Science4Parliament - Episode Six - Dr Nick Vafeas – Geothermal energy
Speakers
Denis Naughten, Dr. Nick Vafeas
Denis 00:00
Welcome to the Science4Parliament podcast, the first of its kind which aims to foster the relationship between science and decision makers and show how research and innovation are vital to the equitable and sustainable functioning of our societies and economies. My name is Denis Naughten. I'm a directly elected member of parliament in Ireland for the last 26 years, and I served as an Irish cabinet minister, and on the Council of the European Union ministers. I'm chairperson of the Inter-parliamentary Union Working Group on science and technology, which is based in Geneva, and which aims to inspire global parliamentary action through legislative work in the field of science and technology. This podcast aims to highlight the work of innovative scientists and get their perspective on what needs to be done to bring the world of science and policy closer together. And to add something different to the conversation.
Denis 00:51
My guest has been asked to pick two numbers, each of which is related to one of 10 random questions, some of which will be asked during the interview. So on today's show, I'll be talking about geothermal energy with Dr. Nick Vafeas. Nick spent three months as a researcher in residence in the Irish parliament in 2021, as part of the Science Foundation Ireland's Public Service Fellowship programme, and produced a report on this possible alternative to fossil fuel for electricity and heating that is currently being underutilised, but could help Ireland and other countries address their future emission targets.
Denis 01:32
So Dr. Nick, thanks for joining me today. First of all, could I ask you to pick two numbers between one and 10?
Nick 01:39
Let's go with five and seven, five and seven.
Denis 01:43
So could I ask you maybe, to explain to us, in simple terms, what your research is all about, and what exactly Geothermal energy is and why we should be making more use of it?
Nick 01:55
Absolutely, yeah. Gosh, what my research is about ...anything and everything to do with earth science. Essentially, it can, whether it's exploring for ore deposits, or dating mineral deposit minerals using isotopes or looking at the critical metals, shortage in Europe. I'm also part I'm the policy lead for the Geothermal Association of Ireland, which is an NGO that's been going on for 25 years in Ireland trying to really push the use of geothermal energy. I got involved the attainment of more energy from my role in ICRAG which is the SFI Research Centre for Applied geosciences. And the policy took me first and how our research was either stopped or progressed based on people's perception and the policy driving that. And geothermal energy became the best example that I could come up with, because there wasn't any policy whatsoever. And they have, there's been plenty of interest over the last few decades. And people have come and go gone, and there's been waves of interest, yet there's always a barrier. And that barrier is the policy. So I thought, what better? What a better chance to do something different than to try and tackle that?
Denis 03:15
And why did you get involved in this particular area initially?
Nick 03:21
The challenge. I mean, it like I said, it's I was looking for a way to make an impact in geoscience. And it was a colleague of mine in in ICRAG, her name is Maeve Boland, I owe her a bit of a bit of a shout out because she really guided me on what the barriers were. And because she's been working the space for quite a while and she thought, you know, if you're going to, you're going to do something, then go for this. I mean, geothermal energy has the potential, and I know sounds dramatic. But you can cut out 75% all fossil fueled heating in Ireland wow 75%. The remaining say that remaining amount would be for things like smelting, which you can't really do yet in Ireland, because from heat pumps, but everything else, there was a study in the UK recently, I read yesterday, actually, that 90 up to 90% of industrial heating is below 150 degrees. That's achievable using heat pumps.
Denis 04:17
And could this technology be used? And look, I know it's been used for a long time in the Nordic countries, but in other parts of the world, where's the opportunity here? And in some parts of the world, the problem isn't heating, the problem is cooling. Are there opportunities with this type of technology and tools in terms of cooling as well?
Nick 04:38
Absolutely, yes. In fact, I'm glad that you said that. People often assume it's just heating because Ireland's generally cold. But the heating and the cooling are a cycle and it was pretty hot this last the summer. If you want to maintain the sustainability of the system that you have underground, you've got to put back what you take in and that kind of cycle keeps us system going for forever, as long as you do it responsibly,
Denis 05:03
And you spent three months in the Irish parliament back in 2021, can you tell me something about what you learned about politics or the operation of Parliament from your fellowship?
Nick 05:15
Yeah, that was a fantastic experience. The people firstly, were were lovely, very, very keen to help me learn, and also equally enthusiastic to learn from me, they, it was a time during COVID. Initially, the idea was, I'd be placed in Leinster House, and we'd all go every day to go and interact. And but then COVID hit. And that was a massive challenge, we had to scramble to get laptops with the scramble to stick zoom on our computer wherever this zoom was, but that was a turn out to be a very big opportunity, because what it did was create instant access to people both in Parliament, directors of companies, both here in Ireland, and in Europe, my biggest learning curve was communication, I thought I could communicate pretty well, but apparently not I went there. And there's a lot of diplomacy with communication, you've got to you've got to really understand what it is that's driving the interest. No one cares about certain facts, but there are other facts that are really hit home. And if you can use those interests to drive your research, it's a lot more effective. And that's something that I find a lot of scientists don't get, including myself, I didn't understand.
Denis 06:28
And the question that often asked of me, as a member of parliament of scientists is, how do you figure out those interests?
Nick 06:36
Through communication ...absolutely. One of the big challenges with scientists and researchers is a lack of a platform. Now social media has really tried to bridge that platform. But unfortunately, with social media, you get other other challenges like harassment, giving a platform to scientists to express their research, but also giving them training to express the research in the right way, is essential. And that that bridge is is missing. And it's been it's been addressed through this Public Service Fellowship, for example, which is lovely, but it is still missing. And a lot of work is needed in that in that space.
