10 ms·

America's Geothermal Breakthrough

171 points by sleepyguy 6mo ago

WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
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). 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. 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.
- wood_spirit 6mo ago
  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.
  - jjtheblunt 6mo ago
    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. It seems so smart.
    - maxerickson 6mo ago
      It's expensive. A relative has one in the northern Great Lakes, they wouldn't have installed it if their house had access to natural gas.
      - zrail 6mo ago
        Our house came with one and we upgraded the unit a few years ago. It's very efficient in terms of units of energy consumed, but in my area of the world gas is significantly cheaper than electricity so it ends up being expensive to run. That said, we will install solar at some point and then it'll be "free" HVAC.
    - zdragnar 6mo ago
      There's a pretty significant upfront cost in getting them drilled, and many homes need the vertical drilling if they don't have sufficient yard space for a horizontal system. It gets harder if you have your own septic drain field too, as that will complete for yard space. The cost difference is pretty massive- 3-10x for a vertical system. If you live in a city or a suburb with tiny lots, that's your only option though. Nat gas and central AC are way cheaper.
      - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
        Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient and just plain better these days too. It used to be that if the air was below 40F you couldn't heat your house with a heat pump. Now, you can heat your house even when it's -10F
        SR2Z 6mo ago
        If you can tolerate the price, I am _confident_ that you will pretty much always have better results using the Earth as your thermal exhaust, because you don't have to dig very far to find a large region that's pretty much always at 50 F.
        wood_spirit 6mo ago
        The downvotes are unfair. The price of things - heat pumps and alternatives - in different regions - even different regions within the US - varies by what people are prepared to pay not what they cost to produce. The nordics have traditionally had cheap heat pumps whereas piped gas is only in the biggest cities and I’ve never seen bottled gas in the countryside. The competitor used to be cheap electricity and wood. Ground source heat pumps for rural install have been priced to compete with wood. In the US the market could be shaped by regulation and taxation etc. It’s the choice of the US to have cheap fossil fuels and not embrace tech instead.
        hvb2 6mo ago
        > Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient Citation needed? Efficient how? I'm sure a heat pump designed for a narrow range of input temperatures AND working with water which can transport a lot more heat should easily be more efficient. https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/compare-air-source-geothermal-heat-pumps/ https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/compare-air-source-geo... Seems to disagree
  - ninalanyon 6mo ago
    No it's not. It exists but it's certainly not common for individual dwelling to use ground source heat pumps, at least in Norway. It is more common in Sweden[1] but still far less common than air source and over 90% of heat pump installations in Norway are air source[2]. The only ground source installations I can think of in Norway serve large office buildings and similar. The largest heat pump installation I know of in Norway is actually a third kind: water source[3]. It takes heat from the Drammen river to provide heat for a district heating system and for keeping the town centre clear of ice in the winter as well as supplying the new hospital with heat. I imagine that the rest of the Nordic region is similar. See: [1] http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC137131/JRC137131_026.pdf http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213138822008773 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221313882... [3] https://energiteknikk.net/2023/11/drammen-fjernvarme-storst-pa-sjovarme/ https://energiteknikk.net/2023/11/drammen-fjernvarme-storst-...
    - deliciousturkey 6mo ago
      In Finland around 50% of new single-family homes use ground source heat pumps. So it's definitely popular here.
    - emil-lp 6mo ago
      3 schools in my neighborhood (barneskole, ungdomsskole & videregående) all use ground source heat pumps.
    - deleted 6mo ago
      [deleted]
    - sumea 6mo ago
      If by Nordics you mean Norway, Sweden and Finland, then the most correct way to say would be that ground source heat pumps for redidential heating are (very) common in Sweden and Finland, especially in newer and larger buildings. Norway is somewhat different in energy and climate perspective than its eastern neighbours. The biggest reason to not install ground source heat pump is high installation cost. This means that it makes more sense for larger residential buildings. Also If you have district heating available then this might be more economical in the long run.
- readthenotes1 6mo ago
  Isn't that similar to how neighborhood heat pumps work? https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-efficiency-innovation https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-effic...
