Unlimited, on-demand renewable energy anywhere in the world — is Eavor-Loop climate change's holy grail?

Source: Leigh Collins · RECHARGE · | October 27, 2020

Forget nuclear fusion — Canadian start-up says it can harness the heat emanating from the Earth's core to create affordable baseload and dispatchable power using proven technologies, writes Leigh Collins

Source: Recharge

The holy grail of the energy sector has long been to produce endless electricity through nuclear fusion, effectively harnessing the power of the Sun here on Earth.

But while nuclear fusion always seems 20-30 years away, similar results can be achieved with existing technology by harnessing the heat emanating from the Earth’s 6,000°C molten core, according to a Canadian start-up.

Eavor (pronounced ‘ever’) believes it will be able to provide gigawatts of baseload and dispatchable renewable energy anywhere in the world for less than $50/MWh by the end of the decade, making its technology cost-competitive with natural gas and coal. And it has already proven its concepts in a pilot project, Eavor-Lite, that has been operating in Alberta, Canada, since last December.

The three-year-old company’s Eavor-Loop solution might sound like pie in the sky — chief executive John Redfern tells Recharge he initially thought it was “the dumbest idea I’d ever heard” (see panel below) — but it is a remarkably simple concept.