New Zealand’s Geoheat Revolution: How Earth Sciences New Zealand and Ara Ake Are Reshaping the Future of Low-Carbon Heat New Zealand is quietly positioning itself at the forefront of one of the most underappreciated but transformative energy transitions in the world: the large-scale adoption of geoheat. While global attention often gravitates toward geothermal electricity, hydrogen, or solar megaprojects, a more immediate and highly practical revolution is unfolding beneath the surface—direct-use geothermal heat under 150°C, now being systematically developed through a coordinated national strategy. The recently released 2026–2027 Geoheat Action Plan marks a pivotal moment in this journey. Developed through a partnership between Earth Sciences New Zealand and Ara Ake, the country’s energy innovation centre, the plan represents a structured attempt to move geoheat from scattered pilot projects into a coordinated, scalable national system. It is not just a research document—it is a depl...
Imagine a group of scientists flying drones over a nuclear research center, equipped with cutting-edge technology to identify and measure the radiation being emitted from a plume source. The CNL-SCK-CEN team with their drone at Mol (Image: CNL) The team has successfully tested a new, precise measurement technique that could be invaluable to emergency response teams during an accident. But that's not all - these drones are part of a groundbreaking research project funded by the Energy Transition Fund of the FPS Economy, aimed at developing unmanned aircraft with scintillation counters that can carry out radiological measurements without any human intervention. This futuristic technology is being fine-tuned at the Mol site of Belgium's Nuclear Research Centre, and the results are promising. During the tests, the drones successfully identified the radioactive source, qualified and quantified the radiation, and produced a special visualization of the contamination. This technolog...