I propose a “Rendering Index” for new technologies. Ratio of press releases accompanied by renderings vs. actual photos of projects. To be used as an estimation of commercial readiness for a new technology sector.

I guess it inevitably comes with more attention being focused on geothermal, but I’m starting to see a lot more “startups” in the space that are just outright frauds. Some have even already gotten significant funding. Caveat emptor.

Usually layoffs happen at corporates during downturns. This market cycle feels very different. Is there historical precedent for what we are seeing now at many companies, which is layoffs happening concurrently to quarter after quarter of record profits?

It’s very clear the future is EVs. Astonishing how fast they have taken over in these markets.

A lot of folks still have 2000-2010s era power prices in their heads as “normal” with an expectation that we will return to “normal” at some point. There are many reasons that isn’t true, but this is probably the biggest among them. We are in a new era of power prices.

This has been very different from the Fervo experience, where we are flooded with hundreds of applicants for every technical role we post now. I don’t think staff shortages are going to be a limiter for geothermal growth. www.wsj.com/articles/geo...

I have found to to be an almost invariable rule that, after seeing a viral post about a business leader that insists on some weird quirk for their company meetings, if you ask someone that works at that company, they basically just have normal meetings like any other corporation.

Hardtech startups are generally way too concerned about someone “stealing their idea”, to their detriment. The Edison quote that it is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is very applicable. Ideas are easy, execution is hard.

Hello, regular reminder that if you are using stale drilling costs for geothermal analysis, anything from more than 12 months ago, your analysis is wildly out of date and you are going to have a major miss in forecasting.

There is a fear that LLMs will stop their pace of improvement because they’ll run out of training data. Based on their answers on utilities questions, there is actually a long way of to go. Although the prospect of LLMs trained on utility filings is concerning for other reasons. 😆

It was a great week this week at Fervo.

Enhanced geothermal could power 1 in 5 US homes by 2050 A new study shows that early investment in geothermal tech (using underground heat for electricity) could cut energy costs and help decarbonise the grid nationwide. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Seems like something happened in April that really shifted the prospects of the US oil and gas industry. 🤔

As a general rule, someone throwing around the acronym “EROI” is a good signal they have no idea how energy markets work.

We are at a time in the market cycle in climatetech where consolidation will be increasingly common. One of the hangups will be a relative lack of experience in M&A among management teams and even investors in these transactions.

One of the coolest things about what Fervo is doing right now is the quantity of deep drilling into geologies that haven’t been explored nearly as much as the classic sedimentary formations of O&G. It’s fun to get huge insights into fundamental geologic processes as a byproduct of our work.

It’s wild that just a few years ago there were zero $1 trillion companies and now there are several in the $2, $3 and even now $4 trillion range.

“Fervo’s at it again — pushing the limits of enhanced geothermal and what’s possible in clean, firm power.” Great write up from Sightline on our latest technical advancements. www.ctvc.co/fervo-goes-h...

Fervo announces new progress on geothermal drilling: deeper, faster, hotter www.linkedin.com/posts/timlat... 🔌💡

"After a day touring Fervo Energy’s geothermal site, @billgates.bsky.social reached a conclusion: “It’s pretty mind-blowing.” www.wsj.com/business/ene...

Possibly the coolest job opportunity yet? I'm horribly biased but I think it holds up. Fervo Energy is hiring for a mid-career level Policy Manager to help lead strategic engagement on government affairs and policy campaigns at the federal and state level: fervoenergy.com/career/gover...

Check out this overview video of Fervo’s Cape Station Project in Utah. I had the honor of hosting Bill Gates and Senator John Curtis at our site last week. youtu.be/uBmCSdiMeFk?...

Great interview with one of Fervo’s earliest execs on how we have methodically built the capital stock to unlock first of a kind project development.

Super exciting report from the U.S. Geological Survey yesterday on the potential for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) in the Great Basin. 135 GW of EGS potential is beneath our feet there, which could roughly meet 10% of U.S. power production capacity. pubs.usgs.gov/publication/...

The latest USGS geothermal is a great example of something people outside the resource industry often miss—how much of something there is is a function of how good the tech is. For just the Great Basin in the US: Base scenario: 135 GW Improved tech: 1400 GW pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2025/3027...