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    Heat pumps require a specific temperate differential to work. So they work in zones with are a bit hotter or colder than you would like and so require moderate amounts of heating or cooling. They don't work in temperate zones nor in very hot or cold places. So Santa Fe or Minneapolis for example they work but Mexico City or San Francisco they don't. If you are in a place where they work and that isn't too dense or has earthquakes, go for it. If not, don't. There are businesses that will help you understand when they do and don't make sense. Those businesses don't sell heat pumps though (the businesses that sell things will almost always tell you it works, even when it doesn't, for example PV in the UK doesn't work).
    - adgjlsfhk1 6mo ago
      > pv in the UK doesn't work tell that to 6% of UK electric production https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz947djd3d3o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz947djd3d3o (up from 5% in 2024
      - laurencerowe 6mo ago
        Solar is surprisingly useful in the UK since it is anti-correlated with wind power, the UK's largest electricity source. Solar peaked at 42% of UK electricity generation the other day: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/24/uk-solar-generation-hits-record-15-gw-as-gas-falls-to-historic-low/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/24/uk-solar-generation-h...
    - sokoloff 6mo ago
      I’ve never heard a claim that heat pumps won’t work well in a climate like San Francisco and, from looking at the annual temperature patterns, it seems like both air source and ground source heat pumps should work extremely well as they do in the “shoulder seasons” here in New England.
- Animats 6mo ago
  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.
  - lostlogin 6mo ago
    > if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells. That’s going to be very dependant on location. Here in NZ there are regions where water is boiling at surface level. According to the below, 18% of our power is produced with it. https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/renewable-energy/geothermal/ https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/rene...
    - Animats 6mo ago
      "New Zealand has an abundant supply of geothermal energy because we are located on the boundary between two tectonic plates. ... Total geothermal electricity capacity in New Zealand stands at over 900 MW, making us the fifth largest generator of geothermal in the world. It has been estimated that there is sufficient geothermal resource for another 1,000 MW of electricity generation." That's not all that much. That total would be about equal to the 75th largest nuclear plant in the world. Good sites where high temperatures are near the surface are rare. California has a few, but no promising locations for more.
      - lostlogin 6mo ago
        > That's not all that much. We don’t have many people. It gets worse’s though, we burn coal and are looking to fund a gas terminal. We have abundant other ways of generating power and subsidise an aluminium smelter for some reason. Coming up next, data centres. ‘Clean, Green New Zealand.’
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 6mo ago
        Is there any earthquake risk from drilling near tectonic plates?
- solarpunk 6mo ago
  I think you're describing what is known as "district energy" systems.
- quickthrowman 6mo ago
  District heating and chilled water is uneconomical for single-family homes. It does work well in medium to high density areas.
  - gambiting 6mo ago
    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.
    - hunterpayne 6mo ago
      "I don't know how economical that is" 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. 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).
      - LeFantome 6mo ago
        The “new” way is plasma drilling.
        thinkcontext 6mo ago
        That's still a science project, they are piloting zapping a small hole to 100m. Very uncertain whether it will amount to anything.
      - thinkcontext 6mo ago
        > Its just drilling a hole and making electricity from the heat District heating does not involve making electricity.
- mlwiese 6mo ago
  Framingham, MA has a geothermal system using ground source heat pumps like what you are describing https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geothermal-utility-eversource-framingham-building-decarbonization/718015/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geother...
- limagnolia 6mo ago
  Whisper Valley in Austin Texas is one example of a neighborhood geothermal installation: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/texas-whisper-valley-neighborhood-homes https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/texas-whispe... Maybe not quite exactly what you envision.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
    > Maybe not quite exactly what you envision. I'm too zonked to pick out the method from the article - but I'll offer that geo methods can be region specific. What I described fits the SE US, with our 13 month summers and abundant underground water.
    - limagnolia 6mo ago
      13 month summers lol :) Yeah, definitely if your interested neighborhood geothermal Whisper Valley seems to be the largest by far in the US, you might check it out.
- wesapien 6mo ago
  One of the problems with the data center boom is its use of fresh water. How does geo-thermal plants use water and how much?
  - micro2588 6mo ago
    The water at these temperature / depths has a lot of dissolved salts and minerals so it's not (human / ag) usable. Modern designs are closed loop systems where production wells bringing the hot water to the surface go through a heat exchanger to a different working fluid to drive the turbine and then is re-injected back into the reservoir. There is consumptive water use for fracking the reservoirs in these types of enhanced geothermal systems, but beyond that it's more water redistribution in the area around the well systems where re-injection and production lead to different pressurization from pumping / natural ground water replenishment rates.
    - WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
      > The water at these temperature / depths has a lot of dissolved salts and minerals so it's not (human / ag) usable. To clarify, our 400' water source is the same aquifer that supplies drinking water to the state. The water management districts will rubber-stamp permits for these wells. No one else gets off that easy.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
    > One of the problems with the data center boom is its use of fresh water. How does geo-thermal plants use water and how much? Baring leaks, ground source heat pump geo will consume no water at all. Water is pumped from one layer of the aquifer and is returned to a slightly higher layer.
  - ksec 6mo ago
    I dont know why this keeps coming up? It is a closed loop system. The water aren't used at all.
    - justnoise 6mo ago
- acdha 6mo ago
  > 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. I keep thinking this would be a great municipal code change: any time the roads are being built or ripped up for water/sewer maintenance, put in a ground loop and subsidize household connections for heat pumps so instead of having to deal with the marginal difference between 20℉ winter air you'd be working with 50-60℉ ground temperatures.
- GJim 6mo ago
  > 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. I read this several times in the context of _geothermal_ energy, and had no clue what you were talking about. Then I realised, you must be an American and use 'freedom units', coupled with a misunderstanding of what geothermal means.
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
taffydavid 6mo ago
[flagged]
- ryandrake 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - tialaramex 6mo ago
    It has exclusivity which might be enough, you can't own the sun (modulo Simpsons episode) but you might 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.
    - ourmandave 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - ch4s3 6mo ago
    They're pretty friendly to nuclear which comes out of the ground.
    - hunterpayne 6mo ago
      So do Renewables.
      - ch4s3 6mo ago
        Sure, technically.
  - r3trohack3r 6mo ago
    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.
Animats 6mo ago
Oh, Fervo Energy again. They're trying to IPO, hence the hype. Wikipedia's warning: 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. Here's a more realistic evaluation of Fervo.[1] [1] https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says-about-financing-first-of-a-kind-energy-projects/ https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says...
- w1 6mo ago
  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). Compared to some other new approaches for getting clean base load power, it seems like they’ve been pretty grounded and methodical.
  - Animats 6mo ago
    They're way ahead of the microwave drilling people. 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.
    - hunterpayne 6mo ago
      "There's no reason why this shouldn't work." Geothermal has had the same problem for its entire history. That problem is that the water being heated goes through the ground (not in a pipe) to "gather" more energy. But this means that when the water comes back up, it has a lot of weird salts in it (and other things). Those salts cause corrosion, lots and lots of corrosion, far more than even a maritime environment. So the plant needs to be shutdown a lot of the time for repairs. And that's what makes it uneconomical. Also, the salts often contain things that require special handling which also increases costs. PS This is why geothermal works in Iceland where there is so much geothermal heat they can use pipes. In CA, they can't so it doesn't work there.
mskogly 6mo ago
[flagged]
- mc32 6mo ago
  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?
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > how the United Mexican Sates are known as Mexico I can’t believe I didn’t know that’s Mexico’s official name! TIL!
- ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
  Yes. North America. United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (formerly NAFTA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E2%80%93Canada_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E... https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-imports-from-canada/ https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-i... https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-states-mexico-canada-agreement https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-st...
  - LeFantome 6mo ago
    Now USMCA (if you are American) or CUSMA (if you are Canadian) or T-MEC (if you are Mexican). Canadian United States Mexico Agreement. It is up for review July 1st I believe.
    - dmix 6mo ago
      It expires in 2036
  - defrost 6mo ago
    Or, as you've presented, three of the twenty three independent states and territories of North America.
jmward01 6mo ago
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. [1] (2023) https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geothermal-energy/ https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geotherma...
aaron695 6mo ago
[dead]
davidw 6mo ago
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 https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geothermal-technology-renewable-energy-three-rivers-mazama/ https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geoth...
- micro2588 6mo ago
