We recorded this episode in front of a packed room at Geothermal House during SXSW, and it couldn’t have been more timely. Energy demand is rising fast. Energy policy is fraught. And into this moment comes geothermal — a resource that’s clean, always-on, right beneath our feet, and dare I say, bipartisan.
I sat down with Jamie Beard, the founder of Project InnerSpace, to talk about the opportunity geothermal represents and the unique chance we have to get it right from the start. Jamie is one of the most compelling voices in the energy space, and her message is clear: if we want to move fast on clean energy, we need to recruit the people who know how to drill.
That means engaging the oil and gas industry — not as an opponent, but as a partner. As Jamie puts it, “If you want to turn the ship, recruit the sailors.” And in Texas, where drilling is the culture, we have a huge advantage. The workforce is here, the infrastructure is here, and the resource is far better than most people realize.
Geothermal is often assumed to be limited to places like California, Kenya, or Iceland. But thanks to recent mapping work, we now know that Texas has significant geothermal potential across much of the state. Texas is also leading on policy, with the best geothermal legislation in the country, according to Beard.
We talked about how this industry is being built from the ground up, with oil and gas veterans, startup founders, and policymakers all playing a role to start the Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance (TxGEA), build a legislative agenda, and pass a suite of bills all in under 18 months. That kind of speed is rare in energy and it shows what’s possible when there’s alignment.
Jamie and I also talked about something deeper: how geothermal might be one of the few energy solutions that brings people together. It appeals to climate hawks on the left and oil-and-gas energy dominance advocates on the right. It can be described in the language of abundance, emissions-free power, energy security, or innovation — and all of those frames are true.
The message is simple: no purity tests — just shared goals. As Jamie said, “If we could just get over ourselves. I get that you're calling this energy security. I call it renewable and emission-free. We both love it… We should do this.”
And right now, there’s a window of opportunity. Demand from data centers and AI is skyrocketing, and the companies behind them care more about speed and scalability than price. That makes geothermal’s unique attributes — 24/7 power, co-location potential — especially valuable.
If we move quickly, geothermal can scale up during this inflection point and ride its own learning curve, just like shale did a generation ago. But it will take investment, supply chain support, and a lot of new people entering the space.
Jamie’s closing message is one I’ll echo: Geothermal needs you. Whether you’re an engineer, entrepreneur, creative, or just curious — this is the time to get involved.
In this conversation we cover:
Why geothermal is uniquely suited to meet demand growth
How bipartisan policy wins are accelerating deployment
The intersection of AI, data centers, and dispatchable clean power
How Texas became a testbed for the next generation of geothermal
As always, please like, share, and leave a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. Your support helps bring these critical energy conversations to more people.
Timestamps:
3:00 - How Jamie came to work on geothermal
9:00 - Oil and gas industry connections to geothermal
15:00 - Geothermal in Texas
22:00 - Working across partisan divides
27:00 - Learning curves for geothermal are similar to shale drilling
30:30 - Data centers and demand
33:30 - National security imperatives for geothermal
38:00 - The cost of geothermal power compared to gas
40:30 - The turbine crisis and the entrepreneurial opportunity in turbines
43:00 - Geothermal needs YOU! “Jump in and try”
Shownotes:
Project InnerSpace: Pioneering Geothermal Innovation
Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance (TexGEA)
Jamie Beard on LinkedIn
Jamie’s viral TED Talk: The untapped energy source that could power the planet
Wired’s feature on Jamie: To Save the Planet, Start Digging (Wired)
GeoMap™ Beta Release: Project InnerSpace released this interactive tool to serve as a pivotal resource for geothermal prospecting, providing comprehensive data on geothermal resources.
Other Podcast Episodes:
Drilling for Geothermal Power and Storage with Cindy Taff, Energy Capital Podcast.
Catching up with enhanced geothermal. Volts Podcast.
The Potential for Geothermal Energy to Meet Growing Data Center Electricity Demand. Rhodium Group.
The Future of Geothermal Energy. IEA.
Mapping Texas' Geothermal Potential
Geothermal Play Fairway Analysis (GPFA): A Texas/Gulf Coast Case Study: A study conducted in early 2024 applied GPFA methodologies to assess geothermal resources in the Texas Gulf Coast region. The analysis integrates critical risk elements to enhance exploration success rates.
