image credit: Canary Media, a Flourish chart
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- Dec 25, 2024 4:17 pm GMT
Canary Media: “Was 2024 a breakout year for next-generation geothermal energy?” Soaring U.S. power demand is causing states, utilities, and major energy buyers to scramble for electricity. This yr startups including ‘Fervo Energy, Sage Geosystems, Eavor, and Quaise Energy raised significant funding and hit key milestones to demonstrate their novel technologies.’ And Google + Meta + major utilities committed to buying geothermal electricity to satisfy their growing energy appetites. “Geothermal is the rare energy source to garner bipartisan support—it’s a way to both reduce planet-warming emissions and put America’s drilling rigs and oil-and-gas engineers to work.” And U.S. policymakers have promoted ‘legislation that could lift regulatory barriers for exploratory drilling on federal lands,” which I anticipate will increase under the incoming administration. While today the U.S. has only about 3.7 gigawatts of geothermal power capacity, which supplies a rounding-error 0.4% of total electricity, the ‘Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that geothermal could provide up to 90 GW of flexible, baseload power to America’s grid by 2050, complementing the surge in intermittent renewables like wind and solar power.’ Geothermal is also able to provide a “full suite of grid services,” including energy storage; black-start services to restore power after widespread outages; and grid balancing to ensure that power supply matches demand every moment. Enhanced geothermal is one of several types of next-generation technologies and the nearest to commercial viability, followed closely by suberranian-connected, closed-loop systems. Meanwhile, Quaise Energy, a startup with MIT origins, is intensely focused on unleashing geothermal energy from superhot rock formations by using millimeter-wave drilling test (photo) in its laboratory. As a personal note, I recently had the chance to see the control center of a capacious geothermal system in El Salvador, of which the country is understandably incredibly proud.
Sandy Lawrence
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