Journeying to the heat of the Earth: from Jules Verne to present-day geothermal adventures

Abstract

The article establishes some parallels in attitude and analogies in decision-making between the fictional underground explorations depicted in Jules Verne's novel Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864) and contemporary engineering efforts to tap geothermal energy by drilling through the Earth's crust. It is argued that reconstructing these parallels can be a helpful way of uncovering previously little discussed assumptions and perhaps even deeply ingrained attitudes derived from specific perceptions of the geological underground. In the course of doing so, topics analyzed include the integration of old and new technologies, connections between responsibility and irrationality, failure as a normal stepping stone, or how unavoidable unknowns are being creatively incorporated into decision-making and practical strategies for probing into unfathomed depths.

Keywords:

• geothermal engineering
• ideal-types
• ignorance
• Jules Verne
• renewable energy
• science fiction

Notes

¹In English-language publications, a few studies can be found by economists and modelers (see e.g. Miethling, “Different but Similar,” 2011; Purkus and Barth, “Geothermal Power Production,” 2011; and Teske et al., “Energy [R]evolution,” 2011), a few on social acceptance (see e.g. Dowd et al., “Geothermal Technology in Australia,” 2011 and Manologlou, Tsartas, and Markou, “Geothermal Energy Sources,” 2004); and – albeit generally dated – a small number of anthropologically informed studies conducted in areas well known for their use of geothermal energy, such as Iceland, Greece and Hawaii (e.g. Canan, “Rethinking Geothermal Energy's Contribution,” 1986; Edelstein and Kleese, “Cultural Relativity,” 1995; and Kousis, “Collective Resistance,” 1993).

²Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992 (1864).

³Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 1985 (1922), pp. 146–214. Critical discussions on Weber's notion of ideal-types can be found in Eliaeson, Max Weber's Methodologies, 2002; Hekman, Weber, 1983; Aronovitch, “Interpreting Weber's Ideal-Types,” 2012; and Kalberg, Max Weber's Comparative-Historical Sociology Today, 2012. On the influence of Weber's ideal-types on methodology development in social research more generally, see Blaikie, Approaches to Social Enquiry, 1993, pp. 178–193.

⁴Eliaeson, Max Weber's Methodologies, 2002, p. 49.

⁵Williams, Triumph of Human Empire, 2013, p. 122.

⁶To be sure, in other novels by Verne, the characters speak with many disparate voices and exhibit a variety of world views, especially with regard to scientific progress (cf. Unwin, Jules Verne, 2005). Furthermore, Verne's notions of scientific knowledge and of the relationship between scientists and knowledge are not fixed and one-dimensional but rather tend to shift and evolve over time (cf. Evans, Jules Verne Rediscovered, 1988 and Lesser, Life below the Ground, 1987).

⁷From varied perspectives, see, for example, Bryson, Visions of the Land, 2002; Moore, “Evidences of Decadent Humanity,” 2014; and Stableford, “Science Fiction and Ecology,” 2005.

⁸Williams, Notes on the Underground, 2008, p. 193.

⁹Interview data for this research have been collected through stakeholder and focus group meetings in several research projects in the German Helmholtz Association's program on renewable energies. I am grateful to Alena Bleicher, who conducted some of the interviews. Other information I recorded during discussions at engineering and drilling technology workshops as well as personal communications with engineers and modelers in Europe and abroad. All direct quotes in this article, for ethical reasons, remain anonymous.

¹⁰Cf. Feili et al., “Risk Analysis of Geothermal Power Plants,” 2013; Giardini, “Geothermal Quake Risks Must Be Faced,” 2009; and Hoşgör, Apt, and Fischhoff, “Incorporating Seismic Concerns in Site Selection,” 2013.

¹¹See, for instance, Sydell, Sci-Fi Inspires Engineers to Build Our Future, 2010.

¹²Cf. Gross, “Old Science Fiction, New Inspiration,” 2013.