  Newberry Volcano is too good to be true in that there are few (outside of Yellowstone) equivalent sources of geothermal awesomeness at similar depths in the USA. Good for research bad for generalization of drilling costs to hit similar temperatures. There are federal protections for geothermal drilling anywhere near Yellowstone.
pedalpete 6mo ago
According to google, this would be almost 30% of total US energy production (135gw-150gw) and nearly 5% of total US energy consumption. 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.
- hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago
  4th paragraph of TFA: > 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.
  - nusl 6mo ago
    So it basically says nothing useful other than try to generate hype and make them look good.
    - thinkcontext 6mo ago
      No. Current geothermal projects need very specific geology to work, its very rare which is why geothermal is such a small blip in the overall energy picture. Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), the technique Fervo is using, can create the conditions to be able to generate electricity. The hope is this will greatly expand the number of projects that can be developed. Doesn't that sound useful to you?
  - nandomrumber 6mo ago
    Sounds like marketing hype to me. Geothermal reservoirs exist at depth. Drilling horizontally doesn’t magically reduce the depth, nor the problem that drilling in to hot rock is like drilling in to plasticine, at least for temperatures worth working with.
idontwantthis 6mo ago
Is 150GW enough for a “revolution”? That’s about 10% of current total power production.
- smallerize 6mo ago
  Solar is at 7%. It's very significant.
  - idontwantthis 6mo ago
    That’s my point. Solar is on track to eclipse that amount way before we would build all of this speculative geothermal.
    - defrost 6mo ago
      Just make everything part of the mix, even dam to dam hydro on rural hillsides plays a part in stabilising grid edges. The more interesting use of geothermal power, IMO, is pushing heat underground with excess solar while the sun is high and the days are long, and pulling out electricity from heat in the darker times .. done large enough that carries across summer to winter.
- edbaskerville 6mo ago
  Solar and wind, with battery storage, can get you to say 90%, and then you only need 10% from other sources like geothermal and nuclear to fully decarbonize.
runicelf 6mo ago
Would be great to see this in our lifetime
typon 6mo ago
What is the point of building energy outside of solar farms? I'm sincerely asking
- applied_heat 6mo ago
  Night time? But batteries! Several cloudy days in a row? More batteries! Cost? -> a mix of sources becomes attractive
  - typon 6mo ago
    https://imgur.com/a/dV8gk3R https://imgur.com/a/dV8gk3R can you find curves like this for any other power source? also batteries are getting exponentially cheap too
    - micro2588 6mo ago
      These are typically representative of cost performance per watt of one part of a more complex deployed energy system. Things like the aluminum / steal for the container / framing, copper / aluminum for the transmission and wiring, land and labor for installation decline at much less aggressive rates or increase over time. In almost all pareto optimal least cost energy system models that I've seen, high penetration of solar, wind, batteries plus some minority amount of (clean) baseload power is the most capital efficient energy system.
  - jgoewert 6mo ago
    Batteries? You mean like digging a hole/making a wall and pumping water? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_... Or we could just spin some rocks around. https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel Rather have solar/wind and this than shipping depleting goop from foreign nations.
- AngryData 6mo ago
  An inexhaustible 24/7 production capable plant has many advantages over solar and maintaining large most types of battery banks.
whatsupdog 6mo ago
[dead]
metalman 6mo ago
this looks like a search for fluffy money durring an energy crisis. Turbines are completly mature, and nothing dealing with some new deap drilling breakthrough or heat exhanger advancement, or more efficient and durable pumps, crittical CO², or H²O ?, not yet. Existing geothermal plants use the same generation technology as a coal plant, but use near surface heat assosiated with volcanoes and hot springs, and there is a distinct limit on more of that.
Melatonic 6mo ago
Those geothermal plants up by Mammoth Lakes are looking like a great idea right now
Aboutplants 6mo ago
While I’m not extremely bullish on large scale geothermal, much like with Housing, we need any and all types of it.
choam2426 6mo ago
[dead]
RITESH1985 6mo ago
[flagged]
m0llusk 6mo ago
With all the exotic drilling tech making fracking work, it seems like geothermal is a natural pivot since much of the challenge is controlling the cost of drilling deeply.
mcoliver 6mo ago
The Casa Diablo geothermal facility in the eastern Sierra Nevada of California has been a success. I also remember reading years back about ideas surrounding how to extract energy from Yellowstone both to provide clean energy but also to decrease risk of another massive explosion. If I recall they were proposing digging a massive horizontal tunnel to come in deep and extract heat without compromising the roof. Long Valley Caldera Geothermal Area | Open Energy Information https://share.google/5DvljMhL3EVMDeIAL https://share.google/5DvljMhL3EVMDeIAL
Mars008 6mo ago
In case you didn't know, geothermal energy extraction works on cooling our planet's core. It's not 'free', or 'clean', or 'green'. IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE LESS IDIOTIC WAY OF ENERGY PRODUCTION

