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Fervo Energy Achieves Major Advancement in Geothermal Exploration Using Oil Drilling Techniques

Lanon Wee

On Tuesday, Fervo Energy announced the successful completion of a 30-day test in which temperatures in one of its deep wells reached nearly 375 degrees Fahrenheit. This is an exciting accomplishment for the firm, which has entered into a partnership with Google and is putting the finishing touches on a 400-megawatt project that is estimated to be operational by 2028. This structure will provide enough electricity to power approximately 300,000 homes. On Tuesday, geothermal startup Fervo Energy announced a crucial technical milestone, suggesting that geothermal energy will have a more prominent role in the shift to clean energy. This process entails drilling deep wells, pumping water into them, and then drawing back the heated water to the surface. This is where a turbine can then transform the heat to electricity. To assess their technological ability, Fervo held a 30-day standard industry test at their commercial pilot plant in Nevada, reaching a depth of 7,700 feet and drilling horizontally an additional 3,250 feet. Temperatures within the well approached 375 degrees Fahrenheit, indicating a potential 3.5 megawatts of electricity production, enough to provide electricity to nearly 750 homes. Building on this success, Fervo is planning to start construction on a 400 megawatt project, which is projected to power 300,000 homes by 2028. Fervo is taking a unique approach to geothermal energy production, employing drilling technology developed by the oil and gas sector alongside hydraulic fracturing to create reservoirs in rocks deep underground. This technique could, theoretically, produce 24/7 carbon-free energy in a vast array of places, as opposed to the preexisting geothermal energy resources that are typically found near areas of magma close to the earth's surface. At present, geothermal energy supplies only 0.4% of electricity in the United States. "Our successful commercial pilot proves that next-generation geothermal technology can now exist outside the model," said Jesse Jenkins, macro-scale energy systems engineer and professor at Princeton, in a released statement. "It sets us on the path to capitalize on geothermal's full potential." CEO of Fervo Energy, Tim Latimer, also added that their "application of drilling technology from the oil and gas industry [will enable them] to produce 24/7 carbon-free energy resources in new geographies across the world." Around a decade ago, Latimer was employed in the oil and gas industry as a drilling engineer."I was passionate about climate change, but I loved my job," he said in a thread he posted on Twitter on Tuesday.Latimer noted that the development of the polycrystalline diamond cutter had greatly impacted the drilling sector as, with substantially reduced costs, it was now possible to make deeper and broader holes for enhanced geothermal, enabling its use in numerous places.When Latimer proposed the use of oil and gas drilling developments to tap into geothermal energy, he was met with a great deal of rejection. The only place that welcomed his concept was Stanford's geothermal program, where he took graduate courses and in 2017 wrote and published a paper on the topic. This paper ended up being the cornerstone of Fervo Energy, a venture he co-launched in 2017 with Jack Norbeck, also from Stanford's geothermal program. "The last six years have been an incredible experience. I had not anticipated just how combative people would be to our seemingly obvious idea," Latimer said in his Twitter thread. Consequently, they worked hard to prove that their approach was a cutting-edge, viable way of implementing geothermal. Despite the initial opposition, they managed to attract several investors and have since raised over $200 million, Latimer shared on Twitter. Google has been dedicated to achieving its goal of operating on 24-7 carbon-free energy by 2030. Sundar Pichai, Google GEO, has stated, “Solving climate change is humanity's next big moonshot.” To make this a reality, Google has been purchasing renewable energy to sustain its high energy usage. In 2021, a partnership was formed with Fervo to develop a geothermal power plant. Unlike wind and solar energy, geothermal energy is consistent and provides a carbon-free alternative to fossil fuels. Michael Terrell, Google’s senior director for energy and climate, noted in 2021 that “it is necessary to have new reliable sources of clean power to supplement renewable energy sources like wind and solar.” He made another announcement in 2021 stating that “we believe Fervo’s geothermal technology can be a tremendous tool in unlocking a reliable source of 24/7 carbon-free energy at a large scale.” Google is partnering with Fervo to improve the latter's efficiency through artificial intelligence and machine learning. As well, Fervo is introducing clean energy to Nevada, Google's major customer for such energy. The U.S. Department of Energy has initiated the "Enhanced Geothermal Shot" with the aim of slashing the expense of advanced geothermal power to $45 a megawatt hour by 2035, a move that could bring clean energy to 65 million American houses. Despite the advancements made, Fervo still has a way to go before being able to commercially provide geothermal energy on a large scale. Nevertheless, Wilson Ricks, who collaborated on a paper related to the role of geothermal energy in decarbonized energy systems and works for Princeton's Jenkins laboratory, believes Fervo's technical achievement is a substantial milestone. He declares that this is the first instance of the drilling and stimulation tactics derived from the shale oil and gas boom being applied to geothermal, illustrating that these can be used to generate artificial geothermal reservoirs that yield high flow rates. Ricks emphasizes the importance of the success, stressing that there is still more progress required to reach large-scale, cost-effective commercial systems. Additionally, he mentions that enhanced geothermal energy systems, such as those designed by Fervo, have the potential to function as a long-term energy storage system, thereby increasing their capacity to pair with wind and solar energy in a non-carbonized grid.

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