Fervo Energy hits milestone in using oil drilling technology to tap geothermal energy
Fervo Energy’s full-scale commercial pilot, Project Red, in northern Nevada.
Photo courtesy Fervo Energy
Geothermal startup Fervo Energy announced a key technical milestone on Tuesday, paving the way for geothermal energy to play a bigger role in the transition to clean energy.
Fervo drills deep wells and pumps water into them. The water grows hot from the heat of the earth, then Fervo pumps it back to the surface, where a turbine converts that heat to electricity.
Fervo successfully completed a 30-day test, considered an industry standard for geothermal, at its commercial pilot plant in northern Nevada, the company said in a statement. In the test, Fervo drilled down drilled down to 7,700 feet and then turned to drill another 3,250 feet horizontally, and internal temperatures reached roughly 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
The test at its pilot plant achieved conditions that would generate 3.5 megawatts of electricity production, the company said. A single megawatt is roughly enough electricity to meet the demand of 750 homes at once.
Fervo has just started construction on a 400-megawatt project that it expects to be online by 2028, which would power approximately 300,000 homes.
“Fervo’s successful commercial pilot takes next-generation geothermal technology from the realm of models into the real world and starts us on a path to unlock geothermal’s full potential,” Jesse Jenkins, macro-scale energy systems engineer and professor at Princeton, said in a written statement.
Currently, most geothermal energy resources are located near tectonic plate boundaries where magma gets close to the earth’s surface, heating up water trapped in the earth’s surface nearby. In the United States, geothermal energy supplies only 0.4% of electricity right now.
Instead of relying on naturally occurring conditions, Fervo is using drilling technology developed by the oil and gas industry with hydraulic fracturing to create reservoirs in rocks deep underground.
“By applying drilling technology from the oil and gas industry, we have proven that we can produce 24/7 carbon-free energy resources in new geographies across the world,” Tim Latimer, the CEO of Fervo Energy, said in a written statement.
Fervo Energy co-founders, Jack Norbeck (left) and Tim Latimer.
Photo courtesy Fervo Energy
Leveraging oil and gas drilling technology
A decade ago, Latimer was working in the oil and gas industry as a drilling engineer.
“I loved the work, but I was passionate about climate change. I saw all the tech advancement around me and realized that it could be used for geothermal energy,” Latimer said in a thread he posted on Twitter on Tuesday. Developments in oil and gas drilling, like the development of the polycrystalline diamond cutter, “changed the game,” Latimer said.
“With dramatically lower drilling costs, it would now be possible to drill down to depth and then drill horizontally for enhanced geothermal, significantly increasing the productivity of the resource, and enabling development anywhere,” Latimer wrote on Twitter.
When Latimer first had the idea to use developments in oil and gas drilling to tap into geothermal energy, he faced a lot resistance. The one place he found an interested ear was at Stanford’s geothermal program, where he went to grad school and in 2017 co-wrote and published a paper on the topic. That paper was the foundation for Fervo Energy, which Latimer launched in 2017 with Jack Norbeck, also from Stanford’s geothermal program.
“The last six years have been quite a journey. I never expected how much skepticism and pushback we would receive for what we thought was an obvious idea,” Latimer said in his Twitter thread. “So we set out to systematically prove this was a truly revolutionary, and viable, way of doing geothermal.”
They did find believers, though, and have since raised over $200 million in investment, Latimer said on Twitter.
Fervo’s partnership with Google and looking to the future
Google has been a leader in its commitment to operate on 24-7 carbon-free energy by 2030. “Solving climate change is humanity’s next big moonshot,” Google GEO Sundar Pichai has said.
To deliver on its goal to operate on 24-7 carbon-free energy by 2030, Google has had to buy a lot of renewable energy to support all of its energy-hungry computing processes.
In 2021, Google singed a partnership with Fervo to develop a geothermal power project.
Unlike wind and solar energy, which are intermittent, geothermal energy is an “‘always-on’ carbon-free resource that can reduce our hourly reliance on fossil fuels,” Michael Terrell, Google’s senior director for energy and climate, wrote in 2021 when the partnership was first announced.
“Achieving our goal of operating on 24/7 carbon-free energy will require new sources of firm, clean power to complement variable renewables like wind and solar,” said Terrell in a statement published Tuesday. “We partnered with Fervo in 2021 because we see significant potential for their geothermal technology to unlock a critical source of 24/7 carbon-free energy at scale.”
Fervo Energy’s full-scale commercial pilot, Project Red, in northern Nevada.
Photo courtesy Fervo Energy
As part of the partnership, Google is developing the artificial intelligence and machine learning systems to improve Fervo’s efficiency, and Fervo is adding clean energy to the grid in Nevada, where Google is a large clean energy customer.
The U.S. Department of Energy has also launched what it calls the “Enhanced Geothermal Shot,” which is an effort to reduce the cost of enhanced geothermal energy by 90% to to $45 per megawatt hour by 2035. The Department of Energy says it hopes enhanced geothermal systems can potentially provide clean energy to 65 million American homes.
Fervo still has a long road ahead from building a pilot plant to commercializing geothermal energy at scale, but Wilson Ricks, who works in Jenkins’ lab at Princeton and cowrote a paper on the role of geothermal energy in future decarbonized energy systems, says Fervo’s technical milestone is a real milestone.
“This is a very significant milestone in enhanced geothermal systems development. It is the first application of the advanced drilling and well stimulation techniques developed in the shale oil and gas boom to geothermal, and has demonstrated that these can be used to create artificial geothermal reservoirs delivering high flow rates,” Ricks told CNBC. “There is still more development to be done on the path to large-scale and cost-competitive commercial systems, but the significance of this achievement shouldn’t be understated.”