171 points by sleepyguy 6mo ago

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). 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. 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.

wood_spirit 6mo ago
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.
- jjtheblunt 6mo ago
  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. It seems so smart.
  - maxerickson 6mo ago
    It's expensive. A relative has one in the northern Great Lakes, they wouldn't have installed it if their house had access to natural gas.
    - zrail 6mo ago
      Our house came with one and we upgraded the unit a few years ago. It's very efficient in terms of units of energy consumed, but in my area of the world gas is significantly cheaper than electricity so it ends up being expensive to run. That said, we will install solar at some point and then it'll be "free" HVAC.
  - zdragnar 6mo ago
    There's a pretty significant upfront cost in getting them drilled, and many homes need the vertical drilling if they don't have sufficient yard space for a horizontal system. It gets harder if you have your own septic drain field too, as that will complete for yard space. The cost difference is pretty massive- 3-10x for a vertical system. If you live in a city or a suburb with tiny lots, that's your only option though. Nat gas and central AC are way cheaper.
    - IncreasePosts 6mo ago
      Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient and just plain better these days too. It used to be that if the air was below 40F you couldn't heat your house with a heat pump. Now, you can heat your house even when it's -10F
      - SR2Z 6mo ago
        If you can tolerate the price, I am _confident_ that you will pretty much always have better results using the Earth as your thermal exhaust, because you don't have to dig very far to find a large region that's pretty much always at 50 F.
      - wood_spirit 6mo ago
        The downvotes are unfair. The price of things - heat pumps and alternatives - in different regions - even different regions within the US - varies by what people are prepared to pay not what they cost to produce. The nordics have traditionally had cheap heat pumps whereas piped gas is only in the biggest cities and I’ve never seen bottled gas in the countryside. The competitor used to be cheap electricity and wood. Ground source heat pumps for rural install have been priced to compete with wood. In the US the market could be shaped by regulation and taxation etc. It’s the choice of the US to have cheap fossil fuels and not embrace tech instead.
      - hvb2 6mo ago
        > Air source heat pumps are insanely more efficient Citation needed? Efficient how? I'm sure a heat pump designed for a narrow range of input temperatures AND working with water which can transport a lot more heat should easily be more efficient. https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/compare-air-source-geothermal-heat-pumps/ https://www.energysage.com/heat-pumps/compare-air-source-geo... Seems to disagree
- ninalanyon 6mo ago
  No it's not. It exists but it's certainly not common for individual dwelling to use ground source heat pumps, at least in Norway. It is more common in Sweden[1] but still far less common than air source and over 90% of heat pump installations in Norway are air source[2]. The only ground source installations I can think of in Norway serve large office buildings and similar. The largest heat pump installation I know of in Norway is actually a third kind: water source[3]. It takes heat from the Drammen river to provide heat for a district heating system and for keeping the town centre clear of ice in the winter as well as supplying the new hospital with heat. I imagine that the rest of the Nordic region is similar. See: [1] http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JRC137131/JRC137131_026.pdf http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/bitstream/JR... [2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213138822008773 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221313882... [3] https://energiteknikk.net/2023/11/drammen-fjernvarme-storst-pa-sjovarme/ https://energiteknikk.net/2023/11/drammen-fjernvarme-storst-...
  - deliciousturkey 6mo ago
    In Finland around 50% of new single-family homes use ground source heat pumps. So it's definitely popular here.
  - emil-lp 6mo ago
    3 schools in my neighborhood (barneskole, ungdomsskole & videregående) all use ground source heat pumps.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - sumea 6mo ago
    If by Nordics you mean Norway, Sweden and Finland, then the most correct way to say would be that ground source heat pumps for redidential heating are (very) common in Sweden and Finland, especially in newer and larger buildings. Norway is somewhat different in energy and climate perspective than its eastern neighbours. The biggest reason to not install ground source heat pump is high installation cost. This means that it makes more sense for larger residential buildings. Also If you have district heating available then this might be more economical in the long run.
readthenotes1 6mo ago
Isn't that similar to how neighborhood heat pumps work? https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-efficiency-innovation https://www.araner.com/blog/district-heating-in-sweden-effic...
- hunterpayne 6mo ago
  Heat pumps require a specific temperate differential to work. So they work in zones with are a bit hotter or colder than you would like and so require moderate amounts of heating or cooling. They don't work in temperate zones nor in very hot or cold places. So Santa Fe or Minneapolis for example they work but Mexico City or San Francisco they don't. If you are in a place where they work and that isn't too dense or has earthquakes, go for it. If not, don't. There are businesses that will help you understand when they do and don't make sense. Those businesses don't sell heat pumps though (the businesses that sell things will almost always tell you it works, even when it doesn't, for example PV in the UK doesn't work).
  - adgjlsfhk1 6mo ago
    > pv in the UK doesn't work tell that to 6% of UK electric production https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz947djd3d3o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz947djd3d3o (up from 5% in 2024
    - laurencerowe 6mo ago