¹³Bloomquist, Lund, and Gehringer, “Geothermal Energy,” 2013; Huenges et al., “Geothermal Energy Systems,” 2013; Kolditz et al., “Geothermal Energy,” 2013; and Kagel and Gawell, “Promoting Geothermal Energy,” 2005.

¹⁴Schilliger, Geothermie – Die Alternative, 2011, p. 113.

¹⁵It is a nice coincidence that in the early twenty-first century over 80% of Iceland's primary energy comes from geothermal sources. At the time of Verne's novel, geothermal heat was used only occasionally for outdoor gardening and, a little later in the early twentieth century, for heating greenhouses. It was not until the 1970s, after the first oil crisis, that district heating systems were developed. See also Loftsdottir and Thorarinsdottir, Energy in Iceland, 2006.

¹⁶Circularity appears to be a common pattern in Verne's stories. Williams, citing Serres (in Jouvences sur Jules Verne, 1974), states that ‘the journey is always a circular one. To be repeated. Points and circles, nothing more than going and returning’ (Williams, Triumph of Human Empire, 2013, p. 112).

¹⁷Butcher (in “Long-Lost Manuscript,” 1998, pp. 968–971) has noted that an as-yet unpublished manuscript of Journey predating the first edition of 1864 presents a very different Lidenbrock, a professor who is at once less sympathetic to his nephew but also occasionally doubts his own knowledge and the feasibility of his plans to reach the center of the earth.

¹⁸Cf. Breyer and Butcher, “Nothing New under the Earth,” 2003 and Debus, “Re-framing the Science in Jules Verne's Journey to the Center of the Earth,” 2006.

¹⁹Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 88.

²⁰Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 164.

²¹Evans, Jules Verne Rediscovered, 1988, p. 136.

²²Chatelain and Slusser, “Creation of Scientific Wonder,” 2009.

²³Butcher, “Introduction,” 1992, p. xxiii.

²⁴Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 143.

²⁵This was at a drilling workshop on new methods for subsurface modeling in November 2013.

²⁶DeGunther, Alternative Energy for Dummies, 2009, p. 214.

²⁷Ferguson, Engineering and the Mind's Eye, 1992, p. 193. For further debate on relations between uncertainty, art and science in geothermal engineering, see also Gross and Mautz, Renewable Energies, 2015, pp. 66–81.

²⁸Cf. Crease, Play of Nature, 1993; Latour, “From Multiculturalism to Multinaturalism,” 2011; and Schwab, Experimental Systems, 2013.

²⁹Bloomquist, Lund, and Gehringer, “Geothermal Energy,” 2013, p. 253, emphasis added.

³⁰This quote is from an internal report that was handed to me confidentially and must therefore, like the interviews quoted from in this article, remain anonymous.

³¹Bloomquist, Lund, and Gehringer, “Geothermal Energy,” 2013, p. 266.

³²See, for instance, Huenges et al., “Geothermal Energy Systems,” 2013 and Kolditz et al., “Geothermal Energy,” 2013.

³³For the US Geothermal Energy Association, see, for example, http://geo-energy.org, for the Swiss Association of Geothermal Energy (Schweizerische Vereinigung für Geothermie, SVG), see http://www.geothermie.ch, the Federation of German Geothermal Energy (Bundesverband Geothermie, GtV-BV), see http://www.geothermie.de, and the British Geological Survey, see http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/energy/geothermal. When it comes to overall issues of coping with risks and insurance issues, Miethling (“Different but Similar,” 2011) has detected even more similarities between German, Icelandic and US geothermal policies despite their different geological prerequisites for geothermal electricity production – and despite the political, geological and economic differences in all three countries.

³⁴These and the following quotes are based on field notes and interviews conducted during excursions to drilling sites, geothermal energy workshops and meetings with decision-makers as part of social science research in Germany's Helmholtz Association.

³⁵Vienken et al., “Development of Exploration and Monitoring Strategies,” 2013.

