WEBVTT - Drilling Smarter Wells to Unleash Geothermal Energy 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:22.516 Pushkin that you're trying to find places where there's pockets 0:00:22.516 --> 0:00:25.356 of steam underground naturally occurring. You just need to drill 0:00:25.436 --> 0:00:27.916 well into it, and when you find it, if you 0:00:27.956 --> 0:00:31.476 knew exactly where to drill today, it would already be 0:00:31.516 --> 0:00:33.716 the cheapest source of heat and steam on the planet. 0:00:33.836 --> 0:00:37.116 Yeah, that is so tantalizing. Right. In fact, there are 0:00:37.156 --> 0:00:42.916 places around the world where there's steam not that far underground, 0:00:42.956 --> 0:00:45.676 and if only we knew where they were, we could 0:00:45.676 --> 0:00:48.156 have a lot of clean energy. 0:00:48.476 --> 0:00:50.636 And maybe where they are and maybe enough for all 0:00:50.676 --> 0:00:53.116 of our energy demands just you know tomorrow, if you 0:00:53.156 --> 0:00:53.556 knew where to. 0:00:53.596 --> 0:00:56.396 Drill just right there, we just got to figure out where. 0:00:56.556 --> 0:00:58.076 And so you know, that's the hunt. That's the search 0:00:58.156 --> 0:00:58.516 that we're on. 0:01:04.956 --> 0:01:07.236 I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem, the 0:01:07.276 --> 0:01:09.196 show where I talk to people who are trying to 0:01:09.236 --> 0:01:13.676 make technological progress. My guest today is Carl Hoyland. He's 0:01:13.716 --> 0:01:17.636 the co founder and CEO of Zanscar, a geothermal energy company. 0:01:18.596 --> 0:01:21.916 Geothermal energy has not had the kind of wild. 0:01:21.596 --> 0:01:24.316 Boom that wind and solar have had over the past 0:01:24.476 --> 0:01:28.236 decade or so, but there's a compelling case that geothermal 0:01:28.276 --> 0:01:31.756 could be a useful compliment to wind and solar because 0:01:31.916 --> 0:01:33.636 geothermal wells produce a. 0:01:33.596 --> 0:01:37.956 Constant, reliable, steady stream of energy, which is quite useful 0:01:37.996 --> 0:01:41.036 for seasons when there's not much sun or wind, and 0:01:41.116 --> 0:01:44.156 solar panels and wind turbines are not generating much power. 0:01:45.556 --> 0:01:49.436 And so recently a few geothermal startups have gotten to work, 0:01:49.916 --> 0:01:52.876 and I've talked with founders from a few of these companies. 0:01:53.356 --> 0:01:57.596 One is bringing fracking technology to geothermal. Another is trying 0:01:57.636 --> 0:02:00.476 to use a technology that comes from fusion energy to 0:02:00.596 --> 0:02:05.116 drill ultra deep holes. But Sandscar is doing something simpler. 0:02:05.796 --> 0:02:09.636 They're trying to develop new ways to identify those on 0:02:09.636 --> 0:02:13.716 the earth where there is hot steam not too far underground, 0:02:14.236 --> 0:02:17.796 just waiting for somebody to dig a well. Carl and 0:02:17.836 --> 0:02:21.356 his co founder both have PhDs in geology, and Carl 0:02:21.436 --> 0:02:24.676 told me his grandfather was the person who first got 0:02:24.756 --> 0:02:26.116 him into rocks. 0:02:26.356 --> 0:02:29.316 My grandfather was a uranium prospector and then a gold 0:02:29.356 --> 0:02:31.916 prospector for most of his life, and so I remember 0:02:31.916 --> 0:02:33.996 as a kid going down and visiting him. They lived 0:02:33.996 --> 0:02:37.476 in the high Sierras of northern California. He taught me 0:02:37.556 --> 0:02:39.476 that look, if you take this understanding you can go 0:02:39.476 --> 0:02:41.636 out and find resources, and taught me a little bit 0:02:41.676 --> 0:02:44.836 about the economic implications of how you think about resource formation, 0:02:45.796 --> 0:02:47.596 and so just fell in love with it. It was the 0:02:47.636 --> 0:02:49.556 ultimate treasure hunt to think that you could go out 0:02:49.596 --> 0:02:53.316 and find these and I wasn't thinking about the sustainability 0:02:53.436 --> 0:02:55.436 or the climate impacts or others. Just loved that you 0:02:55.476 --> 0:02:58.476 could go out and find this. Didn't undergraduate a PhD 0:02:58.596 --> 0:03:01.036 degree in this, and it was really during the PhD 0:03:01.396 --> 0:03:03.556 that I just started to really struggle with kind of 0:03:03.556 --> 0:03:06.316 the existential reality of do we need more oil and 0:03:06.356 --> 0:03:08.436 gas discoveries? Do we need more big open pits in 0:03:08.476 --> 0:03:08.876 the ground. 