Geothermal Engineer Career
Geothermal Engineer Career
The Real Poop
Did you know you're currently only about 4,000 miles away from a heat source as hot as the Sun? That's about 92,952,000 miles closer than the ball of fire up in the sky (source). The heat source we're talking about is the Earth's core, which you may remember from diagrams in your middle school science textbook.
We can't harvest energy directly from the core—the furthest humans have drilled into the Earth is a measly seven and a half miles (source) —but we've learned that we can harness the heat of the Earth to use as a source of energy. Harnessing that heat is the job of geothermal engineers. They know how to turn all that heat into the stuff that powers our cars, phones, televisions, and home heating and air conditioning systems.
As we continue to push away from fossil fuels, alternative energy sources such as geothermal have become even more important. If you can make it through the rigorous studies it'll take to become a geothermal engineer (more on that in a minute), you'll be handsomely rewarded—to the tune of about $87,000 per year (source).
Examples are always easier to understand than the boring diagrams in textbooks, so let's start with the largest geothermal development in the world, The Geysers in northern California (source). (And that's guy-zer, not geezer—the way your family somewhat affectionately refers to old Grandpa Mortimer.)
Beginning in 1924, a bunch of intrepid, forward-thinking people started drilling wells into the area around The Geysers. Dry steam wells, the oldest technological form of geothermal energy, take steam out of fractures in the ground. The steam then powers a turbine. This process worked well in The Geysers, where by 1990 twenty-six power plants had been built and today account for more than sixty percent of electricity in northern California (source).
But there was a problem. Sure, geothermal energy is "clean" compared to gas and oil, but it does have complications of its own. The Geysers were losing sixty to eighty percent of steam to the air; basically, there was less and less of the "hydro" part but still plenty of "thermal" (hot rocks) available.
Never fear—geothermal engineers from the Santa Rosa Geysers Recharge Project (sort of like a superhero collective, but with more pencils and fewer capes) came up with a plan to re-inject treated wastewater from the surrounding areas into the well.
Think you might be interested in a similar job? First off, you'll need some wicked math and science skills. But if that's big news to you, well, you might not have the deductive skills necessary to hack it in this field. You'll need a bachelor's degree in all-nighters with a specialization in exam problems you forget the minute after you solve them.
At the moment there aren't any bachelor's degrees available in geothermal engineering, but you'll still need some kind of engineering degree, most likely in mechanical engineering. Beyond that, you'll need to be a proactive networker and self-starter.
You'll also need to be patient. A career in geothermal engineering isn't a Chia pet. You don't just sprinkle a little (boiling) water on your degree and watch it grow. Even after you've trudged through four years of engineering school, and even after you've gotten a job with "engineer" in the title, you're still not there. To be considered a "professional engineer" you must have four years of work experience and have passed the Principles of Engineering exam. Did we mention you need to like taking tests?
If you make it through all those hoops, though, you should have a stable job in a promising, environmentally-friendly field waiting at the other end. But none of those obstacles are too tough, because you really just want to save the Earth, right? Of course you do, you little environmental superhero.