Very excited to announce that the fist commercial enhanced geothermal project is online and sending power to the grid in Nevada!
Thank you
@Google
for being a great partner for 24/7 clean energy innovation.
For the first time ever, enhanced geothermal has been achieved at commercial scale. 24/7 clean energy, where you want it, when you want it.
Super proud of
@TimMLatimer
,
@JackNorbeckand
the whole
@fervoenergy
team and super excited to go scale it up.
Bloomberg
@climate
exclusive:
@fervoenergy
has achieved a commercialization breakthrough for its enhanced geothermal project in northern Nevada, generating 3.5 megawatts of electricity in a 30-day well test. It’s hooking up to the grid later this year.
Some news in my world: Dec 1 is my last day at RMI. I am bittersweet leaving this awesome team and incredibly proud of the progress we helped accomplish (and the memes we created). Joining the illustrious list of RMI Alumni is a daunting task.
Geothermal is on the cusp of a major expansion – permitting and agency capacity need to be adapted to keep up with technology breakthroughs. At the very least, clean geothermal should not be disadvantaged compared to oil & gas for the same activity.
Kicking off in 2023, I'm joining
@fervoenergy
to lead the Government Affairs and Policy team. Geothermal is at the cusp of something big right now and I'm excited to accelerate grid decarbonization on a solid foundation of dispatchable, 24/7 clean firm power.
We're thrilled to announce a new partnership with
@Google
&
@NVEnergy
to execute the first Clean Transition Tariff! This innovative contract enables
@FervoEnergy
to build 115MW of new enhanced geothermal to power Google's growing data center demand in NV.
1/Last year, we announced the world’s first commercially successful next-gen geothermal project, and we told y’all it was just the beginning. Today we are excited to unveil the next phase of our partnership with Google, a massive scaleup to deliver 115 MW.
I was honored to join the
@HouseScience
Committee to discuss
@fervoenergy
's advances in EGS and the huge opportunity in geothermal. Thank you to the committee for the invitation, insightful questions and bipartisan support for EGS. Recap and testimony:
Every discussion of EGS has always included a caveat: “if drilling costs can come down…”. Well, drilling costs are falling and falling fast. It’s called “learning by doing.” It drove the shale boom and now it’s driving the geothermal revolution.
1/We
@fervoenergy
are excited to announce our new geothermal drilling results. We have achieved a 70% YoY reduction in drilling times, dramatically outpacing predictions, and are poised to unleash a new wave of geothermal decades ahead of schedule. THREAD.
Incredible day in Milford, UT today celebrating the first ever large scale EGS project, Cape Station. Surrounded by clean energy infrastructure and a supportive community - and fired up by
@GovCox
- I couldn’t be more proud of the whole
@fervoenergy
team.
Congrats to
@JesseJenkins
on the WSJ profile! To think back when you were just a normie account like the rest of us, grad students spouting off on energy twitter…
Helluva week in geothermal:
•
@fervoenergy
has reduced drilling time by 70%, cutting the cost per well in half:
•
@ENERGY
announced big investments in EGS deployment:
•
@sagegeosystems
raises new money:
Just incredible things happening in the enhanced geothermal world these days. Every week brings new breakthroughs, opportunities, market-defining developments. Super fun and exciting stuff.
I wrote a cover story this week on the return of sea power. Blockades are back in fashion. Navies are up-arming & preparing for high-intensity warfighting again. The barriers to sea denial may be falling. And investment in submarines is growing.
🚀JUST RELEASED🚀
The Pathway to Next-Generation Geothermal Power Commercial Liftoff:
Tremendous work by the
@ENERGY
team to illuminate the way towards an affordable and reliable decarbonized grid with next-generation geothermal.
I love this WECC transmission pathway map, courtesy of
@TWEProject
. Would probably be improved with transfer capacity labels, but even so, a good quick system level view.
Rare and truly unique job posting: Chief of Staff at
@fervoenergy
. Perhaps the most interdisciplinary role at a very interdisciplinary company. Incredible opportunity for a whip smart go-getter with the right mix of hunger, organization and creativity.
Congrats to the WV v EPA plaintiffs and all the vociferous Clean Power Plan opponents. Now you can enjoy the fruits of your valiant efforts: a §111 rule for GHGs that is narrow, "inside the fence line", and significantly more stringent. Clean air legends.
“At
@fervoenergy
we’re really excited about the prospect of stringent 45V rules…What we’re doing with geothermal is really well set up to serve that need”
Great piece on today’s H2 news by
@AlexCKaufman
"Sprinkle in a little geothermal, you don't need all that much, and you can bring down the overall cost [of a carbon-free grid]." – me talking to
@davidcondos
on NPR.
