This blog is written by Roelf van Til is a film-maker based in the Netherlands. As a professional journalist, in 2005 he decided to exclusively focus on renewable and low-carbon energy after recognizing the impact of climate change. Roelf’s company, New Energy TV, has made several films with geoscientists, entrepreneurs and policy makers, focussing on geothermal heat. When not making and editing films, Roelf likes to go for large walks while listening to podcasts and news programs.
Geoscience is a difficult area for filmmakers. Although this interesting branch of science can make an important contribution to solving the climate crisis and a difference in the energy transition, one always questions: which pictures can we shoot? Point the camera down and all you see is your own muddy shoes. The promise the underground holds for humanity remains largely invisible to the eye.
Last year, as a filmmaker, I was able to meet Hadi Hajibeygi, assistant professor at the TU Delft Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, to discuss underground hydrogen storage. Hadi is researching the properties of underground rock formations, to see whether they are suitable for large-scale hydrogen gas storage. We are talking about spaces within the subsurface that are large enough to host an Eiffel Tower. That certainly appeals to the imagination, but how can we portray such a topic on camera in the Netherlands? Should we travel to South Limburg and visit one of the scarce caves? Or go to a beautiful quarry in the east of the country? In the end, we opted for a studio recording with a green screen, filling in the image afterwards with video material of a colossal cave. At our request, Hadi – on the floor – showed with wide arm movements how immense the size of the cave was.
It wasn’t ideal.
Ideally, we would descend into the depths with a few engineers, looking around a vast cavern left behind where a dome of solid salt once dwelled*, with a bright lamp on my helmet, projecting echoes with your voice. In such domes green hydrogen can be stored: backup energy produced by huge offshore wind farms.
Ideally, we would explore in a large empty gas field, miles below the seabed, where carbon dioxide from nearby industrial areas can be captured and stored.
Ideally, we’d want to drive a microcamera with sensors down into a borehole, showing the diamond nose of the drill fighting its way through the increasingly hot Earth’s crust, to help tell the story of ultra deep geothermal energy.
But we make do with what we can, even if it is not ideal!
For another film project for the Geoscience and Geoenergy Webinars I found myself in a variety of landscapes; first, with Professor Sebastian Geiger roaming over a striking volcanic landscape in Scotland to talk about the potential of geothermal energy. Days later I tried to keep up with Dr Jen Roberts from the Geoscience for the Future team, walking on swampy forest tracks north of Edinburgh to an abandoned mine shaft, where she demonstrated her new gas analyzer. Then, on the University of Manchester campus I posed with Professor Christopher Jackson in front of a 20-ton lump of volcanic rock, brought there during the last ice age by glaciers coming from the Lake District. Later, Professor Michael Stephenson took me through the tall grass near Nottinghamshire to look for the best spot with a view on the energy of the past: England’s largest coal-fired power station. All of this was to ensure that the geoscience topics we were discussing were as accessible as possible to the general public.
It’s always a lot of fun to jump in the car with your camera and hunt for beautiful pictures, as we often do. Using drones to film solar parks, or recording interesting experiments in labs. For my own site New Energy TV I hung in a helicopter above wind turbines at sea! But of course, in the end it is the personal perspectives that provide very much inspiration. When people talk enthusiastically about their job, then it’s simply the spark in the eye that does it!
That’s what we felt a few months ago when Jen Roberts walked through that small forest, noting the trees, the birdsong… the gas analyser kit!
“A lot of my fieldwork around the world has been looking like this, in this sort of environment, always quite swampy, always surrounded by trees and birdsong, and then carrying around something like this: a gas analysis kit.”
Dr. Jen Roberts
As well as live film projects such as this, animations can bring geoscience to life, providing visuals to better understand important geoscience and geoenergy projects. Fortunately, simple animations are often available for everyone (google “Plate Tectonics animation” and see for yourself!). Educators and students often make use of such cartoons in their work. Regular visitors to the Geoscience and Geoenergy Webinars see them almost every week.
High quality 3D video animations provide insight into the structure, riches and secrets of the earth’s crust. Professional video makers, however, rarely have the budget available for such polished 3D videos. A fairly recent production for Cockrell School shows the visual power of such a film demonstrating a deep geothermal well; and this Introduction to Plate Tectonics by Frank Gregorio is very inspiring too!
In the next decades viewers will probably increasingly be taken into the invisible world deep beneath our feet by means of animation and virtual reality techniques, visiting the world that offers enough thermal power to heat a large part of the built environment. This will be highly beneficial to geoscientists, making their field more accessible and engaging to the general public. The digital revolution will provide geoscientists with the visual tools needed to attract a new and more diverse generation of young professionals, and subsequently lobby for bigger investments in geoenergy.