I worked on geothermal control systems a decade or so back. There are some less obvious applications for geothermal that reduce electric use (as opposed to generating electricity).<p>The systems I worked on were for cooling larger structures like commercial greenhouses, gov installations and mansions. 64° degree water would be pumped up from 400' down, run thru a series of chillers (for a/c) and then returned underground - about 20° or 25° warmer.<p>I always thought this method could be used to provide a/c for neighborhoods, operated as a neighborhood utility. I've not seen it done tho. I've seen neighborhood owned water supplies and sewer systems; it tells me the ownership part seems feasible.
In the nordics it is common to have ground source heat pumps (brine in closed circuit pipe or bore hole) that are run backwards in summer to cool the house while actually assisting in storing heat back in the ground to extract in the winter. It’s a bit like regenerative breaking on electric cars.
There was a new in 1988 house in Champaign, Illinois, USA that used the same system, and i mention that because it was a normal modern house, and it's the only one i've heard of with that system.<p>It seems so smart.
Shallow geothermal works fine for heating. And you can use the ground as a heat sink. But if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells. Fervo Energy claims to have found 270C at 3350 meters well depth. That's progress.
> if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells.<p>That’s going to be very dependant on location.<p>Here in NZ there are regions where water is boiling at surface level.<p>According to the below, 18% of our power is produced with it.<p><a href="https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/renewable-energy/geothermal/" rel="nofollow">https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/rene...</a>
I think this looks interesting, but still very early stage. The “150 GW revolution” sounds more like theoretical potential, not something we will see soon in real deployment.<p>Main problems: drilling is still expensive, managing induced seismic activity is not trivial, permitting can take long time, and you also need transmission infrastructure. Also not yet proven that companies like Fervo can scale this in reliable and low-cost way.
Framingham, MA has a geothermal system using ground source heat pumps like what you are describing<p><a href="https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geothermal-utility-eversource-framingham-building-decarbonization/718015/" rel="nofollow">https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geother...</a>
I think you're describing what is known as "district energy" systems.
District heating and chilled water is uneconomical for single-family homes. It does work well in medium to high density areas.
I don't know how economical that is, but just as an anecdote - the town I'm from in Poland has district heating to all single family homes, town of about 20k people. And coincidentally, I now live in the UK and a new estate near me has district heating to all the houses they are building, not apartment blocks. So it must make some sense to someone, or they wouldn't be outfitting 100+ houses this way.
"I don't know how economical that is"<p>Sure you do. Think about it. Its just drilling a hole and making electricity from the heat. We have been able to do this for a very long time. So if people aren't really doing it much, its not economical. If it was now becoming economical, the article would describe some new way of doing it that makes it economical. The article doesn't, so you "know" it isn't.<p>PS This has been tried many time, it only works in very specific situations, usually places where building a full PP doesn't make sense or where you are making a lot of electricity for some other purpose (mining usually).
At least in parts of Eastern Europe (especially the former GDR) district heating systems were introduced as a response to the oil crises of the 70s, resulting price shocks and the transport of coal to households being very labor and resource incentive [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/schauplaetze/Windkraft-und-Erdwaerme-Wie-die-DDR-mal-Vorreiter-war,alternativenergie100.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/schauplaetze/Windkraft-und-Erd...</a>
Isn't that similar to how neighborhood heat pumps work?<p><a href="https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-efficiency-innovation" rel="nofollow">https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-effic...</a>
According to google, this would be almost 30% of total US energy production (135gw-150gw) and nearly 5% of total US energy consumption.<p>But what is the "breakthrough" if there is one? The article doesn't really suggest any breakthrough that is unlocking this potential energy? Or maybe I'm looking for a technological breakthrough where there isn't one.
4th paragraph of TFA:<p>> Several companies are now building upon existing techniques for accessing geothermal resources by integrating enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) into operations. While conventional geothermal systems produce energy using hot water or steam, pumped from naturally occurring hydrothermal reservoirs trapped in rock formations underground, EGS use innovative drilling technologies, such as those used in fracking operations, to drill horizontally and create hydrothermal reservoirs where they don’t currently exist.
