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In this episode, you’ll hear:
- How Dr. Wisian used his passions to pave the way for a exciting and fulfilling career
- Dr. Wisian’s training as an Air Force navigator
- Trilling highlights from Dr. Wisian career as a Air Force navigator
- What Geothermal has to do with space
- Dr. Wisian’s interest and research in geothermal energy
Dr. Ken Wisian is the Associate Director of the Bureau of Economic Geology’s Environmental Division at the University of Texas at Austin, where he administers environmental research and does his own research in geothermal energy.
His interests in science fiction and military history sparked from a young age. His entire career has been a story of “following up on those two love interests”. Following up those interests have also been what has kept him excited and fulfilled in his career.
Dr. Wisian started his career off as an undergraduate at UT Austin where he participated in the ROTC for the Air Force and earned his degree in Physics. After graduating from UT, Dr. Wisian joined the US Air Force as navigator. During this time, Dr. Wisian flew in any aircraft he could get his hands on, and recounts some visceral times in the cockpit. He is a self-proclaimed “new experience junkie” rather than an adrenaline junkie.
Dr. Wisian earned his PhD in Geophysics at SMU. He is currently interested in changing the energy picture by using geothermal energy from anywhere in the world. He explains how advances in technology in oil and gas and drilling have come together to make putting in zero-carbon geothermal energy a real possibility.
To learn more about Dr. Ken Wisian’s inspiring story and the power of geothermal energy, listen to the full podcast episode above or read the transcript below.
Host: Dan Dillard
Guest: Kenneth Wisian
Transcript:
Dan Dillard: This is a founding media podcast.
Dan: Welcome back to Masters and Founders. I’m your host, Dan Dillard. This podcast was created to focus on both masters and founders, the many paths they’ve taken in their careers and lives, and the many ways they define success. My guest today has certainly carved out his own path and he’s done so by always following his passions
Dan: Dr. Ken Wisian started his career as a US Air Force navigator, a path which took him through flight test school and six tours of combat duty before he retired his major general. Along the way he earned a PhD in geophysics and he now works at UT Austin serving as the associate director of the bureau of economics geology’s environmental division. In our chat, Ken shares how his childhood love of military history and science fiction were the seeds that ultimately grew into a fascinating career. He takes us through his time as an Air Force navigator, some of his most exciting moments in flight test school, and the work he now does as an environmental researcher. Ken has a particular interest in geothermal energy and he explains how it works, why it’s a great renewable energy source and what the heck it has to do with space.
Dan: The episode explores the value of new experiences and the importance of loving what you do. So buckle up, get ready for takeoff. And let’s get into my conversation with Ken.
Dan: Ken, thanks for being on the show.
Dr. Kenneth Wisian : My pleasure.
Dan: Beautiful day in Austin. Thank you to ibble for these wonderful studios. This is a great place to do some recording. Really wanted to get into our conversation, we picked up a over coffee last week or a couple weeks ago. I was just so intrigued by what you’re doing, the various things you’ve done, throughout your career, what you’re doing now. And so I like to just start off by, you know, let’s just tell the audience what you do now.
Ken: I am a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin at the bureau of economic geology, which is a research organization. It’s also the state geologic survey. And it’s actually the oldest research arm of the university. Okay. So it’s been around for a long time. I joined it about two years. I administer all the environmental research and then I do my own research in geothermal energy.
Dan: Yeah. I want to get into geothermal energy, but why is geothermal something so important to you?
Ken: I’ve had an, well, actually the first way I got interested in it. I’ve got degrees in physics and geology. I wanted to get my PhD. I wanted to combine those into geophysics, which I did. And I’m not a terribly good mathematician. But mathematics of fluid and heat flow are the same and they’re kind of elegant and that’s what first got me into it. And then the fact that it’s a green renewable zero carbon energy source kind of kept me going on it once I kind of started to get into it. And the research end, I like. It’s interesting. It’s diverse. It’s geology. And you’re not always in an office. Some of it, you have to get outdoors and do field work log wells and such. And I just like that mixture of things.