0:03:09.116 --> 0:03:11.796 I mean, if you're a geologist, the basic career path 0:03:11.916 --> 0:03:14.076 is go find oil right for the last whatever one 0:03:14.116 --> 0:03:16.916 hundred years. If you're a geologist, then you want a job. 0:03:16.956 --> 0:03:18.796 You can definitely get a job finding oil. Is that 0:03:18.836 --> 0:03:20.836 basically the story Historically. 0:03:20.516 --> 0:03:22.476 That's where a lot of the geologists go. And there's 0:03:22.516 --> 0:03:24.516 other routes as well, But you know a lot of 0:03:24.556 --> 0:03:26.876 geologists weren't drawn into it initially for that reason. They 0:03:26.916 --> 0:03:29.996 just loved the storytelling aspect of being outdoors, the scientific 0:03:29.996 --> 0:03:32.676 discovery process, and so for me, it was really kind 0:03:32.676 --> 0:03:34.396 of thinking about, are there other ways to apply this 0:03:34.436 --> 0:03:37.236 skill set that society actually needs a lot more of 0:03:37.476 --> 0:03:39.676 and maybe that have been underinvested in. So it's really 0:03:39.676 --> 0:03:41.476 towards the end of our PhDs that my co founder 0:03:41.476 --> 0:03:43.956 and I were really looking at this landscape and thinking about, 0:03:44.476 --> 0:03:46.756 you know, what could we do next, what does society 0:03:46.796 --> 0:03:49.236 really need a lot more of? And we just started 0:03:49.236 --> 0:03:50.916 speaking to as many people as we could in the 0:03:50.916 --> 0:03:54.836 industries and the power sector thinking about energy. And you know, 0:03:54.876 --> 0:03:57.436 I'd say, even when we brought up the topic of geothermal, 0:03:57.516 --> 0:03:59.636 most people would tell us that's too hard to do, 0:03:59.716 --> 0:04:02.836 it's too small a niche, and nobody really needs baseload 0:04:02.836 --> 0:04:06.076 power anymore. This was the late twenty tens, and everyone 0:04:06.156 --> 0:04:07.796 was kind of thinking, well, we've kind of solved it 0:04:07.836 --> 0:04:10.956 with solar and battery, but there were a few voices 0:04:10.996 --> 0:04:14.356 out there saying and running sophisticated models that you know what, actually, 0:04:14.396 --> 0:04:16.756 once you get above fifty percent or sixty seventy eighty 0:04:16.756 --> 0:04:20.836 percent penetration of solar and battery, you start realizing that 0:04:20.876 --> 0:04:23.396 costs start going up unless you have a dispatchable or 0:04:23.396 --> 0:04:24.516 baseload energy source. 0:04:25.316 --> 0:04:28.436 Right, So, just to be clear, it's easy relatively easy 0:04:28.436 --> 0:04:31.236 to get some solar power to display some of the 0:04:31.396 --> 0:04:34.516 power consumption with solar, but the more you get, the 0:04:34.596 --> 0:04:39.676 harder the sort of marginal unit is because the sun 0:04:39.756 --> 0:04:41.836 doesn't shine all the time in short and it's expensive 0:04:41.836 --> 0:04:42.836 to keep adding batteries. 0:04:42.996 --> 0:04:45.196 That's right, and you can start to solve the daily, 0:04:45.396 --> 0:04:49.036 the diurnal cycles, but then you deal with seasonal cycles 0:04:49.076 --> 0:04:51.596 where you start needing long duration storage and technologies that 0:04:51.636 --> 0:04:54.676 aren't mature yet. And that's where the models really started 0:04:54.676 --> 0:04:58.036 to point to you're going to need something baseload or dispatchable, 0:04:58.476 --> 0:05:01.276 and you don't have that many options. It's nuclear, it's hydro, 0:05:01.396 --> 0:05:03.956 which we're not building much more of, or it's geothermal. 