In his Jan. 21 op-ed, Interim President Kotlikoff emphasized the importance of Cornell’s Earth Source Heat, or ESH, project in decarbonizing campus heating: “In the long term, the most promising way for us to meet our energy goals is Earth Source Heat: a game-changing technology with the potential to meet cold-climate heating needs with less electricity than other options.” I agree but worry about the depth of Cornell’s financial commitment to ESH.
For the past ten years, while ESH has struggled to gain momentum, I have been a technical advisor to the project, frequently consulting with some University staff whom I admire as climate heroes: Bert Bland ’74 M.S. ’80 MBA ’98, Wayne Bezner-Kerr and Sarah Carson. They and other key staff and faculty have labored intensely over that decade to breathe life into this high-risk, high-reward experimental program. The most significant achievement of the ESH project to date is the completion of the Cornell University Borehole Observatory, or CUBO, in 2022, a nearly two-mile-deep well that provided valuable geological insights. However, the data from CUBO was not sufficient to de-risk the next phase, and the project, which cost over $10 million, has since stalled due to a lack of additional funding.
After three years of waiting for funding, the project is now at a standstill. To move forward, we need to re-enter CUBO, deepen it and perform crucial experiments to de-risk that next step. We must build a complete system below and above ground to meet 95 percent of the heating needs of the campus. Last year, Cornell’s ESH team applied for over $10 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand CUBO, but hopes for funding are diminishing because of the long lapse in response to our proposal, and the changing political scene in DC, leaving the project in an uncomfortable limbo.
There is no time to wait to rescue the project. It is time for the administration to step up the magnitude of this effort. Kotlikoff wrote, “Cornell has made major investments to prove the feasibility of earth source heat in our region.” That is simply not true — not relative to the actual cost and urgency of ESH addressing accelerating climate change. The University’s contribution to date just won’t meet the scale of heating the campus. ESH requires an extensive infrastructure, far beyond CUBO: multiple well pairs, one injecting cold water down and the other extracting hot water up, likely connected through hydraulic fracturing. The total cost could range from $100 million to $200 million when including surface infrastructure. This level of investment demands a decisive commitment from the Board of Trustees.
The new Chair of the Board, Anne Meinig Smalling, is also the CEO of an investment firm with a principal holding in a Mexican natural gas pipeline company, IGASAMEX, now promoting expansion into liquefied natural gas, or LNG. According to recent research by my Cornell colleague, Prof. Robert Howarth, ecology and environmental biology, the greenhouse gas emissions footprint of LNG far exceeds that of coal. However, this same CEO also has a principal holding in a company producing high-quality geothermal well equipment, EnLink Geoenergy Services. These conflicting interests highlight a challenge: Who within Cornell is championing ESH to the Board, and how will the Board navigate potential conflicts of interest?
So, I implore the Board of Trustees to revive ESH, now. Please don’t make Kotlikoff appear naive about the scale of heating decarbonization. And please don’t leave Cornell’s ESH heroes out in the cold.
Anthony Ingraffea is the Dwight C. Baum Professor Emeritus in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He can be reached at ari1@cornell.edu and 607-351-0043.
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