Dan: I want to get into the research that you’re doing now. But before we do that, I really want to, you know, Masters and Founders is all about following your passion. And so when we were chatting about your career, I find it super fascinating, but the thing that intrigued me the most is becoming a master at your craft and just kind of following your passion.
Dan: So I want to go back to. The start of your career and you’ve got some, your Air Force. I’ll let you, I’ll let you start with your training.
Ken: Okay. Well, let me back up a little bit first. Growing up, I was a voracious reader and I read typically military history and science fiction.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: And those really set the path for me, even as a, you know, a teenager. And I’ve just gone back and forth between executing and following up on those two loves the whole time. So here at University of Texas, I was, I’m an undergraduate from here, I was a physics major. I was in ROTC for the Air Force and I was slated to be a scientist in the Air Force.
Ken: And my senior year, I finally said, “no, I gotta fly”. And so I switched over, I was already wearing glasses. So I couldn’t be a pilot at that time. They didn’t have corrective eye surgery back then. So I got a navigator position and went into that once I graduated from UT.
Dan: What would that allow you to do though?
Ken: Okay, so after graduation, about two years of training. All of it was out in California. So navigator school, then navigator Baader school, and then B 52 school, which was the first aircraft I started off in as a navigator Baader. I flew those for about seven years.
Ken: I was stationed at Barksdale in Louisiana and, uh, fun mission, horribly unpleasant aircraft to fly. I mean, it’s a vulnerable. They’re still around the ones I were flying were older than me. Those are all now in museums. But even the ones that are still flying are older than the people flying and we have easily, I think third generation people flying B52s now
Dan: Wow. Wow.
Ken: And frankly, they kind of smell like it too. I mean, these are, they’re built in the early 60’s so…
Dan: Okay. They’ve been around.
Ken: They’ve been around. They’re bought and paid for. That’s why they’re so, so good.
Dan: So some of the things they were really fascinated about our conversation was that this path not only allowed you to fly those, but you’ve been able to like as a navigator
Ken: mm-hmm
Dan: So talk about that.
Ken: This is where things kind of come together and I’ll also back up and say, I never really had a career plan. I knew I liked the military. I knew I liked science. I did vaguely have a plan that I eventually wanted to get my PhD, but other than. I always just focused on doing the job I was in and doors of opportunity open for me right now.
Ken: Some people couldn’t stand to go through life without a plan, but that’s the way I did it. But it really worked out good that physics degree. And then I picked up a master’s in geology, in Louisiana at Centry while I was on duty with B-52s and having a physics degree, a science master’s and being a good flyer. I wasn’t the best, but I was good. Got me into test pilot school as a navigator. Which was a real blast. That’s where you got to fly everything in the Air Force. Anything you could lay your hands on. I remember my very first flight. It’s the first time I’d flown an aircraft with a canopy for a long time, because in B-52 I was downstairs with no window for seven years.
Ken: Oh wow.
Ken: So I, I remember my face almost hurt from smiling so much. The first time I flew up in a little fighter, with a French pilot who was in my class, in the front seat. Uh, very international flavor. So I got to do all kinds of things there from flying fighters to gliders to C-130s helicopters.
Ken: Just, you name it. Everything you can lay your hands on. And often with just at most of days notice sometimes less. So, you know, you might be told in the morning, “Hey, you’re gonna fly an F four in the afternoon”. Well, you run back to the tech order library, make sure you know how to work the ejection seat. And then you fly.
Dan: The most important piece.
Ken: The most important piece. Yes. Yes. And then once you’re graduated the patch that you wear entitles you to fly any aircraft without instruction. Now as a navigator, doesn’t matter, cause I’m not gonna be flying and I’m gonna be the guy in the back seat.
Dan: Right.
Ken: But still it, short of astronaut, which at test pod school is kind of also astronaut lead in, or it used to be, uh, it’s about as the most exciting thing you can do in the military.
Dan: That is so cool. So describe for me what a navigator does. I mean, I assume, you know, tell the pilot where you’re going, but.
