"It is very similar to what we've been doing an oil gas for many years, in an exploration sense. The mindset is there’s risk. At the beginning... you look at data."

In this episode, I’m in conversation with Patrick Ng, the CEO and Founder of ShaleForce, a geothermal company, on generative AI and how it has been used by ShaleForce. If we drill deep enough, we will find geothermal resources, but not all are suitable. One application idea is to aim for geothermal resources where there are existing coal power plants. These plants will eventually be retired, but with a different kind of boiler, the plants could find renewed life. Geothermal energy is also applicable to many industrial processes currently supplied by hydrocarbons, including steel making, cement, food processing, pulp and paper, and many others. 

"Early in the shale revolution before 2010, people will say, hey, there’s shale everywhere. I look at it like factory drilling. I look at so many acres, and look at how many wells I can place and go with it. Very quickly, they find out if that's the way you go, you're gonna blow a lot of capital. The reason is geology is not uniform or costs, right? It has the variabilities."

Patrick Ng is the founder and CEO of ShaleForce, a data analytics and energy intelligence company. Patrick started his career in R&D, and eventually moved into analytics, primarily software development, geophysical imaging and inversion applications / services for the oil & gas sector. His passion is helping communities thrive during energy transition by leveraging his background in technology application and petroleum geology to expand the energy supply and radically lower emission for industry, such as geothermal.

"If our target, our goal is to radically reduce carbon emission for industry, let's say not just electrons, not just electricity, there are a lot of industries with heavy use of energy, that can benefit from direct heat, or superheated water."

USEFUL LINKS

• LinkedIn profiles (personal, business): 

• Personal: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-ng-6421b5 

• Website: 

•  https://www.shaleforce.com

• Reference paper: 

• https://energy.utexas.edu/research/geothermal-texas