How super-hot rocks miles under the earth’s surface could help combat climate change
The iconic Old Faithful Geyser springs to life (every 90 minutes) in Yellowstone National Park’s Upper Geyser Basin on September 18, 2022, in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming. Sitting atop an active volcanic caldera, Yellowstone, America’s first National Park, is home to more geological hydrothermal features (geysers, mud pots, hot springs, fumaroles) than are found in the rest of the world combined.
George Rose | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The future of clean, renewable energy is underneath our feet. Quite literally.
The core of the earth is very hot — somewhere between 7,952 degrees and 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit at the very center. If we can drill down from the surface into what’s called superhot rock, then we could access the heat of the earth and turn it into a massive source of zero-carbon, always available energy.
A new report out Friday from the Clean Air Task Force, a non-profit climate organization, finds that this category of clean, baseload superhot rock energy has the potential to be cost-competitive with other zero-carbon technologies — while also, very critically, having a small land footprint.
The Clean Air Task Force commissioned a non-profit geothermal organization, the Hot Rock Energy Research Organization, and an international clean energy consultancy, LucidCatalyst, to estimate the levelized cost of commercial-scale superhot rock electricity. They determined that it could eventually cost between $20 and $35 per megawatt hour, which is competitive with what energy from natural gas plants costs today.
This is not reality yet. Currently, there are no superhot rock geothermal energy systems operating and delivering energy, Bruce Hill, the chief geoscientist at Clean Air Task Force and the author of the report, told CNBC. But money is flowing into research projects and companies that are working to develop the technology.
The report posits that superhot rock energy can be commercialized in the 2030s, and argues that its unique set of features — it’s a clean source of inexhaustible baseload energy with a small footprint — make the investment worthwhile.
“It will take public and private investment similar to those being allocated to nuclear, carbon capture, and hydrogen fuels,” Hill told CNBC. “Geothermal programs receive far less funding from Congress and the U.S. Department of Energy than these other programs. Superhot rock geothermal isn’t even in the decarbonization debate — but given a decade or two of aggressive investment it could be producing baseload power — local, energy dense, clean-firm (baseload) and competitive,” from a price perspective.
The graphic here shows that if technology develops allowing the drilling into hot, dry rock, superhot rock geothermal energy can be available virtually anywhere.
Graphic courtesy Clear Air Task Force
Regular versus superhot geothermal
While energy from superhot rocks is not being used now, geothermal energy is being used in a few places where super-hot temperatures exist close to the surface of the earth. Currently, about 16 gigawatts of power come from geothermal globally, according to CATF — that’s less than 0.2% of the world’s total. For comparison, there is 2,100 terawatts of capacity for coal energy globally and 1 terawatt of capacity for energy generated from photovoltaics, or solar panels.
But accessing superhot rock energy involves tapping into hotter, dry rock — which is everywhere, but sometimes far beneath the surface.
The deepest borehole ever drilled in the earth went down almost 8 miles in the Kola Peninsula of Russia in the 1970s, but the rock there was not nearly as hot as 752 degrees Fahrenheit — the minimum required for this type of energy. (Rock starts melting at between 1,112 and 1,832 degrees Fahrenheit, so the functional window for superhot rock geothermal is roughly between 752 and 1022 degrees Fahrenheit, Hill said.)
How far you have to drill to get to 752 degrees depends on where you are. On the edges of the tectonic plate boundaries or near recent volcanic activity, it might be two miles down, Hill told CNBC, but in the middle of a continent you might have to go down 12 miles.
Water would be pumped down into the hole and returned to the earth in a super-heated state known as “supercritical,”, which has the properties of gas and liquid at the same time. That supercritical water would then be directed to power generators.
Conventional geothermal energy systems “have a very small but measurable carbon footprint,” Hill told CNBC. That is why the Hellisheiði ON Power plant in Iceland has a Carbfix crarbon capture plant attached to it. A superhot rock energy system would have some carbon emissions associated with the construction of the plants, but “because the working fluid, water, is injected into dry rock there are no such hydrothermal related carbon dioxide emissions,” Hill said.
