1/We @fervoenergy are excited to announce our new geothermal drilling results. We have achieved a 70% YoY reduction in drilling times, dramatically outpacing predictions, and are poised to unleash a new wave of geothermal decades ahead of schedule. THREAD. fervoenergy.com/fervo-energy-d… 2/A little background. While the world has been drilling wells for centuries, and oil and gas drilling performance has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, geothermal drilling is at higher temperatures, harder rock (granite) and faces many more challenges than O&G.

1/Today I am thrilled to announce, after years of work, our team @fervoenergy has developed a major advancement in geothermal, proven it at the field scale, and is set to deliver commercial next-gen geothermal decades ahead of schedule. THREAD. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… 2/The Fervo journey began 10 years ago when I was still working in the oil and gas industry as a drilling engineer. I loved the work, but I was passionate about climate change. I saw all the tech advancement around me and realized that it could be used for geothermal energy.

1/There is a major pipeline of talent moving from O&G to renewables, and hiring talented people from O&G has been core to @fervoenergy mission and strategy from the start. Fervo Development Geoscience Lead Emma McConville featured in the NYT on this trend.
nytimes.com/2023/02/27/bus… 2/I started my career in O&G as well. But in the time since I left the industry, the O&G workforce has been reduced 20%, and struggles with the booms and busts and a growing awareness of climate change has led a lot of folks to look into a transition to renewables.

1/Excited to share some BIG news on a new effort at @fervoenergy to optimize direct air capture (DAC) of carbon by addressing the energy needs of DAC systems, funded by @ChanZuckerberg: hybrid geothermal + DAC facilities. A THREAD.
washingtonpost.com/climate-soluti… 2/First up, the case for Direct Air Capture (DAC) and negative emissions technologies. Nearly every serious climate scenario requires us to transition to net negative emissions to control climate change. It’s just the reality at this point. carbonbrief.org/in-depth-qa-ip…

One conundrum of hardtech companies: even though most major startup successes have been systems level innovations, it’s so much easier to communicate a widget level innovation that those ideas still attract more funding from VCs and public research grants alike. Lots of examples here but I can just imagine early days of Tesla. The idea that watching the cost curve of Li-ion batteries and seeing that it would intersect with a tipping point for affordable cars if you engineered the hell out of it is hard to communicate.

1/I get asked a lot why geothermal seems to suddenly be getting a lot of attention. There’s a market/policy reason and a tech reason. A short THREAD. 2/Market/policy: despite the rhetoric, up until 3 years ago few people actually took deep decarbonization seriously. Low level targets were all people thought could be achieved. 100% clean electricity standards and 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy commitments have expanded the ambition.

1/I recently read American Prometheus, about Robert Oppenheimer, to get some insight into rapid, large scale science innovation. Oppenheimer famously led the Manhattan Project that led to the atomic bomb. A lot of interesting lessons, so, a THREAD. 2/The first reflection I had, which is counterintuitive and really wasn’t what I expected: the Manhattan Project was actually much smaller scale than I expected. What made it so successful wasn’t some outlandish budget, at least in modern terms.

1/Nearly everything we take for granted in the modern world is the result of government funded research and public-private partnerships. @apoorv_bh89 recently laid down this challenge. Challenge accepted.

How the McRib came from gov research, a THREAD:

https://twitter.com/apoorv_bh89/status/1387782416933089286?s=20

2/The weird but true story of the government-backed McRib goes back, way back, to the days of WWII. Supplying soldiers in combat with healthy and tasty food to keep them going in trying conditions has been a challenge for millennia.

1/Alright this is an experiment, probably my most obscure thread to date, but I want to talk about one of the step-change tech breakthroughs being applied to geothermal that is transforming the sector: the polycrystalline diamond cutter (PDC) drill bit. THREAD: 2/First, a little overview of the drilling process, which is similar whether you are targeting oil, gas, geothermal, minerals, water, etc. It mostly involves breaking rock down with a drill bit and removing the pieces by circulating them up from the bottom.

1/Ok so now that we are all interested in electricity reliability, really big ruling from the California PUC today. Recognizes a 7000MW (!!) shortfall by 2025 and calls for new resources, including 1000MW each of new geothermal and long duration storage. docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/… 2/What’s going on? 2020 rotating outages exposed major vulnerabilities in California and in the next few years, Diablo Canyon nuclear and a lot of once-through cooling (OTC) natural gas is set to retire. The problem is just going to get worse.

