I want to save the world.

Or rather, I want to mitigate the direst of the effects of industrial civilization and its fairly inevitable downfall. These are the things I know: some geology, too much environmental philosophy (for my own good that is), and probably irrelevant bits about everything else (including, but not limited to: Indigo Girls songs, Buffy quotes, and various uses for yarn). I have always been a generalist; but I am also a person of obsessions, and the token reoccurring ones have always been a desire to understand what we can of nature and how humans perceive and affect it. My original interest in geology formed, in fact, due to my deep environmentalism, and my occasional distaste for environmentalists who profess to care deeply for a planet—including biological systems, too, of course— that they barely understand; I came to geology to back up the radical environmental things I believed and found a science I love, got a little more rational on the way, and found that as far as can be known I am quantitatively right.

Industrial civilization in 2009 is well within multiple bottlenecks of population, resource use, and a dire –to say the least!—dearth of environmental responsibility. To prevent the almost inevitable gotterdammerung, we need a new (or rather, older and respected) ethos; to end the many travesties on the long, long list of ongoing environmental catastrophes, and especially to quickly replace fossil fuel usage with renewable sources. Obviously, I could not possibly embark upon this alone, but there are others working on the other, more visible (or possibly just more easily understood?) issues, and as I see it there is a dearth of scientists working on one of the most important questions to civilization as we know it: can EGS technologies be implemented in a meaningfully short timeframe?

The logic on this may seem a bit convoluted: but in short, please be aware that the present societal complaisance-in-midst-of-vast-duality is built on economic growth is built on ever-expanding energy usage. Lose cheap energy and the dominoes will fall—and you’re talking famine in the first world. Geothermal’s not cheap the way fossil fuels were cheap, but this makes it both superior and worse in different ways. It, like all renewable energies, is much more place-dependent than coal, oil, or natural gas (ie, not as easily shipped), but it could be a direct replacement for coal. Because I feel mountain-top removal is wrong, I must think of a solution to end it. If regulation’s not enough (it’s never enough when there’s “profit” to be had), a better alternative is the best I can do. (Hopefully someone smarter than me’s working on replacing natural gas & oil, but we do what we can with what we know when we know it, and can do no more.)

So. The longest lever I can think of to wield in contributing to societal-betterment is to quickly ramp-up the development of geothermal energies. I want to embark upon doing this by fully understanding the current state of geothermal production, exploring potential basins, and building good, sustainable arrays at geothermal resources.

Single-handedly phasing out coal is an ambitious goal, I know, but I hardly have to restate the case that finding replacements for fossil fuels is the current grand challenge. When I came across MIT’s The Future of Geothermal Energy report, I was—am—transfixed. If anywhere near the wattage they estimate is producible in the US, why aren’t we doing it? Can we consistently drill to the required depths with our current technology? What basins are most promising, what are the unusual locals we could be exploring? So mudlogging elucidated some of this, and didn’t elucidate other bits of this, but the more I read on it, the more I need help.

Outside of academia, I can only do so much. I can’t read enough of the pertinent papers outside academia, I can’t just email someone and be all, ‘so, what was the flow rate on that well in this year?’ or whatever, I’m behind on industry advancements, because I have no official affiliation. At least while working as a mudlogger I was learning the drilling industry lexicon and had an official reason to care about the state of drilling technology and the geology of various sites, but outside of that context and I’m back to trolling the nets for answers. Even while mudlogging, it became obvious that few people know all that much more than I do, and I gradually realized that answering the most important question of all would be a master’s thesis at least: will EGS technology be sufficiently advanced to be implemented in the near future?

But if the answer is “No,” what do we do? What can we do?

I want to save the world. Or rather, I want to mitigate the direst of the effects of industrial civilization and it’s fairly inevitable downfall. Only mitigation is left, and it’s an open question: can we mitigate quickly enough?

So rather, really, while I do totally want to mitigate as much as possible as fast as possible, I don’t even know if this is even possible. I may, like everyone else, just want to distract myself with the things I like and ignore the real issues (even with the Hawkens-esque ‘unrest,’ who is to say that a pillow at the bottom of the cliff will be that terribly helpful?). Everyone who’s studied the overshoot topic thinks there’s no chance of mass survival or a peaceful transition to all those technotopias we dream of (and everyone who hasn’t studied overshoot doesn’t understand the situation).

Because part of this does come down to how badly I want to be back in school, studying all day like that’s a normal thing to do, worrying about tests as if the rest of existence could forever be on hold. My three favorite things can pretty much only be found in the walls of academia (graphs of good data, drinking with people who talk about science, and lazy-ass camping), and sometimes I really have to question my motivations. Yes, I do indeed have an academic interest in the particulars of geothermal basins, but would I be able to concentrate on this if I didn’t have this over-grandiose vision of it mattering to the future of humanity? Geothermal is an incredibly interdisciplinary field, so academically it’s perfect for me (Ms. Never Decided if she likes geophysics or petrology or structure or hydro or micropaleo or whatever bestest doesn’t have to choose!), but am I actually smart enough to be good at it? I liked paleoclimatology, but I didn’t love it, I liked hydro, but I didn’t love it—and how do I explain all these things I start and never finish? Somehow ‘life intervened’ doesn’t always sound good enough. And yet another issue: a scientist is supposed to be impartial to the results of her research: am I too close to this? I may actually care too much.

Doubts aside, what else is there that I want to do? Sometimes it seems that I mostly want to continue with school because outside of that system I’m at a total loss as to what to do with myself. Neither of my real-person jobs lasted long enough—or had a normal enough schedule—for me to ever get used to anything else. School has clear goals, clear timeframes, clear expectations—things that I’ve never had in any other arena. But somehow the need for that that doesn’t seem like a good enough reason to go. This whole ‘I suck at life outside of school,’ isn’t a good enough reason to get back into it… but of course, I did want to go to grad school when I was in undergrad, I just didn’t know what for. And now I do, so that should be enough. Or at least I’ve narrowed it down as much as I reasonably could.

I want to save the world. Of course, we all want a lot of things, but I think, just maybe, I can work hard enough to have a part in doing the things I believe most need to happen.  ¶ 14:41