0:05:04.476 --> 0:05:07.916 And that's where we started getting excited about the geothermal 0:05:07.916 --> 0:05:09.956 opportunity and saying, okay, well, what's holding it back? Why 0:05:09.956 --> 0:05:12.436 aren't there jobs here? Why isn't anybody building? And that 0:05:12.516 --> 0:05:14.556 let us down I think a very deep rabbit hole 0:05:14.956 --> 0:05:18.196 of a fifty plus year history of geothermal energy and 0:05:18.236 --> 0:05:19.996 why it's been stagnant for decades. 0:05:20.596 --> 0:05:24.156 So let's do that fifty year rabbit hole briefly, not 0:05:24.196 --> 0:05:27.676 in real time, but like, what is that story briefly? 0:05:28.196 --> 0:05:30.836 So Briefly, there was this recognition because in some places 0:05:30.876 --> 0:05:34.076 you see geothermal energy coming out of the surface geysers, fumaroles, 0:05:34.116 --> 0:05:37.436 boiling mud pots. So we knew there was this energy underground, 0:05:38.156 --> 0:05:39.996 and the more we explored the planet, the more we 0:05:40.036 --> 0:05:42.956 realized in almost all locations, actually everywhere, as you go deeper, 0:05:42.956 --> 0:05:45.596 it gets hotter. So there were some early experiments, even 0:05:45.596 --> 0:05:47.516 going back one hundred years ago in Italy, of just 0:05:47.556 --> 0:05:49.516 putting a steam turbine at the top and getting your 0:05:49.556 --> 0:05:50.756 steam from the earth instead of. 0:05:50.676 --> 0:05:53.276 Fighting if steam is coming out of the ground, it's like, wait, 0:05:53.316 --> 0:05:55.516 we know what to do with steam. Turn a turbine 0:05:55.556 --> 0:05:56.476 and make electricity. 0:05:56.516 --> 0:05:59.036 That's right, But in an overtime realizing okay, you're gonna 0:05:59.036 --> 0:06:01.156 have to drill into these in most places to get 0:06:01.156 --> 0:06:04.396 that level of steam. It took another fifty years before 0:06:04.396 --> 0:06:07.436 this started to become a more industrial scale opportunity. You 0:06:07.476 --> 0:06:09.236 start seeing a lot of this in the sixties, and 0:06:09.276 --> 0:06:12.396 then honestly, what really drove a lot of demand in 0:06:12.436 --> 0:06:14.596 the United States, which was really the leader at this time, 0:06:15.196 --> 0:06:18.036 was starting to think about the risk of relying on 0:06:18.116 --> 0:06:20.956 external sources of energy, and so the energy crisis in 0:06:20.996 --> 0:06:26.156 the late seventies really catalyzed this enormous push into geothermal energy. 0:06:26.516 --> 0:06:28.756 Not because it was carbon free, not even because it 0:06:28.756 --> 0:06:31.796 was baseload, but simply because it was a domestic energy source. 0:06:32.516 --> 0:06:35.116 We didn't fracking hadn't happened, yet, we were relying on 0:06:35.196 --> 0:06:37.036 oil from the Middle East. There was the Arab oil 0:06:37.076 --> 0:06:38.476 embargo in the early seventies. 0:06:38.556 --> 0:06:40.156 Yeah, and I wasn't old enough to be there, but 0:06:40.316 --> 0:06:41.956 I've definitely heard these stories of the A and B 0:06:42.076 --> 0:06:44.036 days at the gas station, and so thinking about, like, 0:06:44.116 --> 0:06:46.476 how can we source this domestically and have that independence? 0:06:46.836 --> 0:06:49.396 And this drove many the oil and gas majors and 0:06:49.436 --> 0:06:52.676 other large companies and investors into the space. And they 0:06:52.716 --> 0:06:55.316 just started exploring all over looking for more of these 0:06:55.356 --> 0:06:57.836 places where you could develop geothermal energy. 0:06:58.796 --> 0:07:02.356 And yet we are not a geothermally powered society at 0:07:02.356 --> 0:07:03.956 this moment. What happened while we were wrong. 0:07:04.036 --> 0:07:06.516 So these were pioneers, right, they're doing this for the 0:07:06.556 --> 0:07:08.676 first time. Imagine going out and you're drilling a well 0:07:08.716 --> 0:07:11.076 into some that could be five hundred, six hundred, maybe 0:07:11.076 --> 0:07:14.036 seven hundred fahrenheit. Nobody's done this before, and so they're 0:07:14.156 --> 0:07:16.156 figuring things out as they go it's incredible. They really 0:07:16.196 --> 0:07:19.076 lay the foundation for both the engineering and the science. 