INTERVIEW – Combining Geothermal Power With Minerals Key To Viability, says GEL CEO
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Renewables Now.
These three paragraphs introduce, this very much a must-read article.
Producing critical minerals such as lithium alongside geothermal electricity generation could make deep geothermal projects economically viable, according to Ryan Law, founder and chief executive of UK deep geothermal firm Geothermal Engineering Ltd (GEL).
Electricity generation on its own is quite challenging economically, but combining that baseload power with commodity pricing from the minerals seems to get these projects relatively easily funded, he told Renewables Now.
Law also pointed out that geothermal electricity generation began in Italy more than 100 years ago, but the geothermal wells there were initially used to extract boric acid. “It’s just interesting that the story started with geothermal power as a sort of mineral extraction process,” he noted
It certainly looks like we’ve gone round in a large virtuous circle.
These are some points from the article.
There Have Always Been Minerals In Geothermal Fluids
But because they were cheap and no-one bothered about them coming from China, nobody thought about mining them.
Oil And Gas Expertise Helps The Geothermal Sector
This is a sentence.
Law emphasised that the geothermal sector needs a lot of equipment and skills from the oil and gas industry, which currently in the UK are concentrated in Aberdeen. He said the UK will need a strong oil and gas industry until geothermal becomes large enough to absorb those jobs.
Law said we mustn’t disband that sector too quickly.
The US Appears To Be Backing The Sector
These are two paragraphs.
Law said he could see the sector scaling significantly within a decade, driven largely by developments in the US. He pointed to a number of big financial raises in the US recently.
“And also that the US government is very behind the mineral production,” Law remarked.
Conclusion
Geothermal energy paired with the mining of rare earth minerals could be a surprising winner in a decarbonising world.
The Ghostly Drone That Spins Almost Too Fast To See
The title of this post, is the same as this article on The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
The ‘Phantom Twist’ prototype rotates about 25 times a second while its body moves in the opposite direction — appearing as a faint haze
These two initial paragraphs add some more details.
Engineers have created a drone that almost vanishes in flight by spinning so quickly the human eye sees only a faint, translucent haze.
The body of the drone, called the Phantom Twist, rotates about 25 times a second, while its propeller spins in the opposite direction. Its inventors describe it as “morphing into a ghostly smudge that seamlessly blends into the background”.
This technology obviously works and was developed at North Western University in the United States.
This paragraph speculates on a few civilian uses.
It is, they say, intended for civilian uses. The researchers believe less conspicuous aircraft could be useful for monitoring nesting birds, surveying wilderness areas or inspecting bridges and other infrastructure without causing wildlife to scatter or prompting people to alter their behaviour.
The article then details how drones have transformed the war in Ukraine.
Spain v France – I’m Looking Forward To The Match, But Not The Inane Adverts!
I have just watched the most inane, irrelevant and time-wasting adverts on ITV before the 2026 World Cup semi-final between France and Spain.
They’ve even started up again.
I want to watch football not adverts.
- I do hope some clever geek is devising a TV, that automatically cuts out adverts, using Artificial Intelligence!
- I would even pay extra to watch an advert-free feed.
If the second option made more money for FIFA, we might see that.
UAE Building New Port To Bypass The Strait Of Hormuz
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
New facility on the Emirates’ east coast is past the tip of the strait but would still be vulnerable to Iranian drone and missile attacks.
These three paragraphs add more details.
The United Arab Emirates is building another port in an attempt to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, having already expedited the construction of a new oil pipeline.
The new port would join an existing facility in Fujairah along the country’s eastern coastline and past the tip of the strait that Iran closed to shipping during the war with the United States.
This Google Map shows the Eastern side of the Arabian Peninsular.
Note.
Fujairah is indicated by the red arrow.
Iran is the land mass in the North-East corner of the map.
The Strait of Hormuz is between the Arabian Peninsular and Iran.
As you come South from Fujairah, you pass through Muscat and then Iran.
Oman has two deep water ports at Duqm and Salalah.