³⁶Mukuhira et al., “Characteristics of Large-Magnitude Microseismic Events,” 2013.

³⁷Cf. Huang and Liu, “Geothermal Energy,” 2010.

³⁸Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 82.

³⁹Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 96.

⁴⁰Edgerton, Shock of the Old, 2007, p. 209.

⁴¹Research on so-called immutable mobiles, a term originally introduced by Bruno Latour (Science in Action, 1987) to refer to technologies that retain their overall shape but are moved and experimentally shaped to fit other contexts, has a long tradition in science and technology studies and related fields. Cf. Akrich, “Gazogene in Costa Rica,” 1993; Beisel and Schneider, “Provincialising Waste,” 2012; de Laet and Mol, “Zimbabwe Bush Pump,” 2000; and the examples collected in Edgerton, Shock of the Old, 2007.

⁴²Cf. Unwin, Jules Verne, 2005.

⁴³Cf. Finger and Blankenship, Handbook of Best Practices for Geothermal Drilling, 2010; Glassley, Geothermal Energy, 2010, pp. 135–152; and Sohmer, “Untersuchungen zur Anwendbarkeit des Phased Array Prinzips,” 2012.

⁴⁴Reich, Auf Jagd im Untergrund, 2009, pp. 134–135.

⁴⁵Finger and Blankenship, Handbook of Best Practices for Geothermal Drilling, 2010, p. 46.

⁴⁶Some of these issues are tackled with a new method called ‘Seismic Prediction While Drilling’, that is, attempts to look ahead of the drill bit via the application of a phased array technology. Cf. Jaksch et al., “Seismic Prediction While Drilling,” 2010 and Sohmer, Untersuchungen zur Anwendbarkeit des Phased Array Prinzips, 2012.

⁴⁷Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, pp. 106, 110, 111, 147.

⁴⁸Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 187.

⁴⁹Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 70.

⁵⁰Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 175.

⁵¹Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 213.

⁵²Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 146.

⁵³Petroski, To Forgive Design, 2012, p. 45.

⁵⁴Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 162.

⁵⁵For recent examples on studies on the strategic use of ignorance from various disciplinary perspectives, see Aradau and van Munster, Politics of Catastrophe, 2011; Bennett, Ignorance, 2009; Gaudet, “It Takes Two to Tango,” 2013; Gross, “Objective Culture,” 2012; Gross, “Self-knowledge, Gender Roles, and the Making of the Secret Gospels,” 2015; McGoey, Introduction to the Sociology of Ignorance, 2014; Rappert, How to Look Good in a War, 2012; Rescher, Ignorance, 2009; Townley, Defense of Ignorance, 2011; and Uekötter and Lübken, Managing the Unknown, 2014.

⁵⁶Evans, “Exploring the Limits,” 2005, p. 273.

⁵⁷Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 196.

⁵⁸Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, pp. 167, 178.

⁵⁹Already Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) described knowledge as a growing ball, which moves in a sea of ignorance. Thus, the observations in this article certainly also hold true for other areas of socio-technical exploration and engineering, but here I can only focus on geothermal engineering.

⁶⁰For studies on an increasing tendency to test research outside the sphere of science from a variety of perspectives, see, for example, Balmer, Secrecy and Science, 2012; Gross, Hoffmann-Riem, and Krohn, “Realexperimente,” 2003; Lemov, World as Laboratory, 2005; Levidow and Carr, GM Food on Trial, 2010; Oudshoorn and Pinch, How Users Matter, 2003; and Weyer, “Actor Networks and High Risk Technologies,” 1994.

⁶¹Heidbrink, “Nichtwissen und Verantwortung,” 2013.

⁶²Elster, Solomonic Judgements, 1989, p. 17; emphasis in original. See also Caplan, “Rational Ignorance Versus Rational Irrationality,” 2001.

⁶³Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth, 1992, p. 184.

⁶⁴Bernard, “Zukunft war Gestern,” 2013.

⁶⁵Cf. Evans, “Exploring the Limits,” 2005, p. 200.