0:07:19.716 --> 0:07:21.636 But things start to fall apart in terms of the 0:07:21.716 --> 0:07:25.596 drivers that was motivating this is the energy crisis actually 0:07:25.636 --> 0:07:29.156 started to resolve. Oil prices came down and relations were. 0:07:28.956 --> 0:07:30.836 Better, We got oil again. 0:07:30.916 --> 0:07:32.956 It was like whatever, and then it's like, okay, well, 0:07:32.956 --> 0:07:36.836 oil actually is cheaper at that time, and so although 0:07:36.876 --> 0:07:40.556 they added gigawatts and geothermal was really the fastest growing 0:07:40.596 --> 0:07:43.196 source of energy at the time, fastest growing renewable, by 0:07:43.236 --> 0:07:45.916 the mid eighties you see most of that really fall 0:07:45.956 --> 0:07:47.596 apart and many of those companies shut down. 0:07:47.556 --> 0:07:50.236 And it's basically just oh, oil is cheap and abundant again, 0:07:50.276 --> 0:07:52.836 and we know how to go get oil more efficiently 0:07:52.876 --> 0:07:55.276 than we know how to go get geothermal energy. 0:07:56.036 --> 0:07:58.116 But luckily a lot of those lessons stayed. There was 0:07:58.116 --> 0:07:59.956 a lot of interest still in the background of maybe 0:07:59.956 --> 0:08:02.036 we're going to need this again one day, and so 0:08:02.036 --> 0:08:04.556 there's slow progress being made in the background, and it's 0:08:04.596 --> 0:08:06.996 not until really the late two thousands that you start 0:08:07.036 --> 0:08:10.636 to have another large driver towards ge thermal energy, and 0:08:10.676 --> 0:08:14.076 this time it's because it's carbon free. Now we're thinking 0:08:14.116 --> 0:08:16.756 about how do you decarbonize our energy systems, and you 0:08:16.836 --> 0:08:19.916 have this actually relatively low cost of carbon free energy, 0:08:20.436 --> 0:08:22.636 and you see a lot more activity and investment in 0:08:22.636 --> 0:08:25.996 the space new power plants coming online again, but this 0:08:26.196 --> 0:08:28.876 time they didn't have that same energy and exploration a 0:08:28.916 --> 0:08:31.676 spirit of that first wave. They're mostly going after the 0:08:31.676 --> 0:08:34.316 low hanging fruit, things that were already known or found. 0:08:35.716 --> 0:08:38.236 And today even most of our plants come from those 0:08:38.236 --> 0:08:40.996 two waves of development. In the US, in half of 0:08:41.036 --> 0:08:44.876 the operating fields today had been discovered initially by accident. 0:08:45.476 --> 0:08:47.596 People were like drilling for oil and they were like, wait, 0:08:47.636 --> 0:08:50.196 that's not oil, that's water or whatever. 0:08:50.276 --> 0:08:52.236 Yea, how are drilling for water on a ranch or 0:08:52.316 --> 0:08:54.356 drilling for gold? And so you have this kind of 0:08:54.356 --> 0:08:58.396 trickle of discoveries coming in that were unintended, serendipitous, and 0:08:58.436 --> 0:09:00.396 those are the opportunities that many of the developers in 0:09:00.436 --> 0:09:02.636 that late two thousands early twenty tens era jump. 0:09:02.396 --> 0:09:05.316 At, sure, like why not, it's right there. 0:09:05.316 --> 0:09:07.916 And this is looking great because in great geothermal resources 0:09:07.956 --> 0:09:10.796 they deliver at a good price, they're long lived. But 0:09:10.876 --> 0:09:14.276 by the mid twenty tens, this is when shale gas 0:09:14.316 --> 0:09:17.756 prices really start coming down, and now you have this 0:09:17.916 --> 0:09:21.276 steep competition from a low cost source of carbon emitting power, 0:09:21.756 --> 0:09:24.236 and it really undercuts geothermal at the same time that 0:09:24.316 --> 0:09:25.276 solar is coming down. 0:09:25.476 --> 0:09:29.116 So basically you can do because of fracking, basically what 0:09:29.196 --> 0:09:32.556 is popularly called tracking right, natural gas gets really cheap 0:09:32.596 --> 0:09:34.756 and that can be the sort of complement to solar, 0:09:34.956 --> 0:09:38.636 