Happy Tuesday!
We blogged about the Department
of Energy (DOE) awarding money to the geothermal industry on February 14, 2024,
and we have learned a few more details since.
Did anyone happen to read The Houston Chronicle’s Business Section on
February 15, 2024, their article titled, “Geothermal startup to get $25M from
DOE”? The article was about the DOE’s three
awardees for the $60 million for the advancement of geothermal energy, in
addition they give us more details about Houston’s own Fervo Energy. Once the
awardees and the DOE have their final talks the $60 million is expected to be broken
down the following way. The monies
are expected to be broken down with Fervo Energy is anticipating $25 million, Chevron
New Energies is anticipating $15 million, and lastly Mazama Energy is anticipating
$20 million. We wish all the projects
luck on their objectives!
The article
goes onto more specifics for the startup Fervo Energy. Fervo Energy will be using their funds to
advance their utility grade enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) project Cape
Station in Utah which is their first expansion of their revolutionary
technology. Fervo Energy pioneered their
technology based on fracking from the oil and gas industry where liquids are
injected into the ground after drilling wells.
The project is going to attempt to be the first phase of two phases to develop
400-megawatts of power by 2028. The
first phase is expecting to make 90 megawatts of power by 2026, and the second
phase the final 310 megawatts. In their
pilot program in Nevada, they joined forces with Google, and they were able to generate
3.5 megawatts of power by drilling various kinds of wells. Their current objective is to get more than 8
megawatts of power from each group of wells.
The have started drilling at Cape Station and have successfully completed
six wells, but the plan is to drill 24 wells by 2026 to produce 90 megawatts of
power. Fervo Energy has been able to speed
up the drilling time of each well, as well as lower the costs, and their goal
is to reduce drilling costs to under $3 million a well. We wish Fervo Energy luck and maybe they
should try some wells here in their home state. If you would like to read more of The
Houston Chronicle’s article, please click the link: Fervo to receive up to $25M from DOE for Utah geothermal project(houstonchronicle.com).
If you would
like help in looking into how to transport your product efficiently, safely, and
with less of a carbon footprint or just find out what is underneath your feet
to help with your emission reduction goals, contact us via email in the blog
and check out our ESC's website!
We hope you have a wonderful evening and a great rest of
your week!
**Disclaimer: You may be charged a fee to read The
Houston Chronicle’s article. **