Over the past decade, the oil and gas industry has sharpened its drilling skills, extracting fossil fuels at greater depths — and with more precision — than ever before. What if there was a way to tap those advances to generate zero-carbon energy?

The Canadian company Eavor (pronounced “ever”) says it can do so. Its closed-loop geothermal system is already producing heat at competitive prices in Europe, and it says it will soon be able to drill deep enough to fuel the electricity system, too. It just opened a first-of-its-kind demonstration facility in Germany, which is successfully heating and powering the small hamlet of Geretsreid, Bavaria.

On this week’s episode of Shift Key, Rob and Jesse chat with Mark Fitzgerald, the president and CEO of Eavor, about how its new technology works, how it differs from other forms of advanced geothermal, and why Europe is a good test bed for heat-generating projects. We also chat about what Mark, who previously ran Petronas Canada, learned in his 35 years in the oil industry.

Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Mentioned:

The Eavor-Loop in Geretsreid

Previously on Shift Key: Why Geothermal Is So Hot Right Now

Jesse’s upshift; Rob’s downshift.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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Mambu, Kristofer Rogers