Tim Latimer

I propose a “Rendering Index” for new technologies. Ratio of press releases accompanied by renderings vs. actual photos of projects. To be used as an estimation of commercial readiness for a new technology sector.

Turboden and Fervo Energy Establish Partnership to Propel Geothermal Energy Innovation - Fervo Energy Brescia, April 22nd - Turboden, a global leader in Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) systems, proudly announces a groundbreaking collaboration with Fervo Energy, a

Because of some great work with our partners, we do not foresee this being a limiter to growth. Here’s an example with our turbine supplier for Cape Phase I.
fervoenergy.com/turboden-and...

I guess it inevitably comes with more attention being focused on geothermal, but I’m starting to see a lot more “startups” in the space that are just outright frauds. Some have even already gotten significant funding.

Caveat emptor.

Usually layoffs happen at corporates during downturns. This market cycle feels very different. Is there historical precedent for what we are seeing now at many companies, which is layoffs happening concurrently to quarter after quarter of record profits?

It’s very clear the future is EVs. Astonishing how fast they have taken over in these markets.

That probably adds to my point. It takes quite a bit of work to get even a single patent. An idea is just the beginning of that process.

It’s not a graph of electricity prices. It’s a graph of Electrical Power and Specialty Transformer Manufacturing.

The point is, people hoping power prices will go back to “normal”, in a new regime when most of the major inputs to power prices are structurally higher, are not going to be happy.

It’s a Producer Price Index for Electrical Power and Specialty Transformer Manufacturing.

Driving costs lower in the face of unprecedented rises in power component costs while simultaneously removing China from the supply chain is going to be quite a challenge.

Distributed energy is probably even more exposed to these price trends than utility scale is.

A lot of folks still have 2000-2010s era power prices in their heads as “normal” with an expectation that we will return to “normal” at some point.

There are many reasons that isn’t true, but this is probably the biggest among them. We are in a new era of power prices.

Geothermal Energy Is Heating Up. It’s Going to Need More Geologists. The only renewable-energy source buoyed by the Trump administration is in short supply of scientific experts as the industry expands.

This has been very different from the Fervo experience, where we are flooded with hundreds of applicants for every technical role we post now. I don’t think staff shortages are going to be a limiter for geothermal growth. www.wsj.com/articles/geo...

I have found to to be an almost invariable rule that, after seeing a viral post about a business leader that insists on some weird quirk for their company meetings, if you ask someone that works at that company, they basically just have normal meetings like any other corporation.

If it’s that easy to replicate it probably was never going to be an enduring business anyway.

Hardtech startups are generally way too concerned about someone “stealing their idea”, to their detriment. The Edison quote that it is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration is very applicable.

Ideas are easy, execution is hard.

No, the article is correct. Taking existing technology from shale and then adapting it to work is the whole thesis, and that’s what the article says.

Warrens is correct. While the technology category of PDC bits comes from oil and gas, they have had to be adapted to perform in granite.

That was my reaction at first, and actually spent a few years trying to get a job somewhere already
using this approach for EGS because I thought it was so obvious someone must be doing it.

However, replicating O&G performance in geothermal reservoirs has been a huge technical undertaking.

Is Geothermal About to Become the Solar of the 2020s? The startup Fervo Energy is learning how to bring down costs — fast.

Radically cheaper. heatmap.news/economy/ferv...

Hello, regular reminder that if you are using stale drilling costs for geothermal analysis, anything from more than 12 months ago, your analysis is wildly out of date and you are going to have a major miss in forecasting.

There is a fear that LLMs will stop their pace of improvement because they’ll run out of training data. Based on their answers on utilities questions, there is actually a long way of to go. Although the prospect of LLMs trained on utility filings is concerning for other reasons. 😆

It was a great week this week at Fervo.

Pathways to national-scale adoption of enhanced geothermal power through experience-driven cost reductions Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) are one of a small number of emerging energy technologies with the potential to deliver firm carbon-free electricity…

Enhanced geothermal could power 1 in 5 US homes by 2050
A new study shows that early investment in geothermal tech (using underground heat for electricity) could cut energy costs and help decarbonise the grid nationwide. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Seems like something happened in April that really shifted the prospects of the US oil and gas industry. 🤔

As a general rule, someone throwing around the acronym “EROI” is a good signal they have no idea how energy markets work.

We are at a time in the market cycle in climatetech where consolidation will be increasingly common. One of the hangups will be a relative lack of experience in M&A among management teams and even investors in these transactions.

We’ve published quite a few! Here is an example. We’re working with universities now as well to figure out how to share more data that will be interesting academically. pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAs... pangea.stanford.edu/ERE/pdf/IGAs...

Yea. Turns out our drilling productivity continues to be so far ahead of our expectations it keeps pushing out the need to add more drilling capacity. But we will next year when we start to really hit an inflection point in growth.

One of the coolest things about what Fervo is doing right now is the quantity of deep drilling into geologies that haven’t been explored nearly as much as the classic sedimentary formations of O&G. It’s fun to get huge insights into fundamental geologic processes as a byproduct of our work.

It’s wild that just a few years ago there were zero $1 trillion companies and now there are several in the $2, $3 and even now $4 trillion range.