To access superhot rock geothermal energy requires drilling down to rock that is 400 degrees Celsius, or 752 degrees Fahrenheit.
Graphic courtesy Clear Air Task Force
Iceland is a leader in investigating superhot rock geothermal energy with its Iceland Deep Drilling Project. A test there suggests one well could produce 36 megawatts of energy, which is five to ten times more than the typical three to five megawatts of energy a conventional geothermal well could generate.
Iceland is well suited to study geothermal energy because of it’s located where the American and Eurasian crustal plates are pulling apart from each other.
“We are replenished with constant supplies of magma energy to feed our geothermal systems,” Guðmundur Ó. Friðleifsson, who served as a coordinator and principal investigator in the IDDP effort for over 20 years, told CNBC. “Magma energy is also at relatively shallow depths and relatively easily accessed, and Icelanders by nature are explorers of Celtic and Norse origin who love to sail into or out to the unknown,” Friðleifsson said.
Beyond Iceland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and the United States are leaders in superhot rock geothermal, according to Friðleifsson. Other areas on the edges of tectonic plates, including Central America, Indonesia, Kenya and the Philippines, also have some development.
For superhot rock geothermal energy to be commercialized and deployed broadly will require new technology, including rapid ultra-deep drilling methods, heat-resistant well materials and tools, and ways to develop deep-heat reservoirs in hot dry rock.
These are not insignificant, but they are “engineering challenges, not needed scientific breakthroughs,” the CATF report says.
For example, drilling into hard crystalline rock takes a long time with current rotation drill techniques and the drill bits have to be replaced frequently. One potential solution is using energy instead of a mechanical drill.
Quaise Energy is develoing such a drill, building on research from Paul Woskov at MIT. The Quaise drill is being tested at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, according to CATF.
“The solution to drilling is to replace the mechanical grinding process with a pure energy-matter interaction. Sufficient energy intensity will always melt-vaporize rock without need for physical tools,” Woskov told CNBC.
“Directed energy drilling has been considered since the laser was invented in the 1960s, but so far unsuccessfully because the infrared wavelengths are scattered in a drilling environment, the laser sources are of too low average power, and lasers sources are not efficient. We now have gyrotron sources since the 1990s that operate at millimeter-wavelengths that are more robust in a drilling environment, more powerful, and more efficient.”
It will take innovation and investment over coming decades to be able to commercialize terawatts of superhot rock geothermal energy.
Graphic courtesy Clear Air Task Force
‘Very small’ investment so far
So far, private investment in the superhot rock space is “very small,” according to Hill. CATF didn’t have an exact number, but they estimate it’s in the hundreds of millions of dollars at the most, and this includes investments by the Newberry Geothermal Energy consortium for work done 10 or 15 years ago, Hill said.
But it’s getting easier to raise money in the space, according to Carlos Araque, the CEO of Quaise, which has raised $75 million so far, including $70 million in venture capital.
“The first 10 [million] took a lot longer than the other 65 because it was done in the 2018-20 period; things accelerated significantly in the 2021-22 period probably pushed by many investors realizing the need for new tech in this space,” Araque told CNBC. “Investors are increasingly aware that we need to invest now on the technologies that will enable full decarbonization towards 2050.”
Investor Vinod Khosla, the first backer of Quaise, recently talked to CNBC about his belief in backing potentially revolutionary technologies to fight climate change, and pointed to super hot rock geothermal as an example.
“A superhot rock well, like 500 degrees, will produce 10 times the power of a 200-degree well. And that’s what we need,” Khosla told CNBC. “If we can drill deep enough we can get to those temperatures — many, many — all of Western United States could be powered with just geothermal wells, because there’s geothermal everywhere if you go 15 kilometers, 10 miles deep.”