Ken: Well, it’s changed a lot too. I was told when I first came in and this was in ’82, when I got my commission. “You know, navigator’s gonna be obsolete, you know, in year, in a few years, you’re not gonna have a career”. Well, they’re still in. They have been gradually replaced by black boxes in a lot of aircraft.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: But where you need specialized knowledge and you need another brain in the cockpit to do everything they’re still around. So when it started, I really was genuinely a navigator. You would pencil and paper, uh, compass you would call what’s called dead reckoning, your chart. You’d look on a radar scope to correct yourself.
Ken: I shot celestial navigation legs. Every time I flew. So,
Dan: What does that mean?
Ken: I was the last, one of the last, generations to actually learn how to navigate with the stars
and son.
Dan: Oh wow.
Ken: Which I still feel privileged about it. It’s a unique skill to have. So you do that, uh, you’re back up on the bomb, run to the bombardier then you upgrade to that.
Ken: So it’s like going from copilot to pilot, you go from navigator to, it’s called radar navigator, but it’s the bombadier and a bomber. And so, yeah, you’re navigating, you’re in charge of the weapons, um, all that kind of stuff.
Dan: What was the most exciting, uh, you have or fun trip that you had or exciting trip that might be two different things there.
Ken: Well, if you’re talking just B-52s there wasn’t much, because that was during the cold war, they didn’t let you out of the country very much with a nuclear capable bomber.
Dan: Yeah.
Ken: Uh, we would deploy to England every, about every, year or two years for a few weeks. That was always fun to, to get out and do something different.
Ken: Now, later on, after I went through test pilot school I tested C-130 gunships and talents, a lot of fun when you’re flying, but a lot of overhead for every hour you fly. But firing cannons out of a C-130, out of an aircraft is an interesting experience. Some of the low level testing I did was quite interesting.
Ken: And then I left active duty to get my PhD. I cross referenced that with where there were guard reserve flying units I could keep going with. Ended up here in Texas flying C-130s, and there got to travel all over the world. South America. Lot of Europe along with three wars, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Dan: Oh, so you were in the…
Ken: So I did all three of my wars, and that’s about six combat tours, as a national guardsman. I never had combat as an active duty officer, even in bombers.
Dan: Wow. Yeah. You were saying that the other day. And I thought that was interesting. That’s the way it normally is though. Right? Most of the time?
Ken: It’s uh, well, it varies. My timing just happened to be that, just when I went to test pilot school was the first Gulf war. So I was out of a combat line. Otherwise, I would’ve been probably the lead bombardier going in.
Dan: Got it.
Ken: So I missed that one. Uh, and then after flying in the test world for a few years, I was really looking at probably having to fly a desk for the next ten. Because there wasn’t new stuff coming down for a navigator to be a test part of. Okay. So that’s when I started saying, well, I’ve been wanting to get my PhD, I’ll leave active duty and I’ll go do, uh, something else. So I switched over and, uh, and did that. What was your original question? I started rambling there and got lost.
Dan: Well, you mentioned that you actually participated in,..
Ken: Oh yeah.
Dan: You weren’t in active duty. You actually, it was a reserve.
Ken: And so as a guardsman, which is like the reserves, but. Well, the guard reserve together are pretty substantial chunk of the Air Force’s combat power. So everything that happens has guard reserve in it. You just don’t notice it because it just says Air Force on the patch. But yeah, while I was working on my PhD at SMU, during the summer, several times I went and participated in the Bosnian war. You know, you just go for a few weeks. What did you do on your summer vacation? Well, I went to war for a little bit.
Ken: Uh, bearing in mind, I’ve got a caveat this, I having been in multiple wars now. All credit to the guys and gals on the ground. One lesson I’ve really learned hard, is it’s a lot better in the modern battlefield to be flying over the battlefield than to be on the battlefield.
Dan: Right. Right.
Ken: So I don’t take for granted that, you know, the worst combat mission I had, would’ve been considered a milk run in World War II.
Dan: Wow.
Ken: Uh, so anyway, yeah. Bosnia, and then iraq for the beginning of the second Iraq war Afghanistan, a couple of times. Yep.
Dan: The danger that you felt while you were, while you were during the war getting shot at, or that
Ken: Uh, not all that much. Danger, I didn’t feel too much. Now, all my physical combat time is in slick C-130s unarmed transports.
Ken: You also didn’t have good vision out there. So if it’s daytime, you often wouldn’t even know if you’re being shot at till holes appeared in the aircraft.
