Geothermal is getting closer to the big time. Last week, Fervo Energy — arguably the country’s leading enhanced geothermal company — announced that its Utah demonstration project had achieved record production capacity. On the whole, enhanced geothermal — which borrows drilling techniques from the oil and gas industry — seems poised to become a player on America’s coming clean, 24/7 power grid. 

Why is geothermal so hot? How soon could it appear — and what advantages does it have other zero-carbon technologies don’t? On this week’s episode, Rob and Jesse speak with Sarah Jewett, the vice president of strategy at Fervo Energy, which she joined after several years in the oil and gas industry. Wilson Ricks is a doctoral student of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Princeton University, where he studies macro-energy systems modeling. Shift Key is hosted by Robinson Meyer, the founding executive editor of Heatmap, and Jesse Jenkins, a professor of energy systems engineering at Princeton University.

Mentioned: 

Fervo’s Tech Day announcement

The Department of Energy’s Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal report

Wilson’s preprint paper on flexible geothermal in Nature Energy 

Is Geothermal About to Become the Solar of the 2020s?

Jesse’s upshift, Rob’s upshift.

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This episode of Shift Key is sponsored by …

Watershed’s climate data engine helps companies measure and reduce their emissions, turning the data they already have into an audit-ready carbon footprint backed by the latest climate science. Get the sustainability data you need in weeks, not months. Learn more at watershed.com.

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Music for Shift Key is by Adam Kromelow.

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