Mining Heat: Enhanced Geothermal Offers Endless Energy

This article highlights enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) as a promising path to large-scale clean energy by tapping deep underground heat using drilling and fracking techniques borrowed from the oil and gas industry. While conventional geothermal is limited to naturally occurring hot-water sites, EGS can unlock the far larger reserves of hot, dry rock found almost everywhere beneath the surface. Recent advances from DOE’s FORGE research site to private-sector breakthroughs, such as Fervo Energy’s first horizontal-well EGS project, show the technology moving toward commercial viability, with the potential to provide reliable baseload power and complement intermittent renewables. They explores emerging ultra-deep drilling technologies, including laser, cryogenic, and millimeter-wave approaches that could reach super-hot rock miles below the surface. Although costs remain high and technical challenges significant, studies suggest EGS could become cost-competitive in key regions by the 2030s and eventually supply substantial U.S. electricity.