Dan: Oh wow.
Ken: Which never happened to me.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: Um, at night when you’re flying with night vision goggles. Yeah, you can see anyone shooting for 10 miles around, you understand the threats.
Ken: I never felt a direct threat. Before my first combat mission, I was a little bit nervous. You know, not knowing what to expect. Once you’re at the aircraft, you open up your checklist, you’re starting to do the stuff that you’re trained for all that goes out your head.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: Don’t even notice it. And from then on, you’re just immersed in the mission. It’s busy, you’re doing your stuff. So, I didn’t feel that.
Dan: You didn’t worry about the fears. Yeah.
Ken: Again, the air war for the US people has not been a huge threat. If you’re flying helicopters, it’s significantly more. If you’re flying fighters, it’s significantly less than C-130s, because we’re flying low and slow. We do airdrops. Fighters are up high. Uh, they shoot back. We don’t. So, uh, we did have some of our C-130s get shot up a little bit or mortared, but fortunately no one hurt from our unit.
Dan: Yeah. That’s, it’s always interesting to hear just the perspective of someone’s life. Like what, what you actually have gone through.
Dan: As far as most interesting, like most interesting aircraft that you’ve been in, or fastest.
Ken: Wow, there’s all kinds of things. I mean, some of the highlights I, that really stick in my mind was my first time flying gliders in the Sierra Nevadas. That was part of test pilot school. Another one was the one time I’ve been at mock two was in a real strip down F4 fighter. They’re all retired now. But an F4 Phantom just zipping over the top of Edward’s Air Force base in California with a future astronaut in the front seat. And just having a blast. I can also remember rat racing through the Sierra Nevadas in a pair of F4s. So you’re just zipping through the valleys in 450 knots. You crest a Ridge and you roll over on your back and then you pull hard at the ground to get back down low. And that’s an odd feeling to look up and feel the GS as you’re pulling towards the ground. So those experiences, uh, flying a helicopter for the first time in Canada with, uh, Canadian forces. A lot of interesting memories.
Ken: F-16 uh, doing a max performance takeoff. So you take off, you stay right above the runway. You bring up the gear, you keep the burn after burner in, by the end of the runway. I don’t remember it’s so long ago, but I think we’re at 400 or 450 knots. You pull straight up. And a few minutes later, you roll out on your back at 40,000 feet.
Dan: Wow.
Ken: I mean, it’s just an elevator ride, like or a rollercoaster ride, like nothing else. So yeah, there’s a lot of visceral fun things that come from a 30 years in the cockpit.
Dan: Yeah. That’s really cool. I always love hearing those experiences. Cause it’s just, you see a lot this in the movies and you’re like talking to somebody like, oh wow, that’s really cool.
Ken: And I will say, I don’t think I’m an adrenaline junkie, but I am a new experience junkie.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: I love new experiences, new learning. I haven’t, I never picked up a pilot’s license. I have no desire to fly a Cessna around or anything like that. Maybe I got spoiled. I don’t know.
Dan: You’ve been there, done that.
Ken: It’s fun to play.
Dan: I would. Yeah. I’d imagine after the experiences that you’ve had flying Cessna would be kind of boring.
Ken: You can make it fun. It may not be wise, but you can make it fun or exciting.
Dan: Yeah. Let’s talk about the other side of your life. So that was, that was the military part. Let’s talk about the your interest in the sciences and geo Thermo. And some, one of the things that fascinated me is the research you’re doing now. And you said your interest was in space
Ken: mm-hmm
Dan: and I was like, wow. Tell me about that.
Ken: Well, again, first I’ll trace it back to being a science fiction nerd. And I still read science fiction on a regular basis. so I’ve always been interested in space. When I first was going to college, I was thinking about being an astronomer, until I realized one, I’m I’m you really have to be a, a really hardcore physicist there aren’t really astronomers.
