Canada and Microsoft back ‘groundbreaking’ geothermal technology promising boundless energy

“Groundbreaking” geothermal technology that promises limitless green energy from the Earth’s core has secured $130m in funding from the Canadian government, Microsoft and other investors.

A $65m tranche of Canadian government funding for the start-up behind the technology, called Eavor Technologies, came courtesy of a maiden investment from the nation's $10.9bn Canada Growth Fund.

That fund aims to help grow the country’s clean economy “at speed and scale on the path to net-zero.”

Announcing the funding at a Calgary press conference on Wednesday, Chrystia Freeland, Canada’s deputy prime minister and minister of finance, said: “Canada has to keep up. And we have to not just keep up, we have to be in the lead.”

That is why she said Canada is making “historic investments” in companies like Eavor and its “world-leading geothermal energy technology” to build the country’s clean economy.

Eavor CEO John Redfern said he hoped the funding could lead his company along a path toward an eventual stock market initial public offering, and an aspiration to become a “global industry-leading Alberta-based clean tech powerhouse.”

Adrian Anderson, manager of renewable and carbon-free energy at Microsoft, said he welcomed the tech giant's decision to support Eavor through its own Climate Innovation Fund as part of a corporate initiative to become carbon negative by 2030.

Eavor also drew in fresh funding from Austrian oil and gas company OMV, Japan Energy Fund and Monaco Asset Management, along with several pre-existing investors.

Founded in 2017, Eavor claims it can generate gigawatts of baseload and dispatchable renewable energy anywhere in the world by harnessing the power of the Earth’s core.

Closed loop

Eavor proposes drilling several kilometres deep – to depths not unfamiliar to the oil and gas industry – and injecting water in order to power electricity-generating turbines. The method takes advantage of the average 30°C increase of temperature for each kilometre drilled, and double that in certain volcanic hotspots.

Eavor’s crucial innovation compared to other geothermal projects is then turning that hole into a closed loop. Cold water is poured down one end of this loop and will turn to steam as it travels horizontally along kilometres below ground, before returning up another pipe to the surface.

Eavor says that not only would this loop generate constant energy but it would essentially power itself as the cold water is constantly heated underground before the heat is extracted and it cycles round again, without the need for a pump – a phenomenon known as a thermosiphon.