfecting our technology. There’s a lot of motivation in Alberta with techniques we can leverage. And we know it works. Our Demonstration Project in Alberta has been up and running for over a year.” Our Demonstration Project in Alberta “is so boringly predictable in its efficiency,” Redfern says. “On budget, on time, and able to do all the things our clients wanted.” “What’s more important to our Northern Indigenous Peoples – other than water-- is land. With our technology we preserve water and we can allow the Northern communities to keep their land as Nature intended. No wind turbines, no solar panels to disrupt Nature. Just the harmony of the Land for generations to come.”
