Originally posted on Forbes

Paris Smalls, Co-Founder of Eden

You've heard of the hydraulic fracturing of shale oil wells using high-pressure blasts of water. Well, a startup from MIT and GreenTown Labs called Eden GeoTech is developing a new ways to fracture reservoir rock — using pulsed electric stimulation instead. The idea is to insert electrodes down inside a well drilled into a reservoir, then heating up the rock with electric pulses that according to founder Paris Smalls, induces thermal stresses and micro fractures through which oil can flow. The tech could save millions of gallons of water per well according to Smalls, who also sees applications in geothermal power development.