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.
Following approval from Transport Canada, EV startup Workhorse will be bringing the W56 and W750 model electric delivery vans to commercial truck dealers in Canada as early as this spring.
Workhorse first showed its W56 medium-duty electric truck at Indiana’s Work Truck Week in 2023, and has sold the trucks to logistics and delivery companies like FedEx and Pride Group – which ordered more than six thousand of the electric vans in 2021, and continues to expand its fleet.
“This is a major step forward for Workhorse,” says Josh Anderson, Workhorse’s chief technology officer in a press statement. “Pre-clearance from Transport Canada opens up a large new market for our products throughout Canada, including with fleets that operate across borders in North America.”
As part of the approval process, Workhorse completed its registration as a foreign manufacturer under Transport Canada’s Appendix G clearance program. Transport Canada confirmed the vans’ compliance with Canadian Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (CMVSS) for both vehicles – but it remains to be seen if and how the latest tariff-driven trade war between the Trump Administration’s US and Canada will impact Workhorse’s plans to expand throughout North America.
Despite that uncertainty, Workhorse execs remain upbeat. “We’re excited that our electric step vans can now reach Canadian roads and highways, providing reliable, zero-emission solutions that customers can depend on,” added Anderson.
Canadian pricing has yet to be announced.
Electrek’s Take
There’s no other way to say it: the Trump/Musk co-presidency is disrupting a lot of companies’ plans – and that’s especially true across North American borders. But in all this chaos and turmoil there undoubtedly lies opportunity, and it will be interesting to see who ends up on top.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Workhorse, via Electric Autonomy Canada.
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![Liebherr developing giant, 140-ton Segway-style autonomous haulers [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/03/operational-area-earth-moving-copy.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
The new Liebherr S1 Vision 140-ton hauler is unlike any heavy haul truck currently on the market – primarily because the giant, self-propelled, single-axle autonomous bucket doesn’t look anything like any truck you’ve ever seen.
Liebherr says its latest heavy equipment concept was born from a desire to rethink truck design with a focus only on core functions. The resulting S1 Vision is primarily just a single axle with two powerful electric motors sending power to a pair of massive airless tires designed carry loads up to 131 tonnes (just over 140 tons).
The design enables rapid maintenance, as important components easily accessible for quick servicing. Wear parts can be replaced efficiently, and the electric drive significantly reduces maintenance work. This helps to minimise downtimes and increases operational efficiency.
LIEBHERR
Because of its versatility, durability, and ability to perform zero-turn maneuvers that other equipment simply can’t, the Liebherr S1 Vision can be adapted for various applications, including earthmoving, mining, and even agriculture. There’s also a nonzero chance of this technology finding applications supporting other on-site equipment through charging or fuel delivery.
The S1 accomplishes that trick safely with the help of an automatic load leveling system that ensures maximum stability, even on bumpy or rough terrain. The company says this technology significantly reduces the risk of tipping while providing smooth and secure operation across various environments.
Liebherr will show the S1 Vision at this year’s bauma equipment exhibition in Munich, Germany. The design has already been nominated for the bauma Innovation Award in the Mechanical Engineering category – and my money’s on it winning.
Electrek’s Take
This is such goofy, stupid fun that if it was wheelbarrow-sized I’d have three of them. I can’t imagine the insanity of watching one of these things roll across a job site with 100 tons of granite in the bucket – and will have nightmares about the kind of damage it could do if it flipped out like a poorly made Chinese hoverboard clone whipping a toddler across a living room … which, in fairness, would probably get a billion views on Instagram or TikTok or whatever.
I can’t wait.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Liebherr.
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The HD arm of Hyundai has just released the first official images of the new, battery-electric HX19e mini excavator – the first ever production electric excavator from the global South Korean manufacturer.
The HX19e will be the first all-electric asset to enter series production at Hyundai Construction Equipment, with manufacturing set to begin this April.
The new HX19e will be offered with either a 32 kWh or 40 kWh li-ion battery pack – which, according to Hyundai, is nearly double the capacity offered by its nearest competitor (pretty sure that’s not correct –Ed.). The 40kWh battery allows for up to 6 hours and 40 minutes of continuous operation between charges, with a break time top-up on delivering full shift usability.
Those batteries send power to a 13 kW (17.5 hp) electric motor that drives an open-center hydraulic system. Hyundai claims the system delivers job site performance that is at least equal to, if not better than, that of its diesel-powered HX19A mini excavator.
To that end, the Hyundai XH19e offers the same 16 kN bucket breakout force and a slightly higher 9.4 kN (just over 2100 lb-ft) dipper arm breakout force. The maximum digging depth is 7.6 feet, and the maximum digging reach is 12.9 feet. Hyundai will offer the new electric excavator with just four selectable options:
- enclosed cab vs. open canopy
- 32 or 40 kWh battery capacity
All HX19es will ship with a high standard specification that includes safety valves on the main boom, dipper arm, and dozer blade hydraulic cylinders, as well as two-way auxiliary hydraulic piping allows the machine to be used with a range of commercially available implements. The hydraulics needed to operate a quick coupler, LED booms lights, rotating beacons, an MP3 radio with USB connectivity, and an operator’s seat with mechanical suspension are also standard.
Like its counterparts at Volvo CE, the new Hyundai excavator uses automotive-style charging ports to take advantage of existing infrastructure at fleet depots and public charging stations. More detailed specifications, dimensions, and pricing should be announced by bauma.
Electrek’s Take
The ability to operate indoors, underground, or in environments like zoos and hospitals were keeping noise levels down is of critical importance to the success of an operation makes electric equipment assets like these coming from Hyundai a must-have for fleet operators and construction crews that hope to remain competitive in the face of ever-increasing noise regulations. The fact that these are cleaner, safer, and cheaper to operate is just icing on that cake.
SOURCE | IMAGES: HD Hyundai; via Construction Index, Equipment World.
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