although of course it has the problem of emitting carbon dioxide, 0:09:38.756 --> 0:09:40.276 but economically it's tough to beat. 0:09:40.436 --> 0:09:43.316 That's right, And so I think now we're in this 0:09:43.396 --> 0:09:46.036 third wave, a totally different set of economic drivers and 0:09:46.076 --> 0:09:48.916 also different technology tools that are available, and it's being 0:09:48.996 --> 0:09:51.796 driven not by any one of those, but actually all 0:09:51.836 --> 0:09:54.196 of those together. We now do care about having a 0:09:54.196 --> 0:09:57.516 domestic energy source, so that's great. We care about it 0:09:57.516 --> 0:09:59.756 being carbon free because we have to arrive at that 0:09:59.796 --> 0:10:04.156 point someday. But geothermal is also proving uniquely valuable because 0:10:04.156 --> 0:10:07.396 it's a dispatchable base load energy source day and night, 0:10:07.436 --> 0:10:09.556 three hundred and sixty five days a year, and so 0:10:09.996 --> 0:10:13.996 that provides incredible resilience and stability to the grid, especially 0:10:14.036 --> 0:10:16.636 in places where you have high rates of intermittent renewables 0:10:16.676 --> 0:10:17.076 on the grid. 0:10:18.196 --> 0:10:21.396 So what's the landscape more generally, right, like the big 0:10:21.436 --> 0:10:24.676 oil and gas companies like are they geothermal curious? Like 0:10:24.676 --> 0:10:25.836 what where are they right now? 0:10:25.876 --> 0:10:27.996 I'd say they're geothermal curious. And we've seen a lot 0:10:27.996 --> 0:10:30.236 of kind of starting to dip their toes, but none 0:10:30.276 --> 0:10:32.916 of them really moving in with full force. And this 0:10:33.076 --> 0:10:35.876 is really left kind of a startup ecosystem that has 0:10:35.876 --> 0:10:38.436 had to rely on venture backing to go out and 0:10:38.476 --> 0:10:42.196 test new ideas, new technologies, and new markets for geothermal 0:10:42.756 --> 0:10:45.556 and a lot of that really started five plus just 0:10:45.596 --> 0:10:48.156 over five years ago, and you're now seeing those companies 0:10:48.636 --> 0:10:51.596 reach their first commercial scale pilots, first demonstrations, and you're 0:10:51.596 --> 0:10:54.076 starting to see the real kind of in the ground 0:10:54.276 --> 0:10:57.756 element of that work. And it's pretty incredible when you 0:10:58.196 --> 0:11:00.116 look at the amount of successes that have been had 0:11:00.636 --> 0:11:03.076 relative to how much funding has gone into it, which 0:11:03.076 --> 0:11:05.396 is actually still quite small compared to other industries. 0:11:06.196 --> 0:11:09.996 So let's talk about zanscover in particular your play where 0:11:09.996 --> 0:11:10.396 do you fit? 0:11:11.036 --> 0:11:13.476 So we're looking at this landscape, is all this heat underground, 0:11:13.516 --> 0:11:17.276 many ways to extract it, and you know, just like 0:11:17.796 --> 0:11:20.916 oil and gas, the industry looks very similar to it 0:11:20.916 --> 0:11:23.916 one hundred years ago. Half the resources were found by accident, 0:11:23.956 --> 0:11:26.516 the other half had obvious seeps at the surface. 0:11:26.756 --> 0:11:29.956 It's like in Pennsylvania one hundred and forty years ago 0:11:29.956 --> 0:11:31.876 and they're like, oh, there's oil coming out of the 0:11:31.996 --> 0:11:33.796 rock here, maybe we should put it in a barrel. 0:11:33.836 --> 0:11:35.636 That's right. It was a moment when the barrels cost 0:11:35.756 --> 0:11:38.036 more than the oil. It's one of my favorite details 0:11:38.076 --> 0:11:38.596 from that era. 0:11:39.276 --> 0:11:41.876 And so you see geothermal and you then realize, Okay, 0:11:41.916 --> 0:11:43.956 if that's how the industry is today, there must be 0:11:44.196 --> 0:11:48.356 much much more underground. And we're also looking at two 0:11:48.516 --> 0:11:52.476 major tail wings of technology. One is AI and data 0:11:52.516 --> 0:11:54.956 science is allowing us to now process huge amounts of 0:11:54.996 --> 0:11:57.356 data and become more