      Solar is surprisingly useful in the UK since it is anti-correlated with wind power, the UK's largest electricity source. Solar peaked at 42% of UK electricity generation the other day: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/24/uk-solar-generation-hits-record-15-gw-as-gas-falls-to-historic-low/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/04/24/uk-solar-generation-h...
  - sokoloff 6mo ago
    I’ve never heard a claim that heat pumps won’t work well in a climate like San Francisco and, from looking at the annual temperature patterns, it seems like both air source and ground source heat pumps should work extremely well as they do in the “shoulder seasons” here in New England.
Animats 6mo ago
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.
- lostlogin 6mo ago
  > if you want to generate power, you need to get down to where temperatures can boil water. That's deeper than most oil wells. That’s going to be very dependant on location. Here in NZ there are regions where water is boiling at surface level. According to the below, 18% of our power is produced with it. https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/renewable-energy/geothermal/ https://www.eeca.govt.nz/insights/energy-in-new-zealand/rene...
  - Animats 6mo ago
    "New Zealand has an abundant supply of geothermal energy because we are located on the boundary between two tectonic plates. ... Total geothermal electricity capacity in New Zealand stands at over 900 MW, making us the fifth largest generator of geothermal in the world. It has been estimated that there is sufficient geothermal resource for another 1,000 MW of electricity generation." That's not all that much. That total would be about equal to the 75th largest nuclear plant in the world. Good sites where high temperatures are near the surface are rare. California has a few, but no promising locations for more.
    - lostlogin 6mo ago
      > That's not all that much. We don’t have many people. It gets worse’s though, we burn coal and are looking to fund a gas terminal. We have abundant other ways of generating power and subsidise an aluminium smelter for some reason. Coming up next, data centres. ‘Clean, Green New Zealand.’
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 6mo ago
      Is there any earthquake risk from drilling near tectonic plates?
solarpunk 6mo ago
I think you're describing what is known as "district energy" systems.
quickthrowman 6mo ago
District heating and chilled water is uneconomical for single-family homes. It does work well in medium to high density areas.
- gambiting 6mo ago
  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.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    "I don't know how economical that is" 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. 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).
    - LeFantome 6mo ago
      The “new” way is plasma drilling.
      - thinkcontext 6mo ago
        That's still a science project, they are piloting zapping a small hole to 100m. Very uncertain whether it will amount to anything.
    - thinkcontext 6mo ago
      > Its just drilling a hole and making electricity from the heat District heating does not involve making electricity.
mlwiese 6mo ago
Framingham, MA has a geothermal system using ground source heat pumps like what you are describing https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geothermal-utility-eversource-framingham-building-decarbonization/718015/ https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/first-networked-geother...
limagnolia 6mo ago
Whisper Valley in Austin Texas is one example of a neighborhood geothermal installation: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/texas-whisper-valley-neighborhood-homes https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/texas-whispe... Maybe not quite exactly what you envision.
- WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
  > Maybe not quite exactly what you envision. I'm too zonked to pick out the method from the article - but I'll offer that geo methods can be region specific. What I described fits the SE US, with our 13 month summers and abundant underground water.
  - limagnolia 6mo ago
    13 month summers lol :) Yeah, definitely if your interested neighborhood geothermal Whisper Valley seems to be the largest by far in the US, you might check it out.
wesapien 6mo ago
One of the problems with the data center boom is its use of fresh water. How does geo-thermal plants use water and how much?
- micro2588 6mo ago
  The water at these temperature / depths has a lot of dissolved salts and minerals so it's not (human / ag) usable. Modern designs are closed loop systems where production wells bringing the hot water to the surface go through a heat exchanger to a different working fluid to drive the turbine and then is re-injected back into the reservoir. There is consumptive water use for fracking the reservoirs in these types of enhanced geothermal systems, but beyond that it's more water redistribution in the area around the well systems where re-injection and production lead to different pressurization from pumping / natural ground water replenishment rates.
  - WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
    > The water at these temperature / depths has a lot of dissolved salts and minerals so it's not (human / ag) usable. To clarify, our 400' water source is the same aquifer that supplies drinking water to the state. The water management districts will rubber-stamp permits for these wells. No one else gets off that easy.
- WarOnPrivacy 6mo ago
  > One of the problems with the data center boom is its use of fresh water. How does geo-thermal plants use water and how much? Baring leaks, ground source heat pump geo will consume no water at all. Water is pumped from one layer of the aquifer and is returned to a slightly higher layer.
- ksec 6mo ago
  I dont know why this keeps coming up? It is a closed loop system. The water aren't used at all.
  - justnoise 6mo ago
acdha 6mo ago
> 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. I keep thinking this would be a great municipal code change: any time the roads are being built or ripped up for water/sewer maintenance, put in a ground loop and subsidize household connections for heat pumps so instead of having to deal with the marginal difference between 20℉ winter air you'd be working with 50-60℉ ground temperatures.
GJim 6mo ago
> 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. I read this several times in the context of _geothermal_ energy, and had no clue what you were talking about. Then I realised, you must be an American and use 'freedom units', coupled with a misunderstanding of what geothermal means.