Presidio County Geothermal Assessment: Published in May 2024, this assessment identified substantial undeveloped geothermal resources in Presidio County, highlighting the potential to meet local energy needs and contribute to the broader grid. (presidio)
The Future of Geothermal in Texas Report: A collaborative effort by researchers from five Texas universities, this comprehensive study evaluates the state's geothermal resources, technological developments, and the role of the oil and gas industry in scaling geothermal energy.
Regulatory Framework and Policy Updates
Senate Bill 786 (2023): This bill amended the Texas Water Code to transfer regulatory authority of closed-loop geothermal injection wells to the Railroad Commission, streamlining the permitting process for geothermal projects.
Railroad Commission's Proposed Rules: In October 2024, the Railroad Commission proposed new rules to implement SB 786, outlining operational standards and enforcement measures for geothermal wells.
Technological Innovations in Geothermal Energy
Quaise Energy's Deep Drilling Technology: A Houston startup, Quaise Energy, is developing technology to drill deeper into the earth than ever before to access "superhot" rock for geothermal energy, harnessing it without drill bits by using electromagnetic waves to melt or vaporize rock. (Houston Chronicle)
Sage Geosystems' Energy Storage Solutions: Led by former Shell VP Cindy Taff, Sage Geosystems is developing innovative methods to produce and store geothermal energy, contributing to a more stable and sustainable electrical grid. (AP News)
Educational and Collaborative Initiatives
Geothermal Events and Forums: Various events, such as the "Future of Geothermal in Texas" forum held on March 26, 2024, provide platforms for discussing technological breakthroughs and policy solutions in the geothermal sector. (Geothermal Rising)
Industry Perspectives and Media Coverage
Geothermal Everywhere: An article discussing the vast potential for geothermal energy beneath the entire U.S., with a focus on Texas' unique geothermal resources. (C3 Solutions)
Geothermal's Breakout Year: An article published on January 2, 2025, discusses how geothermal startups achieved significant funding and project milestones in 2024, driven by increasing demand for carbon-free energy from data centers and industrial sectors. Texas Geothermal
Geothermal Energy in Texas: The University of Texas Energy Institute's comprehensive report on the future of geothermal energy in the state, including analyses of resources, technology, and policy recommendations.
Austin Energy's Advanced Geothermal Pilot: Announced on November 14, 2024, Austin Energy partnered with Exceed Energy Inc. to develop a pioneering geothermal project near its Nacogdoches facility. Expected to be operational in 2025, this project could signal a new era of green energy innovation in Texas. (Energy News)
Transcript:
Doug Lewin (00:07.342)
Hello and welcome to the Energy Capital Podcast. I'm your host, Doug Lewin. My guest this week is Jamie Beard, the founder and executive director of Project Innerspace, an organization devoted to advancing geothermal technologies. Look, we talk about a lot of different technologies on this podcast, talk a lot about distributed energy resources, nuclear. There is little that I'm more bullish on than geothermal particularly in Texas, because it leverages the skills of the oil and gas industry. You're going to hear all about that in this podcast. And let me just say about Jamie, she's got an amazing bio. We're going to link to that. You can read about it. There was an amazing article Wired did on her, a feature. She's given a TED Talk that is one of the most watched of any energy talk on TED Talks ever. You can learn a lot about her from the show notes, but let me just say this about her there are are a lot of people that know a lot about the technical aspects of geothermal. There are a lot of people that are very networked within both the oil and gas space and the renewable space, policy space, et cetera. I don't think there's anybody that has those two things sort of in the quantities and qualities that she does. TXGea being the Texas combination of technical expertise and really understanding how these different geothermal technologies work, as well as the sort of social capital she has of kind of knowing everybody in the geothermal space.
Jamie is absolutely amazing an inspiration and this conversation was so much fun to record. We did it live on the sidelines of South by Southwest in downtown Austin in mid March. At Geothermal House was what Project Innerspace called it. It was a great conversation. I'm looking forward to listening to it again once we put it out there. I learned so much from Jamie. I hope you enjoy it. This is a free episode, but it is not free to produce.
We have both the Texas Energy and Power newsletter and paid episodes of Energy Capital podcast that are available to you if you subscribe at douglouin.com, D-O-U-G-L-E-W-I-N.com. We are also really putting a focus on our YouTube channel where you can see the video for this if you're listening to it right now. You can see the video at our YouTube channel, so go find that as well. Thank you so much for listening and thanks for your support.