This second Google Map shows the Port of Fujairah and the Strait of Hormuz.
Note.
- The Port Of Fujairah is indicated by the red arrow.
- Dubai and Abu Dhabi are indicated on the map.
- The Strait of Hormuz is between the United Arab Emirates and Iran.
- There is a passenger train between Fujairah and Abu Dhabi that opened recently and takes an hour and 45 minutes.
This OpenRailwayMap shows the route of Etihad Rail.
Note.
- The Port Of Fujairah is indicated by the blue arrow.
- Dubai and Abu Dhabi are on the Western coast.
- Etihad Rail has a Wikipedia entry.
- Etihad Rail has a web site.
- It is both a passenger and freight railway.
- It is 559 miles long.
It is planned to be extended to Saudi Arabia.
I can see Etihad Rail being very successful.
Could Duqm And/Or Salalah In Oman Be Developed As Oil And Gas Ports To Bypass Hormuz?
This REPEATED Google Map shows the Eastern side of the Arabian Peninsular.
The deep-water ports of Duqm and Salalah are shown on this map.
When I put the question in the title of this section to Google AI, I received this answer.
Yes, the Port of Duqm and the Port of Salalah are uniquely positioned to serve as critical oil and gas export hubs that bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Both deep-water ports are located on Oman’s open Arabian Sea coast, entirely avoiding the narrow maritime chokepoint.
Developing these ports into massive oil and gas export hubs is highly feasible but presents logistical and financial challenges:
Pipeline Corridors: Bypassing Hormuz would require constructing extensive, multi-billion dollar cross-border pipeline networks spanning over 1,800 kilometers from oil-producing hubs in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE to the Omani coast.
Cost & Timeline: Estimates suggest a twin-pipeline project terminating in Duqm and Salalah—capable of moving 10 million barrels per day—would cost upwards of $50 billion and take up to seven years to complete.
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG): Qatar and other nations could also route gas to the Omani coast, though doing so would require building multibillion-dollar liquefaction and export terminals on the Arabian Sea.
Regional Alliances: Projects at this scale require deep cross-border energy integration and substantial political consensus among the Gulf states.
Although, this route would be expensive, it would keep oil and gas for countries like China, India, Japan and Korea well away from Iran and their partners in crime the Houthis.
The Times article finished with this paragraph.
Plans now include pipelines that could run through Israel, Turkey and Syria to the Mediterranean and Europe, securing supplies to western countries but creating longer shipping times to China and India — both major consumers of Middle East oil.
Conclusion
The one common factor in all these plans is that Iran is sidelined.
And also alternative infrastructure must be better than the destructive US-Iran War.
Trump Is Flailing While Iran Calls The Shots
William Hague in The Times is generally a good read and today’s piece on the US and Iran negotiations, is no exception.
After this sub-heading.
US negotiations displayed hopeless naivety and for all the tough talk now, the president keeps showing he’ll back down
He then starts the article with these two paragraphs.
A month ago, when I read the memorandum agreed by the US and Iran to end the war between them, I literally gasped with surprise. To anyone who has ever been in negotiations with the Iranians, as I was over nuclear issues a decade ago, the concessions made to them seemed extraordinary.
Most striking was that the US is to develop a plan “with at least $300 billion” for the economic development of Iran — a huge incentive to keep the peace but also a colossal subsidy for a regime that President Trump had only weeks earlier set out to destroy.
Is this $300 billion money from the US Treasury, the oil sheikhs’ underwear drawers or from tariffs on uninvolved countries like the UK, Germany, China and Canada?
How many citizens of the UK would sign up for the deal?
About three I would think and two of them would be Nigel and Farage.
The rest of the article is very much a worthwhile read and it finishes with this concluding paragraph.
There have been obvious costs to the war — increased inflation, severe disruption to the Gulf states and of course loss of life. But what we are seeing this week is the cost of the concessions made to get out of it, with much more to come.
We will all be paying more to live our lives, because Donald Trump wanted the Nobel Peace Prize. All he deserves is a pointed hat with a D on it.