The CATF report said that big tech companies, and their associated deep pockets, could have “an important role” in funding the early development and commercialization of superhot rock energy by buying power purchase agreements or investment dollars to power “rapidly expanding energy intensive operations like data centers,” the report said.
Indeed, Microsoft President Brad Smith spoke in Seattle about how vital it is for Microsoft to expand access to clean sources of energy to be able to continue to expand its business.
Oil and gas companies could use their resources to help spur development in the superhot rock industry, the CATF report said. “Drilling deep into the Earth to produce energy is the oil and gas industry’s core expertise, which provided innovations that drove a rapid transformation of shale fossil energy resources previously considered impossible.”
The government is also chipping in. The U.S. Department of Energy also has up to $20 million available in funding to develop better and faster geothermal drilling. Also, President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law allocates $84 million for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Technologies Office to build four pilot demonstration sites of what it calls enhanced geothermal systems, including superhot rock geothermal. Similarly, the Department of Energy recently announced Enhanced Geothermal Shot in an effort to reduce the cost of enhanced geothermal systems by 90%, to $45 per megawatt hour, by 2035.
Honda’s patent filings offer a clear glimpse into the company’s plans for an ultra-affordable electric motorcycle, integrating a proven chassis with a simple electric powertrain. It’s a clear glimpse into how the world’s most prolific motorcycle maker plans to challenge the nascent electric motorcycle market.
The filings in Honda’s new patent show a bike built around the familiar platform of the Honda Shine 100, a best-selling commuter in India, reimagined in electric form for a cost-effective future of urban mobility.
According to Cycle World’s Ben Purvis, Honda’s patent sketches outline a design that repurposes the Shine’s sturdy frame and chassis mounting points to house an electric motor and compact battery setup. Positioned where the engine once sat, a mid-motor drives the rear wheel via a single-speed reduction gear and chain – mirroring the essentials of the original gasoline-powered commuter bike.
Instead of a traditional fuel tank, the design features two lithium-ion battery packs, angled forward on either side of the spine frame and fitting neatly into the existing geometry.
What makes the bike revealed in this patent even more interesting isn’t just its clever packaging, but rather the platform. By leveraging the proven Shine chassis, Honda can significantly cut development costs, manufacturing complexity, and market price. That’s a big statement given that surviving in price-sensitive markets like India demands simplicity and reliability. And by piggybacking off a proven platform, Honda can dramatically reduce the time to market from the time the boardroom bigwigs give the project the final green light.
The design still seems to feature styling that would be fairly consistent with the Shine 100, even down to a gas cap-like circular protrusion likely on top of a faux-tank. Some electric motorcycles in the past have used this location to hide a charging port, keeping similar form and function to outdated fuel tanks and fill ports, though it’s not clear if that is Honda’s intention.
It’s not clear what power level Honda could be targeting, but the Shine bike from which Honda’s creation draws its design inspiration could provide some clues. The Honda Shine 100 features a 99cc engine that provides around 7.3 horsepower (around 5.5 kW) and has a top speed of 85 km/h (53 mph), solidly planting it in the commuter segment of motorcycles.
The electric motorcycle in Honda’s design would be unlikely to target much higher performance as it would drastically increase the required battery capacity, and thus similar speeds of around 80-85 km/h (50-53 mph) would seem likely.
There also appears to be no active cooling, which would also limit the amount of power that Honda would be likely to draw continuously. The patent describes a channel formed by the two battery packs, leading to the speed controller and creating ducted cooling that pulls heat out of the batteries and electronics without drawing extra power.
This emerging design is just one piece of Honda’s broader electric two-wheeler strategy. Their entry-level EM1 e: and Activa e: scooters launched with mobile battery packs and budget-friendly pricing. Meanwhile, high-tech concepts continually push the envelope. But this Shine-based bike aims squarely at the heart of mainstream affordability – a move likely to resonate with millions of new electric riders in developing regions like India where traditionally-styled small-dsiplacement motorcycles reign supreme.
