Technical barriers for deep closed-loop geothermal

This is the most exciting time in my lifetime for geothermal. There are many, many innovative things happening. To name a few – promising new approaches to Enhanced Geothermal Systems, geothermal projects in sedimentary and lower enthalpy formations, new approaches for geothermal exploration, lithium extraction from produced brines, geothermal energy storage, integrations with CO2 storage and capture, and new technologies for producing energy from hot water that is coproduced with oil and gas. However, this post is about a concept about which I remain skeptical – deep closed-loop heat exchangers (McClure, 2021). These designs are sometimes called ‘Advanced Geothermal Systems,’ AGS (Malek et al., 2022).