Deep beneath the Earth’s surface there sits a clean and renewable energy reserve estimated to contain 50,000 times more potential power than all of the world’s oil and gas reserves combined. As one drills deeper, the thermal energy accessed becomes hotter.
The situation is not lost on Cindy Taff, a former Shell executive, who claims the same drilling know-how that unlocked American oil can now tap the vast reservoir of clean energy sitting beneath our feet — everywhere on Earth. And she is aiming to tap that potential as co-founder and CEO of Sage Geosystems.
She occupies an unusual space in the energy debate — someone who has made peace with her fossil fuel past by betting that its most powerful tools can be turned toward the Earth’s inexhaustible heat.
“I went into oil and gas because energy is life,” she says.
Traditional geothermal power — the kind exploited in Iceland and at The Geysers in Northern California — relies on shallow poo