Doug Lewin (02:27.042)
I've been looking forward to this for a while. We've been talking about doing this for a while. Jamie, having kind of a fanboy moment because you are like, there is so much happening in geothermal and as much as anybody, I know it's you're going to say, and it's true, it takes a village and there's thousands of people involved, but as much as any one person is responsible, you are, you have been incredible. Can we just start, just tell people a little bit about yourself and about Project Innerspace and what is going on here at South By what you did last week in DC which are about to do it CERAWeek?
Jamie Beard (04:23.342)
Yes, yes. That's a lot. Let me break it down. How did I get into geothermal? Back in the day, in the early 2000s, I was actually, well, even before that, I was a energy and regulatory attorney at a big law firm. And I was an environmental activist and a climate activist. And I was certain that if I joined a law firm, I would be able to
changed the world from the inside out and that was a very wrong assumption. I was defending the worst behaviors and not getting what I wanted to get done in the world. So I moved into entrepreneurship and joined a startup company that was working in the energy space and this was early 2000s. So this was like early shale boom. This was boom times in oil and gas.
You know, as a climate activist, I hated oil and gas back then. I mean, it was a visceral reaction for me in oil and gas. I just assumed there would never be a place for me to collaborate at all with industry. And in fact, the opposite, that I was going to work to bring the industry down with my professional career. then in our startup, we started having some really interesting
high temperature results in our technology. We were doing an energy storage technology and we started to sell that technology into defense space and oil and gas. And so all of a sudden I found myself deploying prototypes on rigs in oil and gas. And I was forced through osmosis meeting people and talking to people in industry who were by the way in the middle of the shale boom.
I mean, so they were doing amazing shit. Like they were going out, doing something, maybe it didn't turn out perfectly in the field that day. So they would get together in their trailer that night and like, what do we do different? How do we try it differently? What should we change? And then they'd go out and do it again and like hit it out of the park. And they were doing this every day.
I don't think people appreciate how innovative the oil and gas industry has been over the last
Right? so for me, all of a sudden oil and gas changed from this monolith evil I want to bring them down to holy shit. These people are amazing and fast and there's serious grit and there's a ton of technological talent and innovation and iteration. And wow, what an asset. They're getting shit done about the same time. And a lot of people in this room were inspired by this report as well.
And they're getting shit done.
Jamie Beard (05:46.958)
this report called the Future of Geothermal Energy came out. was an MIT, an MIT publication. And that report was like, wow, so geothermal is this thing. It's this huge resource. It's thousands of times everything we'd ever need. But there's these pesky engineering and technological challenges. And they're mostly about drilling in the subsurface. And man, how are we going to solve those? And for me, it was just like, You know, it was just this moment where it was like, well, that's oil and gas. I just saw it. So that's how I, know, and you know, I spent some years saying, God, somebody should do this. Somebody should go do geothermal. We should get geothermal going. And finally, I just decided, if no, I'll just do it. So we'll start some shit. Let's go start some shit.
So you did this TED Talk that really kind of went viral, just a ton of views called TXGea being the Texas Untapped Energy Source That Could Power the Planet. I encourage folks to go watch it. on YouTube in 15 minutes and it's fantastic. After this podcast, go watch it. I want to ask you a question about that. What do you think, looking back, because it was almost four years ago, what did you most get right and what if you were going to do that again? What might you change about what you said during that attainment?
And just some background for you all, David Biello, RNC, was my curator for my talk. So that's how we know each other. And he really ran me through the ringers on my script.
I've probably watched it four or five times because I've done a few podcasts in geothermal and I go back and like refresh my it's really fantastic.
Jamie Beard (07:20.034)
Well, thank you. That's awesome. I think so one thing that I underestimated back then that's still, it's probably gonna be more of a thing now in the Trump administration as geothermal becomes kind of a Republican charge increasingly, which I don't think is bad. But back in the geothermal, back in the Ted Talk days, I underestimated how hard a conversation
This was for a far left room, a very liberal audience, particularly the argument that oil and gas could save the day for geothermal. I went through this personal journey over many years of seeing oil and gas and learning the value of oil and gas and realizing there was this awesome potential. And I underestimated that most people in the world who are thinking about climate and energy and tend left probably haven't been on that journey. And they wouldn't have instantly the perspective that this was gonna be awesome. So like the Ted Talk, the room was very cold. Like so you can't see it in the video, but the audience was very cold, particularly when I got to the part where like, how are we gonna do this? Well, it's gonna be Exxon got, you know, that was a hard sell and it's still a hard sell.