Things are moving fast—if you are reading a commentary on geothermal that was published before this year, good chance it’s already out of date. Thankfully there is a lot of up to date work, Ben has all the links below.

“What we’re doing here is proving that a new kind of geothermal works, and this is basically ground zero for what technology we think is going to transform the energy sector here in the United States and then around the world.” - @timlatimer.bsky.social www.deseret.com/environment/...

This is my philosophy of project development in a nutshell. www.deseret.com/environment/...

Some of the most recent “market analysis” on geothermal has been of terrible quality. Fervo publishes extensively, at great risk to our business BTW as it gives competitors insight into our tech. And a lot of “analysis” seems incapable of even basic Google searches to find it.

A remarkable quarterly letter from Diamondback, a leading independent oil producer, commenting on the current environment. “As a result of these activity cuts, it is likely that U.S. onshore oil production has peaked and will begin to decline this quarter.” www.diamondbackenergy.com/news-release...

20 days later and WTI starts with a 5 again. I’ve heard from a few industry folks that companies will start making decisions to slow down 2025 activities as early as next month.

This has been trending this direction for a bit now, but it’s still shocking to think back to 5-10 years ago and imagine an American major would be outpacing their European peers in low carbon investment. www.ft.com/content/ce4d...

Fascinating that two of the countries in North America are now led by Mark Carney, the Co-Chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, and Claudia Sheinbaum, an energy engineering PhD and IPCC contributor. That’s some climate experts in some powerful places.

It’s amazing how good Contact is given it was Sagan’s only fiction novel. What an incredible mind.

There aren’t enough public companies (yet!) to have a true index of geothermal, but you can sometimes gain insights by looking at Ormat’s performance. It’s one of few companies in energy up this year. Make sense as geothermal has a more secure and domestic supply chain than other options.

Awesome project coming to my neighborhood in Houston. A huge art installation, a “sun dial” that will also produce solar power. www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

Just saw this ad during an MLB game. Pretty cool that pushing battery powered equipment is now the default for power tools. A quiet, successful clean energy revolution that is rarely talked about. youtu.be/7JX7xDbP7mc?...

A weird disconnect in VC. Often corporate VCs invest in something that internal SMEs hate, the idea being they are hedging in case their experts are wrong. But then the broader market just sees “X company invested in Y, and they are the experts!” Some of the worst ideas get traction this way.

Fun history fact I learned on a recent @dkthomp.bsky.social Plain English podcast: over 1000 economists signed an open letter to Congress in 1930 urging them to not pass the Smoot Hawley Tariffs because it would increase prices and cause major job losses. econjwatch.org/File+downloa...

Worth a read. Some highlights: 8. For as far back as we have data, outside of a few brief windows, construction in the US has never gotten cheaper. 37. AT&T spent substantially more on telephone infrastructure in the 1960s than NASA spent on the Apollo Program. open.substack.com/pub/construc...

Anchor Bolts xkcd.com/3078

Fascinating result, and still blows my mind every time I read about Curiosity that is able to drill into rock on another planet to conduct these tests.

Every write up that is some version of “focus on (emerging solution) is a distraction from (mature solution)” invariably cites a “mature solution” that was nascent not that many years ago. Had we applied that logic in the past, we wouldn’t have that solution! We can walk and chew gum…

Awesome news. Congrats to my friend Anca and the whole Holocene team! Another great success story from Stanford Climate Ventures.

Too often hardtech innovators rush into complicate materials science or complex engineering challenges, when more often than not the correct solution is to step back at a systems level and design the complicated part out of the process.

Likely the most valid reason there aren’t more O&G companies in geothermal is the boom bust nature of oil. High oil prices: hard to justify allocating capital away from oil. Low oil prices: there isn’t any capital to allocate. Investors haven’t proved willing to stick it out through a cycle.

An iconic example of the silly debate about safe streets and media’s need to both sides it. On the one hand, data definitively shows 11th St. improvements led to a big safety improvement. On the other hand, some guy says “people speed everywhere.” www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston...

Near term electric grid additions in the US completely dominated by renewables and battery storage.

EV sales in Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024, YTD percentage: Global: 4.1 million, +29% China: 2.4 million, +36% Europe: 0.9 million, +22% North America: 0.5 million, +16% Rest of World: 0.3 million, +27%