Oh, Fervo Energy again. They're trying to IPO, hence the hype.
Wikipedia's warning: <i>This article reads like a press release or a news article and may be largely based on routine coverage. (February 2026)
This article may have been created or edited in return for undisclosed payments, a violation of Wikipedia's terms of use. It may require cleanup to comply with Wikipedia's content policies, particularly neutral point of view.</i><p>Here's a more realistic evaluation of Fervo.[1]<p>[1] <a href="https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says-about-financing-first-of-a-kind-energy-projects/" rel="nofollow">https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says...</a>
This isn’t really an evaluation of the company, just explaining how they had to use different financing approaches as they grew and derisked their technology (which makes sense).<p>Compared to some other new approaches for getting clean base load power, it seems like they’ve been pretty grounded and methodical.
They're way ahead of the microwave drilling people.<p>There's no reason why this shouldn't work. But they've been at it for 9 years, with considerable funding, and it doesn't really work yet. That's a concern.
Here is an article that is a bit old but discusses the start of things [1]. It would be a bit ironic if fracking tech helped get us further from using natural gas. I think the reality will be if this gets established we will see rapid improvement as scale comes on line so if it is remotely economical now it will be massively better in 5-10 years. Of course the 'if' applies.<p>[1] (2023) <a href="https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geothermal-energy/" rel="nofollow">https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geotherma...</a>
> Trump has shown support for geothermal energy projects in his second term in office, unlike for other renewable energy sources,<p>He heard there was drilling involved
You might be joking, but he might just be that simple. Today he seemed to conflate capital punishment with crimes committed in a capital city.
It really is off-brand for this administration. They are only interested in energy sources you pull out of the ground, burn, and turn into CO2/pollution.
Pretty sure they’re interested in collapsing the cost of domestic energy production in a way that’s resilient to adversarial supply chain risk since energy production is the base of the economic pyramid - energy availability is upstream of nearly all economic output.
They have spent immense effort blocking huge amounts of domestic solar and wind production, even paying off developers to simply not build planned power plants.
When you have a supply chain failure on solar or wind power, you stop adding capacity. When you have a supply chain failure on oil and gas, you stop generating power. These are not the same problem.<p>We can build capacity to manufacturer renewable power domestically. But I suspect this administration is more interested in protecting the business interest of those that gave them the largest campaign donations than they are in long term energy sustainability.
They're interested in protecting the profits of industries that line their pockets. It's the most corrupt administration in US history and it isn't even close. Theres some far right ideology mixed in. Particularly from Stephen Miller, but mostly it's grift and graft
It has exclusivity which might be enough, you can't own the sun (modulo Simpsons episode) but you <i>might</i> be able to "own" geological hotspots for this purpose, the same way you can "own" a coal mine or an oil well. Remember the goal here is to create poverty. I mean, obviously you say you want to create "wealth" but only in a relative sense.
They're pretty friendly to nuclear which comes out of the ground.
Seriously, I wonder about why it's supported. Maybe the drillers are from the fossil fuel extraction industry.
There's one of those sites near where I live. The numbers would be amazing if true, but feel a lot like "to good to be true" to me<p><a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geothermal-technology-renewable-energy-three-rivers-mazama/" rel="nofollow">https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geoth...</a>
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The whole continent of America made a breakthrough?
Yes. North America.<p>United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (formerly NAFTA)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E2%80%93Canada_Agreement" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E...</a><p><a href="https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-imports-from-canada/" rel="nofollow">https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-i...</a><p><a href="https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-states-mexico-canada-agreement" rel="nofollow">https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-st...</a>
You know how the United Arab Emirates are known as the Emirates, how the United Mexican Sates are known as Mexico and how the United States of America is known as America? Are you unfamiliar with what synecdoche is?