Denis 07:14
So when you were in the Irish parliament, what piece of work did you do there during your fellowship?
Nick 07:20
I worked on ...well, the biggest outcome of the fellowship was a spotlights on geothermal energy. It at the time was the only one and most extensive policy documents on geothermal energy in Ireland. Since then, I've had the opportunity to work with many different people from the different surveys, both Northern Ireland and the Republic. I've gotten to know a lot of people through my association with the Geothermal Association of Ireland. So it was quite a fruitful outcome Very much so.
Denis 07:49
But this Spotlight what was that and what was the the output from that?
Nick 07:54
Spotlight document was a look at anything and everything geothermal in Ireland, starting from what geothermal is in very basic terms, to what people in other countries in Europe are doing to use the geothermal energy, how Ireland has tried to use energy energy and is actually using using geothermal energy. They are actually, believe it or not, a lot of places in Ireland that have geothermal heat pumps, IKEA in Dublin is one of them. And everyone, every person in geothermal space will jump on the IKEA example, just because such a good example they have over 100, borehole, and 150 bore holes in the parking lot that are all feeding into heat pump. So it does work. But they had to take that cost on the on the end the risk, whatever risk they was, they had to take on their own, they had to pay for it in their own. And it took a while to pay it all back. And now they are doing pretty well with it.
Denis 08:48
So I have to declare an interest here in that I was actually the minister in charge of the whole area of Geological Survey of Ireland and the regulation of this whole area around that. I recall from from my own officials telling me that there was a need for a legislative structure here in terms of fully exploring and developing geothermal technology. So where is it that at today? What are the weaknesses in it? What do we need to hear to do in Ireland? Or what do we need to do elsewhere as members of Parliament's to put those structures in place to maximise the potential of this technology?
Nick 09:25
Okay, that's that's quite a loaded question. I think we'll start where it is today. Currently, there is a draft policy statement that's under work with the Department of Environment, climate and communications that came up quite a while ago, and it's still in the process of consultation. They've addressed a number of things that that needed to be addressed that I've highlighted in the Spotlight as well. Things like, who owns heat or the transfer of knowledge, people, different companies drilling different holes around the country and not sharing what they're getting out in terms of heat is a problem. There has to be a single database so that if one day, hopefully in a utopian world, if you were to drill a hole right outside, I could tell you exactly what the heat is going to be before you hit the ground, because that's the sharing of knowledge training. Training is another thing. There needs to be standardised training. Other countries do have standard training, but they should be standard training. And this would obviously, bring in certain other jobs as well. What was the other question?
Denis 10:22
Just before we go on to the other question, this sharing of knowledge. So here in Ireland, we have had a very extensive serving of the seabed off our coast. And even though we're a small island of Western Europe, 90% of our territory is under water. And that is all open source data, the state did the research published that online and as responsibility on all exploration companies to make the data that they generate available. So you're saying that while that's available off our coast, it's not the case in terms of geothermal? I'm sure it is in terms of exploration, but not in terms of geothermal on the island. And is there a country that has got this right in terms of having a register of that type of information?
Nick 11:13
So onshore , if a company, a mining company draws down, they I mean, they have a right to keep secret what they have, it's a Oh, but after a certain amount of time, they should be requirement that everyone puts that forward. Now, the GSI, the Geological Survey in Ireland, they have a database that they're trying to build and trying to gain a lot of audit information coalesced into one area. It's just not big enough yet. And this needs to be more policies in place to really force it. And the Netherlands is a place that does this. One of the places they I think in the areas in the Netherlands when you can predict the heat within 90% accuracy.
Denis 11:49
90% accuracy. And of course, that dramatically reduces the cost, if you know what the accuracy is. And you were talking about earlier about, you know, the potential in terms of heat, and I touched on the issue of cooling, is the technology there at the moment in terms of parts of the world, like we've seen this summer of record, levels of heat in some parts of the world is the technology there today, at the moment where we can use geothermal technology to cool buildings, or is that still as a research area,
Nick 12:23
Not only is it available today, it's been available for the past few decades, right? It's very, very well known, very low risk technology. It's a heat pump. But technology isn't the problem. It's the policies. I'll give you an example. We, to heat in Ireland, use electricity to heat in Ireand, it is incredibly expensive, it's 3.5 times more expensive to use electricity than is to use gas. Now I'm sure you know this, but what it means is that if you want to make a savings on the money that you put into a heat pump, your heat pump must run at 350% efficiency all year round. Now for an air source heat pump, which is outside on the wall, which is what most of you will see an inhabitant for an air source heat pump that efficiency is not going to be three hundred and fifty % all year round patient winter. So what does that mean? If you switch your gas boiler to air source heat pump, you are not going to make your money back, Geothermal heat pump you will because underground it's always the same. Now so the problem is not technology. It is the policies. If we're serious about electrifying heat, then we need to tackle that price discrepancy.
Denis 13:27
That comes back to us and I think the policymakers need to look at this again. So can I thank you, Dr. Nick Vafeas, for talking to me. And remember that you can find a link to his paper and to all the Science4Parliament podcasts at denisnaughten.ie or whatever platform you use to find your podcasts. Thanks, Dr. Nick for being with me today.
Nick 13:50
Absolutely. Thank you