I just know I'm going to hear from the origination team about this one...
Excited to cross off a career goal next week when I testify before the House Science, Space & Technology committee on the future of subsurface research, development and deployment.
A tremendous chart, as usual, from Brian. I've been looking at CAISO charts for about a decade now and over time my attention is drawn less to the midday solar fireworks (though that's still interesting and evolving) and more towards the ATC stubborn gas minimums.
I'm so stoked on the
@fervoenergy
Bedrock Program: 2 years, 4 rotations, tons of opportunity and mentorship. A unique, innovative initiative designed for early career and non-traditional candidates. Going to build the next generation of leaders right here.
🌋GEOTHERMAL ALERT🌋
New
@NREL
report on the opportunity for Enhanced Geothermal (EGS) to play a critical role on an affordable and reliable carbon-free grid:
• HUGE capacity potential
• STEEP cost declines
• AVAILABLE now
•
@fervoenergy
is STOKED
Google took a risk contracting with an unproven EGS technology years ago – it's paying off today. Thankful for this leadership and excited for more clean firm energy ahead!
Fervo is already drilling our next project, which is 100x larger. Taking the geothermal decade to scale!
Excited to share that
@Google
’s first-of-its-kind enhanced geothermal power project with
@FervoEnergy
is now operational and helping power our data centers in Nevada ⚡️ 1/
New in Nature Energy shows the huge opportunity for EGS in the Western US:
• Inflexible, baseline drilling: 30GW
• Advanced drilling: 100GW
• Flexible, advanced drilling: 120GW
• System cost: –15-25%
@wilson_ricks
,
@JesseJenkins
,
@JackNorbeck
et al:
Calling grid modelers: DOE wants to fund your study what next-generation geothermal technology means for grid decarbonization and reliability!
Geothermal is often overlooked in grid modeling ("other"), but here's $7M to change all that.
I love this answer from
@TimMLatimer
about the role of oil & gas experience and know-how in building
@fervoenergy
.
But the best part is probably still "going deployment mode." A phrase I use almost every day. Even at home, it's totally normal.
Peninsula Clean Energy says it can deliver affordable clean energy to its Bay Area territory nearly every hour of the year by 2025.
For more on 24/7 carbon-free electricity or time-based matching, see ZERO Lab research here:
Great example of why it's critically important to go big on geothermal. Erratic and worsening droughts are making hydro power seasonally unpredictable. Enhanced geothermal can step up to provide base and increasingly flexible clean capacity.
I remember
@JesseJenkins
sketching the "carbon free portfolio pie" on a bar napkin in 2017 (should have saved that napkin) - it's so cool to see it driving Google's leadership in next-generation clean energy deployment.
Respect to Google for taking risks to make clean firm real.
I’m thrilled to share a new paper by the Google energy and climate team about why and how corporate clean energy buyers should support advanced clean electricity technologies needed to accelerate electricity grid decarbonization: 🧵1/
Between 2000 and 2022,
@bonnevillepower
interconnected 8GW of new generation. Today, the BPA queue is >130GW.
Meanwhile the whole region is short capacity. We need new wires and we need to bring generation resources online faster, no two ways about.
Today the
@RockyMtnInst
board announced that I have been selected to be its next CEO, starting Nov 1st. I am honored, and I hope to carry on the great traditions of
@AmoryLovins
&
@JulesKortenhors
, giving the world some of what we all need at this moment: applied hope.
Continuous incremental improvements that compound over time through repeated deployment. It's not shiny and it's not sexy, but it's the stuff of energy revolutions.
It happened in shale and it can happen again in geothermal.
Fervo is getting into the Direct Air Capture game to deploy the first ever built-for-purpose geothermal plant paired with DAC. Really fun to work for an innovative company like this. Kudos to
@TimMLatimer
for the vision and ambition.
Nevada is a leader in geothermal energy – creating good-paying, clean energy jobs in our state.
I'm pushing Congress to continue investing in it so we can encourage innovation and employ more hardworking Nevadans.
The Dept of Energy is hosting a virtual summit on Enhanced Geothermal on May 11 and lineup is *stacked*. This is like Coachella, but virtual, and for hot rock nerds.
Adding clean firm resources enables faster deployment of variable renewables.
We're putting hundreds of MWs of Enhanced Geothermal on the grid within the next 5 years and GWs after that. Load growth, reliability, affordability and decarbonization – let's go, we're already late!