Ken: There’s only astrophysicist nowadays. I’m not that good at mathematician. Plus the overproduction of astronomers is fierce. Nowadays, it’s been a few years since I’ve looked at the stats. But not that many astrophysicists actually work in university research positions, a lot of the quants in finance are astrophysicists or physicists.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: They’re in other areas. So anyway, I love astronomy. I’m an amateur astronomer. I’ve got several telescopes. I like my field of geothermal research. And like I have a couple of times I kind of bridge the two aspects of my love interest, so to speak. And realized, well, wait a minute, there’s a lot of potential.
Ken: We need energy sources on the planetary bodies. We go to whether it’s the moon, Mars, the icy moons of the outer solar system. And the only ways we do it right now are solar, which decreases dramatically as you go outward from the earth. By the time you get to Jupiter, it’s one 25th is strong. Or nuclear power, atomic pile, so to speak, and those have their own problems.
Ken: Plus they’re heavy. So, what else could we do for power? And I thought, well, geothermal might work. And there are very different scenarios that I think look promising on the moon and in the icy moons, Mars, I’m not convinced of yet, um, not much tectonic activity, although maybe a little bit. But the moon has some potential around the polar regions where you can get a real high temperature differential, what you need to generate power off geothermal energy you’re really off any energy is just a good temperature difference between two areas, your source and your sink, preferably not over a huge distance apart. On the icy moons in the outer should system, you have that because you have basically a minus 200 degrees C surface, you have an ice crust anywhere from a few miles to a hundred kilometers thick. And then below that you have probably salty oceans somewhere near zero degrees. So a 200 degree sea difference there.
Dan: Got it.
Ken: Okay. That’s exploitable. Okay. You can generate energy with thermal couples off that, or you could do a more conventional system. On the moon, you can get a similar situation, I think. And I still need to research this a little more, but craters around the poles. At the poles we found that there’s water in the bottom of the craters. Those craters are perpetually dark. The sun never shines on ’em and some water has frozen out and accumulated there. Well, the lip of those craters has a dark side that’s always very cold and half the time has the other side of the lip of the crater facing the sun and very hot.
Dan: Wow.
Ken: So theoretically, you could bridge that cold and hot and generate some power that way. So I’m interested. I need to find some the right avenue of funding from NASA to actually start researching that and write it up. But, uh.
Dan: Love of science fiction you never know where it takes you.
Ken: True. And another thing I’d published couple years ago that I actually did write up and publish is one of the plot elements of a possible series that’s trying to develop right now, a science fiction series.
Dan: Oh okay.
Ken: So I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that. That’d be another cool experience.
Dan: Yeah. Just to be able be part of that.
Ken: Just to be a technical consultant on something like that.
Dan: That’s so cool. Well we talked about the geothermal energy in space. But you’ve also mentioned that you do some of that consulting work here on Earth. So let’s talk a little bit about that and the renewable sources and how that differentiates from solar and wind and that kinda stuff.
Ken: Okay. Uh, great area. Stop me in an hour or two. But the Earth has a lot of heat in it. The core of the Earth is about the same temperatures, the surface of the Sun. But it’s a lot closer to us. There’s a continual 44 terawatts flowing out of the Earth from the core. Sounds like a lot, but it’s actually not all that much compared to how much is stored in the crust of the earth.
Ken: At least a couple of thousand years worth of our energy needs is stored as heat in the rocks. The rocks are great batteries of heat. Geothermal power using hot water in the ground, usually near volcanoes or something has been exploited as a power source for about a hundred years. In the US for, since the sixties or maybe a little earlier. If you want to go back to using it for hot Springs and baths and stuff goes back thousands of years.
Dan: Wow. Yeah.
Ken: So it’s a resource that we’ve been using for a long time and the US actually generates more geothermal power than any other country in the world. But we use so much power that’s less than half percent of our grid. In some countries it’s half their energy production.
Ken: So it’s a mature technology in one aspect, but you have to go where mother nature concentrates the resource right now, volcanoes ,earthquake zones, that kind of stuff. Advances in both oil and gas, tech drilling technology and conversion of heat to power technology have really come together in the last couple of years.
Ken: To where I think we’re on the cusp of revolution that will allow us to do geothermal anywhere, and that could really change the energy picture. So that’s why I’m motivated and in it now.
Dan: So is that just like drilling or is that just what kind of technology?