And I think now that you know we had Secretary Wright at MAGMA, you mentioned MAGMA, that was amazing. You've got the Trump Administration coming out for geothermal. That was awesome, that is awesoe that will probably be awesome for geothermal. At the same time. At the same time there is the risk of tipping geothermal into a massive amount of polarization and drama and there is a risk there.
Doug Lewin (09:35.854)
I want to talk more about the oil and gas connection here because I think it is so important to talk about. one of the folks you had speaking here earlier today, I recorded a podcast with Cindy Taft of Sage Geosystem. She was 35 years in Shell. I interviewed for a previous podcast. did Tim Latimer with Fervo, former oil and gas person. And I think that there is really something here because you have these two things happening at once. Well, there's a lot of things happening at once, but let's consider these two. A lot of automation happening in the oil and gas space and less jobs per barrel produced. I mean, like significantly less jobs needed per barrel produced. As a matter of fact, compared to 2014 to today, oil and gas jobs in Texas according to the Federal Reserve of Dallas, about 300,000 10 years ago, about 200,000 now there's an energy expansion and transition happening. Transitions can be kind of painful to existing workforce. And here you have this renewable emission-free power source, not just power source, but heating and cooling as was talked about a lot today. we'll talk about that as we go through this as well, that involves drilling and skill sets related to drilling.
So I'm a big fan of this concept in life of pivot, right? It's like, if you think of basketball, the player keeps one foot where they are and one foot kind of moves around. Isn't that what's happening here? Can you talk more about the oil and gas industry and what it means for geothermal and what geothermal might mean for the oil and gas industry?
Jamie Beard (10:02.034)
Yeah, I mean pivot is a great word and we actually had a conference for oil and gas called pivot that many folks like kind of that was their entry into geothermal from oil and gas. And I think the word pivot is great because it's faster than a transition. I don't know if you all know Bob Metcalfe, he coined that term years ago about geothermal. Pivots are easy for oil and gas. And if you think about it for geothermal, we've heard it on all the panels today, there's so much skill set overlap, 80, 90 % skill set overlap across industry. So there's really not a whole lot that you need to do to do geothermal. You can do oil and gas, you can do geothermal, minimal training changes, minimal effort to make that switch. If you look at trying to switch oil and gas from oil and gas into solar, you run into.
Doug Lewin (11:38.296)
That's not a pivot
Jamie Beard (11:40.034)
That's like a completely different. Something completely different, right? I think the avalanche that we're seeing in all of this infusion of oil and gas brains into the space is because it's so easy to transition their skill set and they're doing it en masse right? So it's like the barrier for entry is so low. There's so much overlap that they realize in engaging a little bit in sessions like this and they're like, wow, no, I can contribute to this conversation right now.
with what I know and I might be able to make a difference. And so along that vein, we need to flood the space with more of that, right? So geothermal right now in my view suffers a little bit from not enough innovation, not enough growth mindset, not too much incremental thinking and not enough exponential thinking. And a lot of that type of brain power is coming out of entrepreneurs that are jumping out of oil and gas and seeing these massive 100X opportunities. So like we need more of that, 100X more. So there are awesome startups out there, let's do that 100X. There's awesome Cindy Tafts and Tim Latimer's, let's do that 100, 1000X. And the more brains and the more ideas and the more energy we infuse into geothermal, the more growth mindset, I think the faster we go, the bigger we are, the way, you know, it's the way to put geothermal on the map.
Doug Lewin (13:12.054)
Yeah, you said, I think it was in the TED Talk, I wrote down a quote, I think it was from there, where you said, if you want to turn the ship, recruit the sailors, right? In the energy world, the sailors are people in oil and gas space. It's where the money is, it's where the technical expertise is. I also, my company, I named my company Stoic Energy, because I'm a big fan of the Stoics, and Ryan Holiday and his books, and he wrote a book called The Obstacle is the Way, right? What stands in the way to progress is the way to progress. This is like a real tangible, example of that. can fight the oil and gas industry all day long, or you can figure out ways to actually work together, which is what you're doing.
Yeah, and I think it's important also to note that oil and gas is not a monolith. So in the us and them mentality of the world where everybody's polarized and there's the pure and the good and the evil and the villains, and often oil and gas, unless you're in Texas, oil and gas gets thrown into the villain pile, I think we need to pause and say, wait a minute, we're talking about an industry that's made up of literally millions of individuals globally.
