Homer-Dixon: geothermal could help prevent a climate catastrophe

Thomas Homer-Dixon standing with his hands in his pockets in front of a building at RRU

Canada is in an excellent position to become global leaders in the development of ultra-deep geothermal technology, but it must be included in government energy and innovation policies, argues complexity researcher Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of Royal Roads’ Cascade Institute. Homer-Dixon wrote this piece with Ian Graham, physicist and Cascade Institute senior fellow and Ellen Quigley, senior research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, wrote in an opinion piece in The Globe and Mail.  

Here’s some of what they had to say:

“Ultradeep geothermal power could tap this heat. Canada is fabulously positioned to develop this new technology and sell it to the world. It’s a massive energy – and business – opportunity. Yet geothermal power is often dismissed as a niche solution to the climate crisis.”

[…]

“Humanity desperately needs this geothermal power. We must rapidly ramp down our use of fossil fuels to drive transportation, heat buildings and run factories, which means we must ramp up our use of electricity from carbon-free sources.

“To reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, total world electricity demand will need to rise more than 150 per cent, according to the International Energy Agency; the fraction of that electricity coming from zero-carbon sources must jump from 38 per cent to 95 per cent. Even in Canada, where over 80 per cent of electricity comes from renewables and nuclear plants, total electricity generation needs to double or even triple by 2050 – and nearly all that electricity must come from carbon-free sources, if we’re to meet our climate targets.”

Read the full opinion piece in The Globe and Mail (article is behind paywall).