This is the Inflation Reduction Act performing as designed. The explicit point of the tax credit reforms and financing programs was to accelerate the speed of the grid transition while (and by) lowering customer bills. I/you/we love to see it.
Love
@JigarShahDC
's return to Odd Lots and I'm proud my IRA baby, §1706, made it on the pod. But the best part was the end as it starts to dawn on Joe & Tracy that we have no national energy planning and grid evolution is essentially uncoordinated.
Sure, we should always go big on R&D...but also we could just deploy technologies that are commercially ready today and continually improve them to reach scale and decrease cost. Moonshots are fun, but steel in the ground is what makes energy revolutions.
Next-generation technologies set the scene for accelerated geothermal growth.
Tremendous infographic here from S&P Global, but don't print it out just yet –– it's going to require substantial updates and additions in 2024!
"Sarah Jewett, VP of Strategy for Texas-based
@fervoenergy
...said there is “a huge, huge, huge runway to massively increase the participation of geothermal on the grid in the U.S.” and that Fervo is committed to helping
@ENERGY
achieve that participation."
The Jackson Prairie Gas Storage facility is the West-most purple dot on the Northwest Pipeline.
Apparently, the storage facility completely out of service with pipeline calling for emergency curtailments from power generators and large-demand users
I would love to see the terms of this PPA –– Helion will owe financial penalties if it doesn't deliver power from *fusion* in 2028?!
Always amazing to see the commercialization of new technologies, but this could be some real easy money for Microsoft.
Today on Volts: after 50 years of false starts, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are finally a reality, opening the prospect of firm renewable power almost anywhere. I talk with
@TimMLatimer
, CEO of
@fervoenergy
, about this milestone & what it means.
Interested in what
@fervoenergy
is all about, and why we just executed 435MW of deals with
@SCE
and
@Google
? Listen to
@shaylekann
’s conversation with Roland Horne, the head of Stanford’s geothermal program - the perfect guest.
Really great article by
@mariagallucci
about the
@fervoenergy
breakthrough announcement today. Cleanly synthesizes what we accomplished, what it means and why it's a big deal.
I’m very appreciative of this
@grid_status
piece looking at SPP West expansion using BA level data. Lots of modeling studies analyzing WECC RTO configurations but fewer looking directly at the practical implications.
So if I have this right, the idea here is:
• Get CO2 from CCS (or DAC)
• Make green H2
• Ship CO2 and H2 to each other
• Fuse them together into Ch4
• Ship the CH4 around as a drop in syth gas
What's the ballpark roundtrip efficiency on that?
🚨COOL ENERGY JOB🚨
Commissioner, New Mexico Public Regulation Commission
Salary: $180k-$200k + benefits
Location: Santa Fe (no flex)
I hear they have headcount for at least 5 folks in this round. Just email your cover letter and a resume, that's it.
Today marks the 2-year anniversary of the IRA. There was huge enthusiasm for all technologies in year 1. In year 2, more differentiation occurred. Here's my view on how various techs have fared w/r/t costs, adoption, investor interest, and tech progress since IRA. Debate welcome.
Big day at
@fervoenergy
with the announcement of a strategic investment by
@DevonEnergy
. Excited to learn from experienced drilling pioneers. Geothermal decade rolls on.
Come work for
@fervoenergy
! We're hiring for a cool/fun/rare Origination Associate position in the Bay Area.
I know you've been seeing the headlines, time to get in the game and build some clean firm.
The DOE announces $44M for 13 research projects at
@utahforge
to advance key drilling and reservoir technologies for EGS. Great example of the critical in-field research enabled through the FORGE project.
Whenever you feel that imposter syndrome creeping in, just remember the Supreme Court didn't even care to learn about the Clean Power Plan in route to striking it down – so you can do whatever you want to.
This position on the
@fervoenergy
legal team will be responsible for the most interesting, meaningful and novel infrastructure/project finance solutions the market has seen since wind, solar and storage got cheap. Join us in building a 24/7 clean future.
I don't know how much more clearly it can be laid out.
@JigarShahDC
and the LPO is looking to finance the economic redevelopment of uneconomic fossil projects. Go get that money, people!
Lots of really good energy modeling and policy research coming out all the time and very little of it, regardless of focus, considers EGS as a resource option even in “expanded tech” scenarios. This isn’t knock on those studies, but recognition of a gap with the tech & potential.
Encouraging news out of Germany: an experimental geothermal district heating project is producing twice the thermal energy than expected. Two wells at ~7k feet serving the heating needs of Potsdam for 50 years!