If you were one of more than 1,500 professionals who packed the halls of the Peppermill Resort in Reno, Nevada for the 2025 Geothermal Rising Conference (GRC), you felt it. The energy was palpable, a kinetic buzz that went beyond the 85-plus exhibits and 250 technical presentations. It was the feeling of an industry hitting an inflection point. The GRC (www.geothermal.org) wasn’t only a conference; it was a milestone. It was the collective realization that geothermal is no longer a niche concept but a mainstream, explosive and essential pillar of our decarbonized future.

We, as an industry, have finally arrived.

However, as I walked the floor, speaking with colleagues, engineers and innovators, I was struck by a powerful thought. This entire event, this explosive growth, this multi-billion-dollar industry — do any of us truly know the rest of the story?

This entire industry, specifically the low-temperature geothermal heat pump (GHP) industry that we in the PHCP world inhabit, exists because of the vision and determination of one man.

We are all standing on the shoulders of a giant. We are living off the inheritance from the geothermal architect, the late Dr. James Bose.

A Wild West of an idea

To understand what Bose did, you must first understand what the industry was before him.

The concept of the heat pump is not new. Lord Kelvin proposed it in 1852. By the 1940s, U.S. pioneers such as Robert C. Webber and J.D. Kroeker had built functional ground-source systems. For decades, these were one-off “science projects.” They were custom-built, experimental and, most importantly, impossible to replicate at scale.

The industry was a Wild West of competing ideas with no common language. A contractor in Ohio had no equations, no standards and no software to install a system confidently. Every project was a new, expensive and risky invention. You couldn’t start a business, much less an industry, on that foundation.

The architect and his Rosetta stone

This is where Bose enters the story.

In the 1970s, as an engineering professor at Oklahoma State University (OSU), Bose tackled the core problem. He realized that for geothermal heat pumps to be viable, they had to be standardized. He provided the Rosetta stone that turned a concept into a profession.

For the trades and professionals reading this, Bose is the man who gave us the GHP trade.

He and his colleagues at OSU developed the foundational engineering equations that we all still use. They created the first loop design software. They field-tested and validated, turning GHP from a theoretical concept into an engineerable, bankable, and insurable technology.

However, Bose knew it wasn’t enough. An equation is useless if no one knows how to use it. In 1987, he founded the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHPA). This was his masterstroke. IGSHPA (www.igshpa.org) became the vehicle for teaching the standards, certifying installers and unifying the disparate players into a cohesive industry.

Bose didn’t only invent a product; he engineered a global solution. He provided the tools, the equations and the community. He was the architect.

The inheritance received: GRC 2025

Now, let’s return to the conference in Reno.

The entire GRC 2025 felt like a collective receiving of that inheritance. The momentum was undeniable, as confirmed by Geothermal Rising’s post-conference update. The record-breaking attendance and the co-branding agreement for our new Elsevier textbook, “Geothermal: Heat Pumps to Power,” all speak to a thriving industry.

The GRC was the industry looking in the mirror and seeing the powerful, legitimate force Bose always knew it could be.

The emotional and historical pinnacle of the entire event came at the awards ceremony. This year, Geothermal Rising established the inaugural Dr. Jim Bose Excellence in Heat Pumps Award, created to honor the groundbreaker.

As a member of the Geothermal Rising board, I had the distinct honor of presenting this award. And in its choice of the first recipient, the awards committee created a perfect, powerful symbol of our industry’s past, present and future.

The award was presented to Matthieu Simon, Celsius Energy’s CTO.

The significance of this cannot be overstated. Think about the narrative: We honored the man who solved our industry’s first great barrier — standardized design — by awarding it to one of the many who are tackling our next great barrier: standardized, innovative low-cost drilling.

Bose gave us the what — the standardized GHP system. Innovators such as Simon are giving us the how — the ability to deploy it affordably and at scale with innovative drilling technology.

This was the passing of the torch made manifest. It was a brilliant move, connecting our foundational history directly to the next generation of innovators. It was a statement that Bose’s legacy is not a museum piece; it is a living, breathing platform from which the next wave of innovation is being launched.

The future we inherited

This brings us to today. Because of Bose’s foundation, we are no longer an industry of single-family homes. We are tackling the largest and most complex decarbonization projects in the world.

When my firm, Egg Geo, consults on massive thermal energy networks (TENs) worldwide, we use Bose’s principles. When we analyze the complex loads for industrial food distribution centers, we stand on his shoulders. When we partner with industry leaders to decarbonize entire communities such as Penn South in New York City, we are building upon the foundation he laid.

We have inherited the tools, the equations and the community. The 2025 Geothermal Rising Conference was the moment our industry, in honoring its architect, collectively inherited that legacy and pledged to build a future worthy of it.

So, congratulations to Matthieu Simon and Celsius Energy, and so many others, for their great accomplishments. However, let us also congratulate all the other innovators: the engineers running 8760 load models, the hydrogeologists siting wells, the contractors pulling pipe and the manufacturers building more efficient heat pumps.

We are all the beneficiaries of Dr. Bose’s inheritance. The GRC proved that we are finally ready to put it to work.

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