An Avenue Of Trees, Cheered Me Up Today
I was feeling a bit down, after the loss of my phone on a train yesterday, as I cam back from Cambridge South station.
After reporting its loss at Liverpool Street station this morning, I thought I might be able to get something I needed at Sainsbury’s in Walthamstow.
To get from Walthamstow Central station to Sainsbury’s I walked along this avenue of trees.
Note.
- It was lovely and cool on a hot day.
- There was a gentle breeze through the trees.
- Halfway along, I chatted to a guy with Indian heritage. He said he liked the trees at Chistmas, when the Council put lights on them.Now surely, that is multiculturalism.
I asked Google AI about the trees and got this reply.
The avenue of mature trees leading from Walthamstow Central Station towards the High Street consists of lime trees. Also locally referred to as Lime Tree Walk, these established trees are well known for soaking up pollution from the adjoining bus and transit areas.
Google AI estimates that the trees are at least a hundred years old.
I believe we should do things like this more often, as it is surely a scientifically-correct way to deal with the pollution of only a few vehicles emitting it.
Out of curiosity, I asked Google AI,”Are we doing research to increase the effectiveness of trees clearing pollution?” and received this reply.
Yes, there is extensive, ongoing scientific research dedicated to increasing the effectiveness of trees at clearing pollution. Studies focus on optimizing urban canopy cover, vegetative barrier design, and microbiome/soil enhancements to maximize both particulate matter (PM) capture and carbon sequestration.
Current research initiatives and findings include:
Vegetative Barriers & Species Traits: Research from the University of Surrey’s Global Centre for Clean Air Research (GCARE) has developed a plant selection framework. By evaluating traits like leaf hairs, canopy density, and seasonal leaf retention, they identify highly effective species (such as silver birch, elder, and yew) to act as physical green barriers that trap particulate matter and filter exhaust.
Tree Spacing & Dispersion: Studies on urban street canyons show that sparse or dense tree spacing can sometimes trap pollutants if the canopy blocks wind flow. However, “medium spacing” (where the gap between trees is roughly equal to the crown diameter) has been proven to optimize both airflow and particle reduction for pedestrians and cyclists.
Soil & Growth Interventions: Studies like the Glandwr Forest Carbon Study by Imperial College London and The Carbon Community are testing methods to boost young tree growth and carbon sequestration using enhanced rock weathering and microbial enrichment.
Cooling & Air Purification Pathways: Recent findings published in Landscape and Urban Planning highlight that trees reduce particulate pollution (PM10) not just by trapping it on leaves, but also through localized cooling. By mitigating extreme heat, trees promote the natural deposition of suspended particles.
It seems that the good citizens of Walthamstow and the nearby forest, probably achieved a result, that was very much in line with modern research.
One Of The Jobs I Did, That I’m Most Proud Of
In the early 1970s, I developed and attempted to market a simultaneous differential equation solving program called SPEED, which stood for Simple Program for the Efficient Evaluations of Differentials or something like that.
It wasn’t very successful, but two companies asked me to write some for them.
- For Time Sharing, I put the central algorithm into their simultaneous differential equation solver to move the program up to the next level.
- WS Atkins, asked me to install it on their computer.
SPEED had a few advantages over typical simultaneous differential equation solvers of the time like IBM/CSMP.
- IBM/CSMP needed at least an IBM 360/50 computer, which I ran it on at ICI in Welwyn Garden City, where I was a general mathematical dogsbody. But SPEED could run on a dial-up line to a time-shared computer like a PDP-10.
- The time-shared computers as used by Time Sharing and WS Atkins, gave the big advantage, that as the size of the computer increased, the size of the problem, that could be tackled in proportion.
- IBM/CSMP and SPEED both had a simple column-oriented report writer, which unsurprisingly ended up in Artemis, which I wrote a few years later.
