Profile: Breaking New Ground in Geothermal Energy Technology

Mo Abouelhassan and Vlad Zatonski are contributing to what could be an economical and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels for home heating and electricity production (Figure 1). Although they live on different continents and are employed at different levels of the same organization, they both recognize the potential of their work in the decarbonization of energy and heating systems globally.

---

▲Figure 1. Vlad Zatonski (left) and Mo Abouelhassan (right) are engineers at Eavor, a company developing a scalable geothermal well that is being implemented in North America and Europe.

Abouelhassan and Zatonski work at geothermal energy technology company Eavor, which has projects in development across North America and Europe. The company’s premier technology, the Eavor-Loop (Figure 2), is a scalable closed-loop geothermal well capable of operating in most locations. The first Eavor-Loop system was completed in Alberta, Canada, in 2020 and was created to demonstrate the viability of the company’s technology. In this system, process fluid flows through a branched underground pipe network where it is heated by geothermal energy before it flows back to the surface. That heat can be used directly to warm buildings and greenhouses or it can be converted to electricity. There is no extraction of heated groundwater like in conventional geothermal power plants, which are prone to energy deliverability loss due to groundwater depletion, and often require manual replenishing to maintain adequate output.

---

▲Figure 2. The Eavor-Loop is a closed-loop, geothermal energy well that is currently being implemented in projects in North America and Europe. The simplest version of this design (left) is a closed subterranean loop, while more advanced versions of this design (center and right) increase heat transfer by adding multiple lateral...