predictive in where we drill and 0:11:57.356 --> 0:11:59.636 how we drill. And on the other side, we're seeing 0:11:59.756 --> 0:12:03.156 drilling costs come down as our technologies for drilling become 0:12:03.196 --> 0:12:05.956 more sophisticated and allows us to drill deeper and deeper 0:12:05.956 --> 0:12:08.396 into these resources. Yeah, but it's really this landscape of 0:12:08.476 --> 0:12:11.516 new technologies that hadn't been applied, and interestingly, some of 0:12:11.516 --> 0:12:14.276 those originated in geothermal in the first place. Oh I 0:12:14.316 --> 0:12:16.516 mentioned that big wave of development of the late seventies 0:12:16.516 --> 0:12:19.196 and eighties. They recognized back then actually that it was 0:12:19.196 --> 0:12:21.516 hard to find these resources, and that you drilled many 0:12:21.596 --> 0:12:24.076 dry wells where it was very hot, but there was 0:12:24.156 --> 0:12:27.276 no permeability or no water underground, right, And so they 0:12:27.356 --> 0:12:29.076 dreamed up the idea at that time of well, what 0:12:29.116 --> 0:12:31.156 if we fracked or stimulated this rock. 0:12:31.316 --> 0:12:33.356 What if we put water into the hot rock and 0:12:33.396 --> 0:12:35.476 then brought it back out exactly? 0:12:35.476 --> 0:12:38.116 And so the early experiments are fifty plus years old, 0:12:38.516 --> 0:12:41.276 and they started to identify what might be possible, and 0:12:41.316 --> 0:12:43.596 it was just kind of a slow incremental gain over 0:12:43.636 --> 0:12:45.356 the years and really hits a tipping point just in 0:12:45.396 --> 0:12:48.156 the last few years. On the other hand, they also 0:12:48.196 --> 0:12:50.076 recognized it was hard to find these resources, and so 0:12:50.196 --> 0:12:52.396 a lot of early effort into can we develop new 0:12:52.476 --> 0:12:54.876 data methods new ways of integrating that data to predict 0:12:54.916 --> 0:12:58.236 locations also started then, but only in the last few 0:12:58.276 --> 0:13:00.836 years hit that same tipping point of well we can 0:13:00.876 --> 0:13:02.516 now do it systematically in a scale. 0:13:02.676 --> 0:13:04.436 Yes, we're at a time where if you have a 0:13:04.476 --> 0:13:07.156 lot of data and want to make a prediction, you're 0:13:07.196 --> 0:13:07.596 in luck. 0:13:07.836 --> 0:13:09.716 Right, it's a good time to be that business. 0:13:10.476 --> 0:13:11.916 So let's talk about the aipiece. 0:13:11.996 --> 0:13:12.156 Right. 0:13:12.196 --> 0:13:14.596 So it's like, Okay, we're good at drilling now and presumably, 0:13:14.636 --> 0:13:18.236 at least as a species, we're better at using data 0:13:18.316 --> 0:13:22.356 to make predictions about the world. Specifically, there was a 0:13:22.396 --> 0:13:24.636 post you guys wrote, I think when you announce your 0:13:24.676 --> 0:13:26.236 series A or something a couple of years ago, and 0:13:26.276 --> 0:13:28.116 you sort of wrote like, what are your key moves 0:13:28.116 --> 0:13:30.676 your key angles, And one of them was leveraging big 0:13:30.756 --> 0:13:34.716 data and predictive modeling to discover new resources. And I 0:13:34.836 --> 0:13:37.516 noticed by the way that you didn't use the term 0:13:37.596 --> 0:13:39.276 AI there, and it was I think it was just 0:13:39.356 --> 0:13:42.956 before chat GPT came out, So I was tangentially curious. 0:13:43.036 --> 0:13:45.916 Was that deliberate or was it just everybody didn't say 0:13:45.956 --> 0:13:48.916 AI then they just said predictive modeling. 