Ken: That would be drilling. So for instance, I do have an Air Force funded project that’s in the detailed design phase to put in a three megawat geothermal plant on a military base called Ellington field on the south side of Houston. Actually inside the Houston city limits.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: If we can make it all the way to drilling and that’s pairing my university up with a startup it’s a unique form of military funding that requires a startup and a university together.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: But if everything stays on track, we could have that up and running in well, less than two years. But,
Dan: To generate power?
Ken: To generate power three megawats or so of electricity on a 24/ 7 basis. That’s another nice thing about geothermal.
Dan: We’re talking about megawatts, like what’s is that?
Ken: Well, uh, gosh, let me think, uh.
Dan: For the audience to kinda understand.
Ken: That would be that a few thousand households.
Dan: Okay.
Ken: Or in this case it’s a small military base.
Dan: Got it.
Ken: A 200 acre base in on the south side. It has up to 5,000 guard reservists assigned to it. It’s also adjacent to NASA. So that’s where NASA flies their airplanes in and out of. So Ellington field. So yeah, three megawatts is a small town, a military base, something like that.
Ken: This is a proof of concept. So this would be essentially a prototype. You can scale it up a lot. Rough modeling shows you probably get about three megawatts per well. You could drill multiple wells in an area, within limits. So that you could get up to maybe 10, 20, 30, megawatts in a relatively small area. You’re having to drill -I always think in kilometers- five kilometers. So about three miles down in the Houston’s setting. Depends on where you are geologically, you might have to drill 10 kilometers. You might not only need to drill one or two to get to the level of temperatures you need to generate power. And you do this by -instead of a mother nature engineering or designing a flow system with hot water- you do your own. That’s what enables you to do it anywhere. So you drill, there’s a variety of schemes, one well, two wells, but you circulate some fluid at depth extract the heat, bring it up the surface and run it through a turbine. Pretty simple concept’s been used for ages.
Ken: That’s the basic idea. It’s just, the technology has really come together in only the last few years to make this happen. And there’s multiple startups launching projects around north America in particular, but other parts of the world too. And so within a couple of years, we’re gonna have real good clarity, I think, on what works or what doesn’t.
Ken: And frankly, if even one of the methods works, I think it’s off to the races on putting in zero carbon geothermal energy.
Dan: Renewable? Or how long does that well last or what does that look like?
Ken: Renewable by most definitions. You are technically mining heat, but at a very slow rate. So a typical place when you set up your system, you’ll get a peak amount of heat out and then that’ll follow kind of an exponential decline over time. So you’ll level out pretty much, depending on the scale of your system in a variety of other things in a few years or so, and to a pretty constant level and a well managed system can last essentially indefinitely. Again, the oldest one operating in the world is Larderello, Italy. It’s been running for over a hundred years. The Geysers in California is the largest one in the US. That’s a massive plant, 800 plus megawatts. After some problematic management in the ’70’s and ’80’s that are on a good track now. And so it’s steady state, as long as you manage it well, it’ll keep going. So renewable for at least hundreds of years, if not longer and a great bridge until we can figure out fusion. Which would be my ultimate hope is that we can figure out fusion.
Dan: That would be really cool too. What’s the difference between that, when you’re looking at renewables, between that and like solar or wind.
Ken: Fair question they are both renewables. The key overriding difference is that geothermal is always on. And so it’s base load. It’s your 24 7 power source. Pretty steady state. To some extent you can even make it dilatable. So load following is the term, so you can make it match your needs. Wind and solar are great, but they depend on wind and the sun.
Ken: So they’re not 24 7, and that’s starting to dawn on for instance, power companies and such. So for instance, no matter, and I love wind and solar, no matter how much wind and solar you install you can’t decommission any old plants because you gotta keep ’em on standby for when there isn’t wind sun.
Dan: Right.
Ken: With geothermal, you can then decommission old stuff. So another study I’m proposing to do real soon is can we use decommissioned coal plant sites for geothermal and get an advantage of the sunk infrastructure that’s already there. So it might be an, I love when you can turn these fossil fuel -either skill sets or facilities or whatever- into a nice green renewable. And, you know, the oil and gas industry, they don’t have the best PR, but their skillset transfers 80 to 90% right into doing geothermal.