- I can’t remember, who at ICI gave me the tip, but I used a sophisticated version of the Runga-Kutta algorithm, that everybody used and some probably still do today. The version, I used was called Runga-Kutta-England, where like me England, was a graduate of Liverpool University.
This summary by Google AI described the algorithm.
The England version of the Runge-Kutta method (developed by R. England) is a highly efficient 4th/5th order embedded numerical integration formula. By reusing intermediate slopes across two methods of differing orders, it provides a highly reliable built-in error estimate for adaptive step-size control.
Does anybody still use Runga-Kutta methods? I suspect not!
A breakthrough of sorts came, when WS Atkins asked me to produce a larger system of the SPEED software, that could handle several tens of thousands of equations.
- Atkin’s client was the Water Resources Board and they were modelling the water distribution system for a large part of the UK.
- Prominent in the project was a Dr. David A, Dimeloe and we became friends and had dinner with our wives a couple of times.
- But I never received a copy of the report, that was written or heard any more since about 1975.
- But judging by the fact, that we seem to have adequate supply of water in the UK and problems seem to be all about sewage, politics, management and finance, I feel that David and his team, must have done a good job.
- I was also never asked to fix any bugs in the software.
I did have some trouble getting the money I was owed from the intermediary in the deal, but I eventually retrieved it through the County Court without a solicitor.
Andy Burnham Promised 10,000 Council Houses. Guess The Tally So Far
The title of this post, is the same as that, of this article in The Times.
This is the sub-heading.
Greater Manchester is a success story but that has little to do with the mayor, still less the economic model he is touting for the country
These are the first two paragraphs.
I don’t like being mean to Andy Burnham. With his soft, doe-eyed features, it feels rather like punching a lamb. But it’s quite an achievement when “We’ve got to get beyond this thing of being in hock to the bond markets” isn’t actually the stupidest thing a politician has said in any given week.
The other day Burnham kicked off his not-quite-a-leadership bid by urging Labour to embrace “Manchesterism”. This he defined as “business-friendly socialism”, in which the state “rolled back the 1980s” by seizing control of “the basics of life”: housing, energy, water, rail. This included borrowing £40 billion for new council housing.
This paragraph from Robert Colville gives the current progress on housing in Manchester.
Burnham did announce, in May 2024, that he was going to build 10,000 council houses by 2028. But over the following year the region started construction on just ten. No, that’s not a typo.
That is not a good start!
Will The Real Andy Burnham Please Stand Up!
As I wrirw posts in the next couple of weeks, if I find Andy Burnham has said something about the subject, that is worth adding, I will add it.
TerraLithium, BHE Renewables Announce Key Milestones For Geothermal Lithium Project In California
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on ThinkGeoEnergy.
This is the sub-heading.
TerraLithium and BHE Renewables have announced key milestones towards advancing technology for lithium extraction from geothermal brines in Imperial Valley, California.
This is the important paragraph in the article.
The business model of coupling lithium and critical minerals extraction with geothermal energy production is gaining increasing attention, both in the United States and in countries like Germany, France, and the UK. As demonstrated in the United Downs geothermal power project in Cornwall, lithium extraction provides additional revenue generation that can significantly improve the economics of deep geothermal projects.
So here we have little Cornwall showing Big California how to get power and lithium out of hot rocks.
In Cornish Plant Produces Geothermal Power, I described the progress at the Cornish plant in March.
Has Andy Burnham Ever Said Anything On Geothermal Energy?
Given that there is an election or coronation under way, I just had to ask Google AI, the question in the title of this section.
This is the answer I received.
Yes, Andy Burnham has occasionally engaged with topics involving geothermal energy, particularly in the context of tapping natural underground heat and mine water for green energy
His notable references to the technology include:
Supporting Manchester’s Geothermal Potential: He has voiced support for localized renewable heat projects, such as exploratory borehole plans in Manchester city centre intended to tap into thermal springs for community heating.
I think we can put that down as a favourable view.
This excellent article on the BBC is entitled Plan To Heat Manchester Homes With A Geothermal Spring, is worth a full read.
The Anonymous Widower 