deleted 6mo ago

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taffydavid 6mo ago

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ryandrake 6mo ago
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- tialaramex 6mo ago
  It has exclusivity which might be enough, you can't own the sun (modulo Simpsons episode) but you might 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.
  - ourmandave 6mo ago
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- ch4s3 6mo ago
  They're pretty friendly to nuclear which comes out of the ground.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    So do Renewables.
    - ch4s3 6mo ago
      Sure, technically.
- r3trohack3r 6mo ago
  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.

Animats 6mo ago

Oh, Fervo Energy again. They're trying to IPO, hence the hype. Wikipedia's warning: 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. Here's a more realistic evaluation of Fervo.[1] [1] https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says-about-financing-first-of-a-kind-energy-projects/ https://www.latitudemedia.com/news/what-fervos-approach-says...

w1 6mo ago
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). Compared to some other new approaches for getting clean base load power, it seems like they’ve been pretty grounded and methodical.
- Animats 6mo ago
  They're way ahead of the microwave drilling people. 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.
  - hunterpayne 6mo ago
    "There's no reason why this shouldn't work." Geothermal has had the same problem for its entire history. That problem is that the water being heated goes through the ground (not in a pipe) to "gather" more energy. But this means that when the water comes back up, it has a lot of weird salts in it (and other things). Those salts cause corrosion, lots and lots of corrosion, far more than even a maritime environment. So the plant needs to be shutdown a lot of the time for repairs. And that's what makes it uneconomical. Also, the salts often contain things that require special handling which also increases costs. PS This is why geothermal works in Iceland where there is so much geothermal heat they can use pipes. In CA, they can't so it doesn't work there.

mskogly 6mo ago

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mc32 6mo ago
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?
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > how the United Mexican Sates are known as Mexico I can’t believe I didn’t know that’s Mexico’s official name! TIL!
ButlerianJihad 6mo ago
Yes. North America. United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (formerly NAFTA) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E2%80%93Canada_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States%E2%80%93Mexico%E... https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-imports-from-canada/ https://www.ghy.com/trade-compliance/guidance-on-us-energy-i... https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-states-mexico-canada-agreement https://www.heritage.org/trade/report/analysis-the-united-st...
- LeFantome 6mo ago
  Now USMCA (if you are American) or CUSMA (if you are Canadian) or T-MEC (if you are Mexican). Canadian United States Mexico Agreement. It is up for review July 1st I believe.
  - dmix 6mo ago
    It expires in 2036
- defrost 6mo ago
  Or, as you've presented, three of the twenty three independent states and territories of North America.

jmward01 6mo ago

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. [1] (2023) https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geothermal-energy/ https://time.com/6302342/fervo-fracking-technology-geotherma...

aaron695 6mo ago

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davidw 6mo ago

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 https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geothermal-technology-renewable-energy-three-rivers-mazama/ https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/06/super-hot-rocks-geoth...

micro2588 6mo ago
Newberry Volcano is too good to be true in that there are few (outside of Yellowstone) equivalent sources of geothermal awesomeness at similar depths in the USA. Good for research bad for generalization of drilling costs to hit similar temperatures. There are federal protections for geothermal drilling anywhere near Yellowstone.

pedalpete 6mo ago

According to google, this would be almost 30% of total US energy production (135gw-150gw) and nearly 5% of total US energy consumption. 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.

