Geothermal startups said Thursday that it has hit gold in Nevada—metaphorically speaking. Zanskar says it’s identified an economically viable new site for potential power plants. Zanskar is a company that uses AI to discover hidden geothermal reserves deep underground. This is, according to the company, the first discovery of this kind in the past decades.
The find is the culmination of years of research on how to find these resources—and points to the growing promise of geothermal energy.
“When we started this company, I think the most common message we heard was that geothermal was dead—it was a history of bones, a graveyard of so many failures,” Carl Hoiland is a Zanskar cofounder. “To get to this point where, thanks to these new tools and these new capabilities, you can systematically find these sites and systematically derisk them—we just think this is the first full-scale signal that the tide has turned.”
Geothermal power, in theory, is one of most simple ways to produce renewable energy. The Earth’s core heats reservoirs of water that are then used to generate steam, which can be used at the surface. This does not require excessive mining, or complicated fuel conversion. The best geothermal energy is found in places where the Earth’s surface and tectonic plate meet. western US A good candidate for power plants. In California, the world’s most developed geothermal area is located on the site where humans have been using hot springs for thousands of year. The first power station was built in the early 1920s.
Finding these geothermal resources is a major part of solving the puzzle. Rarely are hot springs and vents found at the surface, which can lead to an ideal location for a geothermal power plant. There are few geothermal energy systems deep below the ground that can generate electricity. These are known as hidden or blind systems—and identifying where they are is surprisingly challenging. Many geothermal plants were built on systems discovered accidentally while drilling for oil, gas, mineral exploration, and agricultural wells.
“It is sort of a needle-and-haystack problem,” Joel Edwards is the other Zanskar cofounder. “A very small percentage of the land that you will look at will have a geothermal system associated with it.”
The federal government, in response to the oil crises of the 1970s decided to attempt to increase US geothermal output. They mapped a grid of blind drilling systems in Nevada as part of this effort.
