My friend Tom Rand has a short but no less interesting video filmed during a presentation he gave recently in Toronto. Rand helped build a “green hotel” that emits a quarter of the emissions of a comparable hotel. The workhouse behind this approach is geothermal, and Rand said it can be done in a way where energy savings exceed the monthly payments on a long-term low-interest loan. Now, the key is to get that cheap loan. Rand said it’s up to the federal and provincial governments to backstop such loans and mandate the banks to lend the money. It would help, he added, if use of this technology was mandated where it was appropriate. This, as Rand says, is low-hanging fruit that we’re simply not picking. Instead, with each new building or home we build we’re letting this ripe-for-picking fruit fall on the ground. Rand, it should be pointed out, is behind another move to have the government sell green bonds that would help fund these kinds of projects, or backstop the low-interest loans required to do them. It’s all perfectly logical, but I guess politics is never as logical as it could be.

Click here to watch the short video.

Marshall Homes was the first in Ontario to offer, back in 2006, solar thermal and geothermal as an option on homes in a new subdivision. President Craig Marshall now wants to build an 88-home community in which all homes are heated and cooled by a district geothermal energy system. It’s a great idea, but Marshall isn’t an energy service provider — he needs a strong partner to take on that side of the business, and his ideal partner is regional natural gas distributor Enbridge Gas Distribution. Problem is, Enbridge isn’t permitted by law to do anything but store and distribute natural gas. It can set up a separate, non-regulated entity, but in doing so it can’t leverage the power of its brand and the capital it can command.

Solution simple: Let the company broaden its energy offerings so it can pursue geothermal, solar thermal and other green energy offerings beyond just pilot projects. Yes, Enbridge’s current restrictions were created to ensure fair competition, but if others could do what Marshall Homes envisions, why aren’t they stepping up? (I should say, however, that local electric distribution company Veridian Connections is interested in working with Marshall, but the problem with working with LDCs is that you’re limited to a smaller service territory. Go outside that territory and you have to start all over again with a new LDC). Unleashing Enbridge could make a difference. Few companies have the scope, reach, engineering know-how and clout to take the district heating concept, so popular in Europe, and make it an attractive offering to builders of new subdivisions throughout the province.

See my column here discussing the Marshall Homes project and the role that Enbridge could play, if permitted.

Canada, with its vast territory and expertise in deep drilling, is still relativelysilent on the potential for geothermal power. Meanwhile, the U.K. is even leaping ahead of us. A tourist attracton in Cornwall, England, called The Eden Project has partnered up with a company called EGS Energy that will see a 3 megawatt enhanced geothermal plant built, with plans for further expansion throughout the area. Two four kilometre deep boreholes will be drilled into hot granite rock. Water will be brought in and pumped into one borehole and will travel through the hot rock to a second borehole, picking up heat along the way. The water will then be pumped back at around 150 degrees C. A secondary fluid, with a lower boiling point than water, extracts the heat from the hot water and is turned into vapour to power a binary turbine. The water, now cooled, is then reinjected back into the first well to reheat and continue the cycle, which is a closed loop.

The U.K. plant is expected to be operational by 2012. Needless to say, this approach could easily be done throughout Alberta, particularly in the oil sands, even in some locations in Ontario and other provinces. If the U.K. can do it, hell, certainly there are parts of Canada that can. In late May the Obama administration committed $140 million to geothermal demonstration projects, $80 million for enhanced geothermal R&D, and $100 million for new drilling techniques and innovation.

And Canada? The big goose egg.

(Read to the end of this post for an update on studies and events around high-temperature geothermal opportunities in Canada)

The data is old — dating back to 1985 and earlier — but the Geological Survey of Canada is beginning to put together an inventory of geothermal resources across the country. The first study, published online last month in the journal Natural Resources Research, calculated total potential geothermal energy down to 250 metres. One of the most interesting findings, however, was that the temperature gradient wasn’t as steep as historically expected. The reason, the researchers concluded, is that  increases in surface temperature due to global warming was causing the first 50 metres of subsurface to also warm. It means the gap between temperature 50 metres down and temperature 100 metres and 200 metres down has narrowed. (See Toronto Star article here, in which researcher Stephen Grasby says in some locations shallow subsurface temperature has increased by a few degrees Celsius).

They put a positive spin on this finding, suggesting that there’s more thermal energy for home and residential heat-pump systems to tap, and that this energy will displace the use of fossil fuels. Hardly something to cheer about, however, given the initial causes of the warming. (more…)

It’s still a long shot, not technologically as much as politically, but more voices are beginning to speak out about the potential for geothermal heat and power generation in Alberta, a province that’s heavily dependent on coal and where the oil sands rely on clean gas to produce the dirtiest of liquid petro products.

The Pembina Institute came out with a report this month that explores the many ways Alberta could transition away from coal and toward more sustainable and cleaner forms of electricity generation. I was most impressed with the section on geothermal, given that in Canada there hasn’t been much interest in this renewable source of power, with the exception of yours truly and a dozen or so industry and academic folks who are trying to draw attention to this immense opportunity.

According to the Pembina report, “very little information has been gathered on the size of Alberta’s geothermal potential,” however “research data that is available shows that the potential is enormous.” (more…)