A Promising Geothermal Update via a Fine Energy Reporter
Past time for Trump's energy folks to get serious about their claimed support for this clean power source.
I’m on the road in Greece on a rare non-work trip (a snapshot below) and happy that the fine energy journalist
has moved to Substack to help us all keep track of what’s going on - particularly with nuclear energy and, in a new post below, a breakthrough in geothermal energy technology.I first wrote about the promise of harvesting the heat beneath the Earth’s surface a couple of decades ago but the field has been completely energized (sorry… :) by recent advances. Here’s a snippet from Kaufman’s new post and a link to the full exclusive report (please subscribe to his newsletter):
Geothermal startup’s drilling breakthrough shaves ‘tens of millions’ off costs
…A new generation of startups is now using the oil and gas industry’s latest drilling technologies to tap into the Earth’s molten heat to generate power in far more places than ever before. But drilling holes in the ground remains an expensive upfront cost, without the same kind of guaranteed payday from hitting a hydrocarbon reserve.
For Eavor Technologies, it’s not just about drilling down. The Calgary-based company’s systems work on a loop that requires boring two parallel holes at once that ultimately intersect deep underground in hot bedrock – far out of range of GPS or electromagnetic signals that could help engineers on the surface precisely steer the drilling equipment.
To get around this, Eavor helped design its own in-house drilling tool that allows the equipment boring each hole to communicate through magnetic signals while digging nearly as deep as 20 times the height of the Empire State Building. Until now, the company – which is building its debut project in Germany – had been slowly rolling out its drilling tool while still relying on traditional technology to dig the 48 separate underground loops per facility.
In a critical milestone, Eavor has completely switched over to its drilling technology as of Wednesday, this newsletter can exclusively report. [READ THE REST]
The question now is will the Trump team, which claims to be supportive of expanding and speeding adoption of geothermal energy, will live up to that. That “big beautiful bill” the House passed contains provisions that could stifle things, as Robinson Meyer of Heatmap News pointed out a few days ago:
While we’re on the subject, Fervo Energy is another groundbreaker in this arena and I encourage you to subscribe to
’ Volts podcast to track this field as well. Here’s his recent chat with Fervo CEO Tim Latimer.
Here’s my last geothermal post:
The Best Path Past Paralysis on Climate and Clean Energy is Starting Where There's Agreement - as with Enhanced Geothermal
We’re in a tough moment in America, facing a momentous fork in the road at the level of the White House, a weakened capacity for government to help reduce environmental and societal risks thanks to the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, and the breakdown of bipartisanship in a Congress co-opted by a fringe of elected officials deadset on dismantling things instead of building things (and by the power of the donor class over the rest of our citizenry).
Parting shots
The Parthenon and other temples atop the Acropolis are astonishing.