0:13:48.956 --> 0:13:50.436 It's a little bit of both. You know, AI can 0:13:50.476 --> 0:13:53.436 be such a buzzword. Everyone's AI company. Now what does 0:13:53.436 --> 0:13:55.596 that really mean? And we'll talk in a little bit 0:13:55.596 --> 0:13:58.316 about there's some really sophisticated stuff happening in house here. 0:13:58.636 --> 0:14:01.076 But the other part of it is that exploration. We 0:14:01.156 --> 0:14:03.516 break into two stages, and the first part of discovering 0:14:03.516 --> 0:14:08.196 new resources in some ways can rely on more traditional 0:14:08.476 --> 0:14:11.196 data science machine learning tools from kind of five to 0:14:11.236 --> 0:14:14.476 fifteen years ago. And so they're exciting, they're cutting edge 0:14:14.476 --> 0:14:16.716 and new for the industry, but they aren't necessarily the 0:14:16.756 --> 0:14:19.836 type of latest generation AI that you're seeing a lot 0:14:19.836 --> 0:14:22.876 of now, which applies more to our later stage exploration work. 0:14:23.236 --> 0:14:25.276 Say more about that. So it's like you have the 0:14:25.316 --> 0:14:27.116 whole Earth and you say where should we go? And 0:14:27.156 --> 0:14:30.316 there's kind of older technologies give you a big circle 0:14:30.356 --> 0:14:32.996 and then newer technologies give you a smaller circle or something. 0:14:33.196 --> 0:14:34.916 Yeah, I mean, that's the simplest way to think about it. 0:14:34.956 --> 0:14:36.836 And so if that's the search that we're one and 0:14:37.156 --> 0:14:39.596 for that problem, you take all of these regional scale 0:14:39.676 --> 0:14:42.796 data sets, some from satellites, from remote sensing drones, from 0:14:42.836 --> 0:14:45.516 ground based sensors, dozens of data inputs, some of which 0:14:45.556 --> 0:14:48.396 might be the Earth's gravitational field, it's magnetic field, the 0:14:48.436 --> 0:14:50.796 resistivity of rocks, the fault lines, the geology. All of 0:14:50.836 --> 0:14:53.276 this data goes in, gets cleaned up, put into these 0:14:53.276 --> 0:14:56.516 machine learning models to then help you predict the favorability 0:14:56.716 --> 0:14:59.916 or location of a site that's worth testing or drilling. 0:15:00.396 --> 0:15:03.076 And we've taken those models and now gone out in 0:15:03.076 --> 0:15:06.916 the field and drilled many of these prospects and have 0:15:06.996 --> 0:15:10.196 been really blown away at the level of success we've 0:15:10.236 --> 0:15:12.716 been able to have in that that we've already found 0:15:12.836 --> 0:15:16.596 more new geothermal systems than the entire industry combined had 0:15:16.636 --> 0:15:17.836 done over the last thirty years. 0:15:18.276 --> 0:15:21.196 Wait say that part again. You in how long you found? 0:15:21.196 --> 0:15:24.436 How much relative to what in just the last three years? 0:15:24.956 --> 0:15:28.556 Okay? And is that real? Like if I don't know 0:15:28.596 --> 0:15:31.756 the smart question to ask you to validate that claim, 0:15:32.316 --> 0:15:34.516 but like validate that claim? 0:15:34.836 --> 0:15:36.836 Yeah? So mean. So part of this is we already 0:15:36.876 --> 0:15:39.276 just talked about people stopped looking. So part of the 0:15:39.316 --> 0:15:41.836 problem is that, like these models gave us the confidence 0:15:41.876 --> 0:15:43.356 to even look, to go out and start testing and 0:15:43.396 --> 0:15:44.316 putting money in the ground. 0:15:44.556 --> 0:15:48.196 So basically people stopped looking. And then basically AI call 0:15:48.236 --> 0:15:50.236 it machine learning if you want, got way better. And 0:15:50.276 --> 0:15:52.676 you're like, oh, what if we took these new tools 0:15:53.436 --> 0:15:54.436 and when looked again. 0:15:54.596 --> 0:15:55.916 But the other side of it is we actually have 0:15:55.916 --> 0:15:58.876 built tools that are more predictive than humans, that we've 0:15:58.876 --> 0:16:00.956 developed cheaper methods to collect the data and test, and 0:16:00.956 --> 0:16:03.316 we've gone out and when we drill these holes in 0:16:03.596 --> 0:16:08.236 several locations, we've actually hit boiling temperatures at very shallow depth, 0:16:08.396 --> 0:16:10.436 say fifty in some of these locations. 0:16:10.836 --> 0:16:13.316 And if I were like a smart, skeptical funder What 0:16:13.396 --> 0:16:14.556 would I ask you right now? 0:16:16.756 --> 0:16:18.316 You should just come out and see these sites. 