Honda hasn’t revealed a timeline or pricing yet, but Honda’s patents offer real hope to fans of the brand’s electric efforts. If scaled effectively, this could be the first truly mass-market electric motorcycle from a major OEM, with a sticker price likely far below the $5,000 mark usually seen as a floor for commuter electric motorcycles from major manufacturers. That would also dramatically undercut models from brands like Zero or Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire, even as those brands rush to bring their own lower-cost models to market.
Electrek’s Take
Honda’s patent reveals a clever, no-frills EV designed to democratize electric two-wheeling, especially in developing markets that are even more price-sensitive than Western electric motorcycle customers.
Using a trusted frame, simple electric drive, and passive cooling, I’d say it definitely prioritizes cost over complexity, which is exactly what urban commuters need. If Honda can bring this to market, it would not just add another electric bike to the mix… it could create a new baseline for affordability in affordable electric mobility. Now we’re just waiting for the rubber to hit the road!
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Tesla shareholders will vote on whether to invest into xAI, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s private company, according to a post by Musk on twitter today.
Elon Musk is not just the CEO of Tesla, the electric car company that you may have heard about from time to time in Electrek’s coverage, but several other companies as well. And, famously, Musk companies often share resources – there has been much talk of incorporating SpaceX technology into Tesla vehicles, and putting xAI/twitter’s “MechaHitler”…. er, I mean, “Grok”…. feature into Tesla cars, among other collaborations that have happened over his various companies’ histories.
And today, Musk made it official that he will seek greater collaboration between three of his companies: Tesla, xAI, and twitter, in the form of an investment into xAI by Tesla.
The situation is a little more complicated than that, though.
Tesla is a public company, owned by shareholders. Musk is the largest shareholder, but only owns around 12% of the company himself.
This is a different situation than xAI, which is a private company, owned by Musk. While there are other investors, he can exercise much more direct control over the company, and doesn’t have to put big decisions up to a vote.
One of the recent decisions he made with xAI was to purchase twitter in March. You may say, “wait, I thought he bought twitter back in 2022?,” and you’d be correct. Musk purchased twitter for $44 billion in 2022, which was widely agreed to be far too high a price, and then rapidly saw the company’s valuation drop to under $10 billion.
Then, in March 2025, Musk had xAI purchase twitter in an all-stock deal, valuing twitter company at $45 billion – again, far too high of a valuation, but considering he purchased the company from himself, he could set the price at whatever he wanted.
The move was widely considered to be a bailout of twitter, and the numbers involved considered arbitrary, perhaps partially to help save face for Musk after he made one of the worst business deals of all time.
Now the two are the same entity, and it seems clear that he would like to bring Tesla into the fold, in some way or another.
Musk has already improperly used resources from Tesla, a public company, to boost xAI and twitter, his private companies. Last year, he gave up Tesla’s priority position for highly sought-after NVIDIA H100 GPUs, instead shipping those GPUs to xAI and twitter. Tesla could have used these GPUs for training its FSD/Robotaxi systems, which Musk has claimed is the most important thing to Tesla’s future, but instead graciously sent them to his other company that used them to, uh, train a bot to say Nazi stuff apparently.
xAI has also poached talent from Tesla, multiple times, showing how Musk is using Tesla as a farm team for his private company.
So it hasn’t been a secret that Musk would like to use public money to bail out his private companies, as he’s been setting the stage for for a while now.
Musk has previously “discussed” getting Tesla to invest in xAI in the past, but the idea was never made official until today, when Musk said that he will put the idea to a shareholder vote.
In response to one of his superfans asking for the the opportunity to waste money on an overvalued social media app (which would mark the third time it has been overpaid for in as many years), and the backend fueling “MechaHitler,” Musk said this:
Tesla traditionally holds its annual shareholder meeting around the middle of the year, so if it were a normal year, this shareholder vote might be imminent.
But it’s not a normal year, as just last week Tesla announced an exceptionally late shareholder meeting, pushing it back to November, the latest it has ever held the meeting.
