Julian McDowell

Geothermal Team Lead

[email protected]

Julian McDowell is the Geothermal Team Lead at ResFrac, where he drives the company’s geothermal strategy—leading simulation and technical studies, growing ResFrac’s geothermal service offerings, and delivering training to clients and internal teams.

Julian brings a background in geothermal reservoir engineering and geoscience, with over 19 years of experience across consulting and operations roles spanning the US, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines, East Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Prior to joining ResFrac, Julian was the geothermal resources market lead for Jacobs in North America, where he developed his expertise in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), including technical due diligence and well testing support projects. Earlier, at Contact Energy in New Zealand, he served as modeling lead for the company’s 400+ MWe portfolio of hydrothermal generation assets and reservoir development lead for the 172 MWe Tauhara project. His exposure to a wide range of geothermal resources at every stage of assessment, development, and management has given him a valuable perspective on what it takes to move prospects through assessment and development gates to project execution and operation.

Julian earned a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Trinity College Dublin, a Master of Science in Applied Environmental Geology from Cardiff University, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Geothermal Energy Technology from the University of Auckland.

Julian is a husband and father of two, a keen downhill mountain biker, a “functional” skier, and an occasional tennis player. A planned career break years ago took him to Italy, where he learned the language and has kept it up ever since.

Julian's posts

Abstract illustration with multiple outlined maps over a green-to-yellow gradient and light beams.

The influence of well configuration on water loss in Enhanced Geothermal Systems

Recently, ‘water loss’ has been a hot topic of discussion for EGS. Fervo reported that they have been producing only 70% of the fluid volumes that they have been injecting at their Project Red. The FORGE project reported a roughly 10% water loss rate. Because projects will have finite water rights, these results have led to concern that growth of EGS will be limited by excessive water consumption. This is a valid concern, and water availability is a legitimate factor in site-selection and project engineering. However, I believe that the problem has been overstated.

Large conference room with a speaker presenting a slide deck to an audience seated around circular tables.

2026 ResFrac Annual Symposium Recap

On June 25, 2026, we got the ResFrac community together both in-person at the ExxonMobil campus in Spring, Texas, and virtually around the globe for our Annual Symposium. With our community growing as fast as it is, the energy in the room was absolutely buzzing. We had a jam-packed day of operator case studies, deep-dive technical sessions, and some incredible geomechanical insights from industry legends.

ResApps FracTest interface showing a Stress interpretation section with an Auto-interpret button and contact options, next to a Stress Diagnostic Chart.

FracTest – An Online Tool for DFIT Interpretation

This week, we are releasing FracTest, a web-based application for interpretation of diagnostic fracture injection tests (DFITs). FracTest is available at resapps.resfrac.com, alongside our other two ResApps, StageOpt and IntTest. DFITs are small-volume fracture injection tests used to estimate stress, pore pressure, and permeability. These quantities form the foundation of the fracture and reservoir engineering work that we do in ResFrac, and so we view DFIT interpretation as one of the most important parts of our workflow.

Julian McDowell

Geothermal Team Lead

Julian McDowell is the Geothermal Team Lead at ResFrac, where he drives the company’s geothermal strategy—leading simulation and technical studies, growing ResFrac’s geothermal service offerings, and delivering training to clients and internal teams.

Julian's posts

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