There is enough energy stored beneath the earth's surface to power all of our energy demands thousands of times over.
Potter Drilling, is developing technology that his father, Robert Potter, initiated over 30 years ago while working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Robert Potter worked on developing Hot Dry Rock (HDR) heat mining, which, simply put, is a method of harvesting geothermal energy by pumping water into hot, crystalline rock via an injection well. The water is superheated as it flows through open joints in the hot rock reservoir, and is returned through production wells. At the surface, the useful heat is extracted by conventional processes, and the same water is recirculated to mine more heat.
Geothermal power — harnessing the earth's heat to produce electricity — produces essentially no greenhouse gas emissions and, unlike solar and wind power, is available 24 hours a day. With enough heat trapped deep in the earth to meet the nation's electricity demand thousands of times over it's no wonder that Potter wants to find a more effective way of harnessing that heat. Getting to it at costs that can compete with coal-fired energy is the challenge.