Regular reminder that pretty much everything defining the modern energy sector--wind, solar, shale O&G, li-ion batteries, EVs--has its roots in a brief period in the 70s when we actually spent $$$ on R&D. We can and should do it again. Chart from @ITIFdc. Wind:

"In the United States, in contrast to Denmark, the oil crisis of 1973/4 resulted in a sudden government intervention into wind energy which, paradoxically, was to prove a crucial factor in the growth of Danish firms."
hbs.edu/faculty/Public…

1/Alright, now that everyone is paying attention to geothermal, time to discuss one of the more exciting developments that is driving geothermal growth to become a mainstream resource: the emergence of modern, emission free, low temperature binary cycle geothermal plants. THREAD 2/Geothermal power for a long, long time, since at least 1904 when the Larderello steam field produced 10 kW in Tuscany. But for nearly the first 100 years, geothermal was limited to places like Larderello, extremely high temperature reservoirs.
power-technology.com/features/oldes…

1/Ok y’all, this @jasonbordoff piece is just fantastic. His boldest, and in my opinion accurate, claim is that petrostates will be winners of climate change policy. So let’s unpack that with a THREAD.
foreignpolicy.com/2020/10/05/cli… 2/The first principle you need to understand is the nature of current oil production and reserves:

Big Oil (Majors) makes the most headlines, but National Oil Companies (NOCs) have the most oil. Big Oil only controls ~10% of global oil reserves.
webstore.iea.org/download/direc…

1/Emissions calculations for different techs have major impact on legislation, regulation, and customer perception, especially for geothermal, but are often not well understood. So today, a THREAD on operational and life cycle emissions, technologies, and how it impacts policy. 2/Some definitions. When we think about emissions for technologies, two common categories are operational emissions, just the emissions released at the source during operations, and life cycle analysis (LCA) emissions, which are all of the emissions in the entire process.

1/This excellent NYT piece covers the shift in decarbonization to gas as coal gets phased out.

We’ve been arguing for so long about if gas can be a “bridge fuel”, we’ve missed the point. It’s already been a bridge fuel. But, a bridge to what? THREAD
nytimes.com/2020/07/06/bus… 2/How long have we been talking about the “bridge fuel”? Well check out comments from the 1992 Global Warming and the Earth Summit from none other the Kenneth Lay, yes that Kenneth Lay, of Enron fame:

1/It has come to my attention that not everyone is aware of the incredible leadership Houston has shown on climate recently. This ain’t your 1980s Houston anymore. So inspired by @drvox, here is a roundup of some the great climate work from @HoustonTX: 2/First up renewable energy purchases: Houston will be 100% powered by renewable energy by 2025:

https://twitter.com/drvox/status/1262837207858991104?s=20

1/The new drilling rig count numbers today show the historic reduction continuing, but also an increasing divergence of the fate of oil and natural gas. This has important implications on pricing, and as a result the clean energy transition, so, a THREAD. 2/In terms of the clean energy transition, oil mostly impacts adoption of transportation technologies while mostly impacts the electricity sector (simplifying a bit), so you need to understand them separately to evaluate the impacts.

1/Ok, time for another Wonky Thoughts About What the Oil Price Crash Means for the Clean Energy Transitionᵀᴹ, this time with a focus on gasoline demand, refining, and what it can teach us about EV adoption. THREAD 2/Shelter-in-place means people aren’t driving as much. That predictably has made gasoline demand drop like a rock, which has made prices drop like a rock too. Check out RBOB gas futures, down 70% (!!) y/y.

1/There has great analysis on what the oil price crash means for renewables, but I haven’t seen anything on the most impacted renewable: geothermal.

Now that WTI is flirting with $20, a quick THREAD on why this is a major positive development for geothermal development costs: 2/Geothermal involves drilling deep wells into hot areas to directly produce steam, which means it’s supply chain overlaps significantly with oil and gas. As much as 50% of the cost of geothermal comes from drilling, so a plunge in oil prices can drop costs dramatically.

1/I recently posed this question, on how to engage people on climate who may be skeptical, and wow did Energy/Climate Twitter come through. I wanted to highlight some great responses and what I’ve learned over the years on engaging skeptical audiences.

https://twitter.com/TimMLatimer/status/1180130735560314881?s=20

2/What I’ve learned:

-be personal, tell *your* story
-listen, empathy goes a long way
-provide solutions and opportunities

So stick with me til the end and I’ll highlight my journey and with a good ending that keeps me motivated.