This means that Musk will have around four months to campaign for this idea – something that he’ll perhaps have more time to do, now that he’s no longer cosplaying as a government official.
We don’t know what the structure of the deal might look like yet, but Musk has been clear in the past that he wants more shares in Tesla. After selling many of his shares in order to buy twitter, he later complained that he doesn’t feel comfortable having less than 25% of Tesla. Given that his recent xAI/twitter deal was an all-stock deal, Musk could attempt to fund any investment of Tesla into xAI via shares, giving himself more Tesla shares in exchange for the company gaining a portion of xAI. Though to get him to 25% voting shares in Tesla, that would require either an enormous valuation for xAI, a small valuation for Tesla, or purchasing a large percentage of xAI (or, perhaps, all three, given how much higher TSLA’s valuation is than xAI’s).
We may however have a hint as to how that vote will go, because the last time Musk campaigned for a clearly terrible idea, Tesla shareholders ate it up.
In mid-2024, Musk ended his yearslong absenteeism at Tesla in a flurry of activity, hoping to persuade enough shareholders to vote for his illegal $55B pay package.
That flurry involved firing 10% of the company (supposedly in order to save money – though Tesla’s earnings have dropped drastically since), including important leadership and successful teams, which caused chaos with Tesla’s projects. He also pushed back an all-important affordable car project (which we’ve still heard nothing about) and held Tesla’s AI projects hostage while shifting both resources and staff from Tesla to his private AI company, even as he claims that AI is the future of Tesla.
In the end, these bad decisions worked, and shareholders voted to give their bad CEO his $55B pay package, even though it was later ruled to still be illegal.
So it looks like we’ve got another campaign coming up, and if last time was any indication, expect some really bad decisions along the way. It worked last time, didn’t it?
Republicans recently killed a number of home energy efficiency credits, including the rooftop solar credit. That means you only have until the end of this year to upgrade your home before republicans raise the cost of doing so by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started TODAY, because these things take time and the system needs to be active before you file for the credit.
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The off-highway equipment experts at Perkins and McElroy have teamed up to develop a plug-and-play battery electric power unit designed to help equipment OEMs and upfitters to seamlessly transition from diesel to battery electric power.
Designed to occupy the same space as the companies’ diesel-engined power units, Perkins dropped its new battery power unit into the similarly new McElroy TracStar 900i pipe fusion machine (specialized equipment used to join thermoplastic pipes like HDPE or polypropylene by heat-welding them end-to-end to form a continuous length pf pipe).
Perkins’ battery electric power unit replaces the company’s proprietary 134 hp, 3.6 liter 904 Series Tier V diesel engine, enabling units that are already deployed to be quickly upgraded to electric power – and helping trade allies and development partners to easily retrofit existing equipment in order to add zero-emission options to their operational fleet.
“We’re actively helping customers navigate the shift in power system requirements, with a range of advanced power systems including electric, diesel-electric and alternative fuel compatible engines,” says Jaz Gill, vice president, global sales, marketing at Perkins. “When it comes to the innovative fully integrated battery electric power unit, it can be ‘dropped in’ to a machine to replace a diesel engine. The system consists of a Perkins battery along with inverters, motors and on-board chargers – all packaged up into a compact drop-in system to support seamless transition from diesel to electric for our customers looking to make that move.”
McElroy believes that an electric, emissions-free power unit like this one will open new opportunities and applications for its customers.
“Their team has done a phenomenal job of integrating their battery electric system into our TracStar 900i,” explains McElroy President and CEO Chip McElroy. “We’re really excited to see what the market thinks about this concept.”
Development of the battery electric powered pipe fusion machine was completed in about nine months. Future Perkins-powered electric equipment running the 904 diesel (small excavators, telehandlers, pumps, and gensets) could be developed even more quickly. You can find out more in the company’s promo video, below.
Perkins electric power unit
SOURCE | IMAGES: McElroy, Perkins.
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