The rapid advances being made in deep drilling technology and materials around the world are very soon going to open the door for extensive use of the renewable thermal energy that lies below us everywhere on Earth.

Companies and Governments are funding and developing more economical methods of deep drilling using normal drilling methods along with various other experimental methods including high voltage pulses, electrical plasma, microwaves, high velocity impacts, laser, sonic and others.

These are moving forward quickly and when commercially available could lower the cost of deep geothermal drilling by up to 50% or more. Some are estimating drilling cost reductions of over 80%. 

Since drilling is about 45-50% of the cost of deep EGS geothermal development in Ontario, this will bring the cost of energy down substantially. 

Today using available drilling technology, we estimate the 30 year levelized cost of base load energy (electrical & thermal) at approximately $0.078 per kilowatt hour for plants 60MW electrical and larger. Lowering the drilling costs will bring these down to below $70 per megawatt hour.

These new drilling technologies & materials are also going to allow going deeper into higher pressures and temperatures. The “Holy Grail” of Super Hot Geothermal (400 degrees C) is getting within commercial reach, and over the next 10 years as this becomes the norm we can get all the renewable energy needed at prices that are currently being estimated as below $0.055 per kilowatt hour. 

The energy density when we get to Super Hot is higher than most other forms of energy @ over 100 MW per sq. km and availability of over 95%.

We need to start working on deep geothermal policy & development here in Ontario now (get Ontario GeoREDE) so we can be ready when all things come together to enable the production of this cheap, renewable energy source. 

Even with the holidays approaching, I have been working hard to get OGRE into the best position for 2020. I finished a few teleconferences with TD Commercial Banking about their potential interest in funding our projects through their Green Bond Fund. This fund is only used for green power and projects that have proven to not work with carbon producing elements. 

I have also been in contact, and have setup meetings in January with the Ministry of Natural Resources in Toronto. Ontario has no deep geothermal policy (unlike BC), and they are keen to discuss our project and how we can move forward with patchwork regulations until a policy is created. 

All said, we are moving in the right direction! 2020 holds new opportunities for the company to grow quickly, including bringing new members onto the team! More to come in the future. 

We will also be announcing our partnership with a First Nations group when the time is appropriate!