Dan: Nice.
Ken: So you can turn it from being a fossil fuel to a green source.
Dan: Wow. I hadn’t even thought about that, but that would be really cool.
Ken: And all the major companies are really watching the subject closely. They’ve all formed teams that are monitoring and looking at what, how they can get into it and that kind of stuff.
Dan: You mentioned startups. Are you seeing more startups in this area?
Ken: The leading edge right now does rest in the startup world.
Dan: Yeah.
Ken: With some support from the academic community. In fact, there’s a couple of spinoffs out of UT related to geothermal energy, from faculty and research scientists. But there’s a handful of startups that are really leading the charge right now, that have variations in their own ideas on just exactly how you extract the heat. There are different mining ideas, different ways you drill the wells or create fractures to flow or drill a complex radiator pattern in the ground. So they’re all moving ahead. They’ll all, they either have quite recently or will soon test drill to kind of, everybody has great models.
Dan: Mm. Right.
Ken: Everybody can do a good, just like anybody can do great statistics.
Dan: Right.
Ken: So you gotta prove it. And we’re seeing that start to happen now and over the next two years or so.
Dan: Nice. Very nice. Sounds like you have had quite the interesting career. And also there’s quite the interesting future in this space. So rounding this all the way around back to the Masters and Founders podcast, I want to ask, you know, what’s the secret for your career? When you look back do you have any regrets? Or just, you know, you said you didn’t have a path earlier?
Ken: Well, no I didn’t. That’s an interesting question. I would gladly start and do it all over again. Uh, the only regret I have is on a personal side, while I was doing my PhD, I was a single parent for most of that time and flying for the guard and I really should have rebalanced a little bit more for my daughter. That’s really the only thing I would change.
Ken: Uh, it’s been fun. Exciting. I mean, we were talking beforehand. I’ve gone from one low paying career field to another, money is obviously not my driver. I like contributing to knowledge. I like learning new things, experiencing new things. And I’ve been able to do that. Even in the military I’ve turned down jobs, which is a pretty rare thing. But, it never hurt me. But I turned down things because, you know, I just didn’t think it was, I would like it enough to be good at it.
Dan: Right.
Ken: The one thing I found is, I really think you gotta love what you do. Because otherwise you won’t work hard enough at it to be good.
Dan: Bingo.
Ken: And I’ve known a lot of people that are do a, they’re in a career that they think they should be in, but they’re miserable.
Dan: Yeah.
Ken: I haven’t had that. I’ve really had a good ride and it’s been a lot of fun.
Dan: Well, and I enjoyed that aspect and that’s inspiring because I think more people just need to hear that message. It’s like, just follow what makes you happy inside. And things will work out, and you won’t have the regrets.
Ken: They generally will. You know, there’s randomness to it too. You can’t avoid that, but I respect someone who does anything they do with enthusiasm and love. You know, I’m not that good with my hands, but I really admire a good word working.
Ken: I’ve I’m not a terribly good writer. I really admire good authors. People who can write. I thought I knew how to write, having done a PhD and all. And then I went to the Army War College where I had to write more general stuff and found out I’m not that good, a writer.
Dan: It’s humbling to know that after a while you’re like, oh, that’s not my that’s my thing.
Ken: I can write a science article, but I’m not as good at writing a general piece on anything.
Dan: Well, everybody’s got their gift, you know, at the end of the day. And it’s, as long as you finding what that gift is and follow that path. I think that you’re on the right path.
Dan: Well, thank you very much for joining me today. I really enjoy the conversation. Look forward to checking in on you and figuring out what’s going on in the future with geothermal.
Ken: It’s been a pleasure. Really enjoyed it. Thank you very much.
Dan: Thank you so much, Ken, for joining Masters and Founders. It’s amazing to learn about non-traditional paths to mastery and success and the value of following what interests you and what you’re passionate about. I think Ken said it best when he said you have to love what you do otherwise you won’t work hard enough to be good at it. Wise words to live by. And thank you, listener for tuning into Masters and Founders today. To learn more about how podcasting can help your. Visit [email protected]. If you enjoy this podcast, don’t forget to subscribe and tell a friend. See you next time.
