The Gryphon interviews Professor Loveridge: what is on-campus geothermal drilling?
Walking around campus the last few weeks, you may have seen what seems like a very elaborate science experiment more suited to the laybrinth-like halls of the Engineering Building than the pavements of the university campus.
However, this drilling is part of the university’s new geothermal energy drilling project. Confused? Us too.
Seeing as for many of us, it’s been more years since science GCSEs than we’d like to think about, The Gryphon’s Zara Lake caught up with Professor Fleur Loveridge from the School of Civil Engineering for a back-to-basics guide to what all of this means…
Zara: “When did all of this begin and how long is it expected to continue for?”
Professor Loveridge: “We have been planning this for quite a while, but work started here on site just after the exam period in January and is due to run through till probably May this year.”
Zara: “Could you summarise what the geothermal project is?”
Professor Loveridge: “We are investigating the thermal and hydrogeological properties of the ground, beneath the campus, with the hope that they will be able to design a shallow geothermal energy or ground source heating system to decarbonize different parts of the campus”.
Loveridge then explained what some of these scientific terms mean for the non-STEM literate amongst us...
“Geothermal energy is a wide term to describe heat obtained for the ground, when working
at a shallow depth, as we are here, at 100-200m, when the heat is taken out the ground we
pass it through a heat pump in order to increase the temperature that is available to make it
more useful”
“Through the small amount of electrical energy and the ground heat we are able to step up
the temperature to something usable for heating as well as being very efficient. For the
amount of electricity put in you can obtain four times as much energy to heat the buildings.”
The geothermal project is a cornerstone of the University of Leeds’ Net Zero by 2030 pledge.
Zara: “And how exactly does geothermal energy benefit the environment?”
Professor Loveridge: “At the moment, most of the buildings on campus are heated through direct burning of fossil fuels, which is obviously not a good solution going forward. As part of the climate plan, the university is hoping to decarbonize it’s estate by 2030. These new systems will allow us to
take buildings off the central heating system and allow them to be supplied with heat from
the ground via electricity supplied to the heat pumps”.
“The thing about the electricity grid in this country is that it has substantially reduced its
carbon intensity over the last 10 years and it’s only going to become more and more green.
Therefore the efficiency factor of getting 4x as much heat compared to the electricity you put
in and the fact the grid is ‘greening’ fast means that this will be a really low carbon solution.”
Zara: “Is this just the first stage of the geothermal project, will we be seeing more projects
like this on campus in the future?
Professor Loveridge: “Yes, absolutely. The investigation that is happening now will support other ground source heat systems for parts of the campus. In the future other decisions will be made on other buildings on the campus but ultimately they will all need to be decarbonized.”
Zara: “People often confuse drilling and fracking, could you explain the difference
and why we shouldn’t confuse them?”
Professor Loveridge: “Fracking is traditionally used for oil and gas exploration which is one of the reasons it gets a very bad rep, understandably. However, what we are doing here is totally different. We are just drilling holes in the ground and we are using the fact that the ground is naturally
fractured and naturally contains groundwater to allow us to extract water for use in the
energy system.“
“It is also important to note that water we extract is reinjected into the ground. Therefore, It is
a very sustainable system with no environmental impacts.”
Zara: “Is the project common across the country, including at other universities?”
Professor Loveridge: “Yes, there are a few other university campuses that are starting to take on schemes like this such as at Oxford Brookes and Sheffield University. All over the world we are seeing universities in particular starting to investigate these options more. Essentially, as we look to
decarbonize and meet our net zero target by 2030 we will see these schemes becoming
more common.”
“We are definitely at the leading edge here, and it is hoped that we can learn from our
experiences here on campus to decarbonize our estate as well as roll this technology out
across the city and region, and potentially wider.”
Zara: “Finally, how can students get involved and what opportunities are available?”
Professor Loveridge: “As part of the investigations we are going to be gathering an awful lot of data so there will be opportunities for student research projects at all levels, undergraduate and master and also PhD projects. If you are interested you can get in touch with the geothermal solutions
team to talk about that.”
“There is also the ambition that once we decarbonize the buildings we will have a living lab
that will allow us to monitor the building and gain operational data from the energy systems
and the temperatures in the ground to check on the sustainability of the system”.
The geothermal energy drilling plan has not been without some controversy. It commanded attention in November 2023 when Student Rebellion staged a 24 hour occupation of Esther Simpson following the university’s talk on the Net Zero Delivery Plan.
Whilst acknowledging it was a step in the right direction, the group said the university’s strategy overemphasised technical solutions and fell short of their demand to completely cut fossil fuel usage on campus.
More information on the geothermal drilling project can be found on the university website under the following link: https://estates.leeds.ac.uk/portfolio-item/geothermal-drilling/