0:16:18.436 --> 0:16:21.876 See this, I know, but like whatever, That doesn't mean 0:16:21.916 --> 0:16:24.716 they'd work at commercial scale exactly That what I would say. 0:16:24.716 --> 0:16:26.236 So, yeah, we know there's something there. We know there's 0:16:26.236 --> 0:16:29.396 a geothermal system, there's convection underground, hot water's coming up 0:16:29.396 --> 0:16:30.876 close to the surface. How do you know this is 0:16:30.876 --> 0:16:32.036 going to be a power plant one day? How do 0:16:32.036 --> 0:16:33.676 you know what we're going to make money with this resource? 0:16:33.796 --> 0:16:35.596 And that's where the second stage comes in. 0:16:35.956 --> 0:16:37.276 Okay, go on. 0:16:37.796 --> 0:16:39.556 So we know there's something there, Where is it? How 0:16:39.556 --> 0:16:41.196 do we drill into it? And can we go deeper 0:16:41.196 --> 0:16:43.476 and deeper into it? And that's where some of these 0:16:43.476 --> 0:16:47.076 more next generation forms of AI become really important because 0:16:47.076 --> 0:16:49.076 now you enter a data sparse space. 0:16:49.716 --> 0:16:52.956 Uh huh. So you're trying to make predictions with less data. 0:16:52.556 --> 0:16:54.356 With less data, and this is where you have to 0:16:54.396 --> 0:16:59.236 rely on a combination of things, first principles, scientific understanding 0:16:59.276 --> 0:17:02.196 to allow you to do simulations. And so we enter 0:17:02.196 --> 0:17:04.236 into the space where you're essentially creating digital twins of 0:17:04.276 --> 0:17:05.556 the subsurface. 0:17:05.276 --> 0:17:07.876 Right because you don't know what's under there. So when 0:17:07.876 --> 0:17:10.756 you say digital twin your guessing, because if you know, 0:17:10.836 --> 0:17:13.116 you wouldn't need to do the work, you'd be done exactly. 0:17:13.556 --> 0:17:16.116 But you do know physically what is possible, so there 0:17:16.116 --> 0:17:19.076 are limitations on what could be down there. Yeah, and 0:17:19.116 --> 0:17:22.596 so by taking into account those physics and geologic principles, 0:17:22.716 --> 0:17:25.836 you can model all of that possibility space, combine these 0:17:25.876 --> 0:17:27.676 into a framework by which you could say, if I 0:17:27.756 --> 0:17:31.836 drill here, here's what is possible probabilistically, whole range of 0:17:31.836 --> 0:17:34.716 possible outcomes. And even though I can't say one hundred 0:17:34.716 --> 0:17:37.596 percent this is the outcome, I can say with confidence 0:17:37.636 --> 0:17:39.076 that if I drill many of these wells with that 0:17:39.116 --> 0:17:42.276 same profile, this is going to be my portfolio level outcome. 0:17:42.956 --> 0:17:45.996 And that starts to become scalable. That starts to because 0:17:46.036 --> 0:17:47.596 something you can allocate capital. 0:17:47.236 --> 0:17:51.076 To, assuming your probabilistic estimates are correct, right, assuming you 0:17:51.156 --> 0:17:53.476 know the sort of AerR bars around your guesses. 0:17:53.596 --> 0:17:53.956 That's right. 0:17:54.716 --> 0:17:58.316 So another one of the points in that post you 0:17:58.396 --> 0:18:00.116 wrote a couple of years ago when I think it 0:18:00.156 --> 0:18:02.556 was the series A, the next one, and it seems 0:18:02.556 --> 0:18:04.956 like what we're walking up to now, so I'll mention 0:18:05.036 --> 0:18:10.036 it was leveraging stochastic geomodeling and decision signs to optimize 0:18:10.116 --> 0:18:13.996 exploration workflow for de risking. So the phrase that was 0:18:14.076 --> 0:18:19.236 interesting to me there was decision science. What is decision 0:18:19.276 --> 0:18:20.716 science and how are you using it? 0:18:20.876 --> 0:18:24.356 And so again you're entering into this data sparse problem 0:18:25.116 --> 0:18:27.796 where you're going to make a series of decisions. I 0:18:27.876 --> 0:18:30.236 might drill well here or there, five wells or three 0:18:30.236 --> 0:18:32.956 wells in this order to this depth this type of well. 0:18:33.276 --> 0:18:35.276 Or I could go collect new data. I could collect 0:18:35.636 --> 0:18:38.356 gravitational data, geologic data, seismic data. 0:18:38.436 --> 0:18:41.076