hn_throwaway_99 6mo ago
4th paragraph of TFA: > 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.
- nusl 6mo ago
  So it basically says nothing useful other than try to generate hype and make them look good.
  - thinkcontext 6mo ago
    No. Current geothermal projects need very specific geology to work, its very rare which is why geothermal is such a small blip in the overall energy picture. Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), the technique Fervo is using, can create the conditions to be able to generate electricity. The hope is this will greatly expand the number of projects that can be developed. Doesn't that sound useful to you?
- nandomrumber 6mo ago
  Sounds like marketing hype to me. Geothermal reservoirs exist at depth. Drilling horizontally doesn’t magically reduce the depth, nor the problem that drilling in to hot rock is like drilling in to plasticine, at least for temperatures worth working with.

idontwantthis 6mo ago

Is 150GW enough for a “revolution”? That’s about 10% of current total power production.

smallerize 6mo ago
Solar is at 7%. It's very significant.
- idontwantthis 6mo ago
  That’s my point. Solar is on track to eclipse that amount way before we would build all of this speculative geothermal.
  - defrost 6mo ago
    Just make everything part of the mix, even dam to dam hydro on rural hillsides plays a part in stabilising grid edges. The more interesting use of geothermal power, IMO, is pushing heat underground with excess solar while the sun is high and the days are long, and pulling out electricity from heat in the darker times .. done large enough that carries across summer to winter.
edbaskerville 6mo ago
Solar and wind, with battery storage, can get you to say 90%, and then you only need 10% from other sources like geothermal and nuclear to fully decarbonize.

runicelf 6mo ago

Would be great to see this in our lifetime

typon 6mo ago

What is the point of building energy outside of solar farms? I'm sincerely asking

applied_heat 6mo ago
Night time? But batteries! Several cloudy days in a row? More batteries! Cost? -> a mix of sources becomes attractive
- typon 6mo ago
  https://imgur.com/a/dV8gk3R https://imgur.com/a/dV8gk3R can you find curves like this for any other power source? also batteries are getting exponentially cheap too
  - micro2588 6mo ago
    These are typically representative of cost performance per watt of one part of a more complex deployed energy system. Things like the aluminum / steal for the container / framing, copper / aluminum for the transmission and wiring, land and labor for installation decline at much less aggressive rates or increase over time. In almost all pareto optimal least cost energy system models that I've seen, high penetration of solar, wind, batteries plus some minority amount of (clean) baseload power is the most capital efficient energy system.
- jgoewert 6mo ago
  Batteries? You mean like digging a hole/making a wall and pumping water? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taum_Sauk_Hydroelectric_Power_... Or we could just spin some rocks around. https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel https://www.torus.co/torus-flywheel Rather have solar/wind and this than shipping depleting goop from foreign nations.
AngryData 6mo ago
An inexhaustible 24/7 production capable plant has many advantages over solar and maintaining large most types of battery banks.

whatsupdog 6mo ago

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metalman 6mo ago

this looks like a search for fluffy money durring an energy crisis. Turbines are completly mature, and nothing dealing with some new deap drilling breakthrough or heat exhanger advancement, or more efficient and durable pumps, crittical CO², or H²O ?, not yet. Existing geothermal plants use the same generation technology as a coal plant, but use near surface heat assosiated with volcanoes and hot springs, and there is a distinct limit on more of that.

Melatonic 6mo ago

Those geothermal plants up by Mammoth Lakes are looking like a great idea right now

Aboutplants 6mo ago

While I’m not extremely bullish on large scale geothermal, much like with Housing, we need any and all types of it.

choam2426 6mo ago

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RITESH1985 6mo ago

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m0llusk 6mo ago

With all the exotic drilling tech making fracking work, it seems like geothermal is a natural pivot since much of the challenge is controlling the cost of drilling deeply.

mcoliver 6mo ago

The Casa Diablo geothermal facility in the eastern Sierra Nevada of California has been a success. I also remember reading years back about ideas surrounding how to extract energy from Yellowstone both to provide clean energy but also to decrease risk of another massive explosion. If I recall they were proposing digging a massive horizontal tunnel to come in deep and extract heat without compromising the roof. Long Valley Caldera Geothermal Area | Open Energy Information https://share.google/5DvljMhL3EVMDeIAL https://share.google/5DvljMhL3EVMDeIAL

Mars008 6mo ago

In case you didn't know, geothermal energy extraction works on cooling our planet's core. It's not 'free', or 'clean', or 'green'. IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE LESS IDIOTIC WAY OF ENERGY PRODUCTION