The kind of enhanced geothermal energy systems, like those that Fervo is developing, “could do double-duty as a form of long-duration energy storage, enhancing their ability to complement wind and solar in a decarbonized grid,” Ricks told CNBC.
Chinese carmaker XPeng is getting perilously close to bringing its AeroHT consumer eVTOL concept to market, thanks to a $250 million Series B round that’s set to accelerate the company’s modular “flying car” production plans.
XPeng subsidiary AeroHT had its first successful proof of concept test flight ahead of the brand’s annual 1024 back in 2023, where the company unveiled a pair of flying car designs. The X3 is an actual flying “car” that can drive, park, and take off on its own, and a second, modular eVTOL that folds up into the back of an electric van called the Land Aircraft Carrier.
That vehicle pair, shown at CES in January, was set to begin production this year, with the eVTOL component set to begin production in 2026 – and that’s looking a lot more likely thanks to the new infusion of capital!
AeroHT at CES 2025
Xpeng Aeroht raised $150 million in Series B1 funding last August, before launching its Series B2 funding round. The most recent announcement that the company has secured an additional $100 million in its Series B2 funding round brings the total amount raised to more than $750 million, with a $1B pre-revenue valuation.
CNEVPost reports that company aims to establish itself as a commercial pioneer in urban air mobility ahead of a potential IPO – and may get there sooner than later, thanks to several hundred pre-orders at the $280,000 projected price.
Electrek’s Take
Scooter Doll said it best, writing, “this footage (of the AeroHT test flight) is as scary and concerning as it is exciting and awe-inspiring.” Which is to say that these things are real, they seem like they’re getting built, and they seem like they’ll sell well enough to convince at least one or two remaining boomers that the flying car they’ve been promised their whole lives is – finally! – coming to market.
Here’s hoping.
SOURCE: Xpeng, via CNEVPost; gallery photos by the author.
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Flooring manufacturer Beauflor USA just turned on the biggest rooftop solar system by capacity in metro Atlanta — and it’s now powering part of its Georgia factory.
The new 1,040 kW system in Cartersville officially beats metro Atlanta’s previous rooftop solar record of 1,034 kW. The new array produces enough energy to power more than 100 homes. The system is expected to cover about 10% of Beauflor’s electricity needs and cut its carbon emissions by about 920 metric tons annually.
“This solar installation represents our commitment to sustainable manufacturing practices while making sound business decisions,” said Emile Coopman, continuous improvement manager at Beauflor. He added that the system is designed with room to grow: “This is the first step toward more renewable energy.”
The company partnered with Cherry Street Energy to install the nearly 2,000-panel system, which was completed in less than four months. Cherry Street invested $1.8 million into the project and is covering all construction and maintenance costs through a 30-year energy procurement agreement. Beauflor will buy solar power directly from Cherry Street, allowing it to avoid upfront capital costs while still lowering its energy bills.
“As Georgia’s manufacturers ramp up production amid rising costs for grid energy, sophisticated operators seek ways to quickly and sustainably address their energy needs,” said Cherry Street CEO Michael Chanin. “On-site solar with no capital expense delivers just that: reliable, affordable electricity.”
Chanin added that the system’s power output is especially impressive: “The previous record-holder for metro Atlanta’s largest rooftop solar required over 4,000 panels. We’re using less than 2,000 to reliably generate even more power.”
Read more: This is New Jersey’s largest high-rise residential rooftop solar array
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Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chief executive officer of Twitter Inc. and Square Inc., listens during the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, Florida, on Friday, June 4, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Block shares jumped more than 10% in extended trading on Friday, as the fintech company gets set to join the S&P 500, replacing Hess.
It’s the second change to the benchmark this week, after S&P Global announced on Monday that ad-tech firm The Trade Desk would be added to the S&P 500. Trade Desk is taking the place of software maker Ansys, which was acquired by Synopsys in a deal that closed Thursday.
Hess’ departure comes just after Chevron completed its $54 billion purchase of the oil producer, prevailing against Exxon Mobil in a legal dispute over offshore oil assets in the South American nation of Guyana.
Block will officially join the S&P 500 before the opening of trading on July 23, according to a statement from S&P. Stocks often rally when they’re added to a major index, as fund managers need to rebalance their portfolios to reflect the changes.
Most alterations to the S&P 500 take place during the index’s quarterly rebalancing. However, in the case of the closing of an acquisition, a company can be removed from the index and replaced off schedule. Last week monitoring software company Datadog took Juniper Networks’ place in the S&P 500 as part of the index’s quarterly change.
Block’s addition brings further tech heft to an index that’s been steadily moving in that direction in recent years, reflecting the market cap gains of companies across the sector. Block, which gained popularity as Square due to the rapid growth of the company’s payment terminals, has expanded into crypto, lending and other financial services.
Founded by Jack Dorsey in 2009, Square changed its name to Block in 2021 to emphasize its focus on blockchain technologies.
Block shares are down 14% this year, underperforming the broader U.S. market. The Nasdaq is up more than 8%, while the S&P 500 has gained 7%. Still, with a market cap of about $45 billion, Block is valued well above the median company in the index.
In May, Block reported first-quarter results that missed Wall Street expectations on Thursday and issued a disappointing outlook, leading to a plunge in the stock price. Block’s forecast for the second quarter and full year reflected challenging economic conditions that followed sweeping tariff announcements by President Donald Trump.
“We recognize we are operating in a more dynamic macro environment, so we have reflected a more cautious stance on the macro outlook into our guidance for the rest of the year,” the company wrote in its quarterly report.
The company is scheduled to report second-quarter results after the close of regular trading on Aug. 7.
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