And those individuals are truly individual, right? So within oil and gas, you have an enormous amount, a huge amount of disciplines and cultures and viewpoints and politics. And so, you know, it's hard once you start meeting people in oil and gas to start to say you're a bad, you're evil because you're, know, and so it, for me,
It was about engaging with the people and then realizing, wow, these folks wanna be champions within their industry. They want to help the industry into new things and into pivots. And so many of the oil and gas entities that are engaging in the geothermal space now are doing that because of internal champions, like really bad-ass oil and gas employees that were like, we want to help do this. I'm gonna start organizing luncheons.
Jamie Beard (15:11.31)
And then we're gonna start having group sessions and then they'd move it up the chain and then they'd pitch it to their C suites. And then all of a sudden we have $100 million investments and Ken Wisian mentioned some of them have departments now. That's absolutely right. That's all happened in the last three, four years. And it's because of internal champions in these entities. That's awesome.
It really is awesome. Keep it going. It's one of the reasons I love working in Texas because you do get this. If you're in the energy space in Texas, you're working with people in renewables, you're working with people in oil and gas, you're working with people in energy efficiency. It's all happening here. Let's talk a little bit about Texas because there is a lot happening on geothermal in Texas. Where are you seeing geothermal?
We mentioned, I just mentioned earlier a couple of the companies that are headquartered in Houston, but there's also some projects on the ground that are getting going. Talk about Texas and its sort of role in the geothermal space and ecosystem.
So, you know, back in the day when we started rabble rousing in Texas a little bit, it was really about it being the epicenter of the oil and gas industry. So if you've got the entities and the people here, we can get something started. Since then, though, with some of the mapping that's been done, the Geomap project and others, we've come to realize that Texas is actually massively resourced as well for geothermal and not just along the Gulf Coast, which was previously understood, but like massively resourced across the state for things like data centers and that's that's kind of the rhodium report.
Doug Lewin (16:45.538)
Can you talk about that? Because I'm still under the impression that it's kind of more of that like Eagleford kind of bend along the coast where the best, that's still the best resource. Okay, so you've actually found through research over the last year or two that the resource is better than we understood before in Texas?
Jamie Beard (17:04.876)
Yeah, and broader in more parts of the state. And I think what that means is that because Texas is a friendly regulatory environment, it's used to drilling, the culture is drilling, oil and gas is here, it's easy to permit projects. And we heard that from, in our past panels, including Representative Darby's comments, there's a lot legislatively that's been happening in Texas. And it is, let's be clear, legislatively, Texas has absolutely hit it out of the park.
It is by far the fastest and most aggressive geothermal legislation that has been passed in any state. And let's be clear, they did it in a year, start to finish, right? So, TXGea gets off the ground, builds a legislative agenda, and gets it passed and signed by the governor within 18 months.
TXGea being the Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance. But I want folks on the podcast to know so they can go find a great organization. Matt Welch, Barry Smitherman, Jade, yeah, they're doing great work.
Yeah, and so if you look at that and you look at that track record and you've yes, pilot projects, yes, the geothermal startups are, this is literally the epicenter of most startups. So there are more startups in Texas than the rest of the states combined. This is becoming an epicenter of innovation as well and that's largely because the entrepreneurs are coming out of industry. They're already here and they just set up shop in Houston.
So if you look at it, Texas is this kind of epicenter that I think we need to make a model for other states, really easily other oil and gas states, right? Because there's similar regulatory environments, similar cultural acceptances of drilling, but really all states. How do we make geothermal easier to produce? How do we go fast, you know, et cetera? So Texas is kind of the place to be for geothermal right now, but let's not keep it there. Like this is like where do we go next?
Doug Lewin (20:13.538)
What starts here changes the world. Isn't that what the university down the street says? Yeah. Yeah. So I also want to kind of go a little deeper into the kind of the polarization and the kind of overcoming of polarization. We've talked some about the oil and gas industry and getting involved. And you mentioned earlier you had Secretary Wright at your event. You've talked about how the left may be a little apprehensive about geothermal. But it does seem to me like that's you, too.
This is a technology that can be a place, kind of a water's edge, where people kind of come together. Can you talk about the support you've seen in DC from both Republicans and Democrats? I mean I so, you know, in Texas right now, as we're recording here on what is today, March 11th, there are bills at the legislature that seemed very designed to hurt renewable energy, particularly wind and solar. My fervent hope is that both in Austin and in Washington DC, legislators will focus on what they want more of, right? If you want dispatchability ability, if you want flexibility, if you want base load power, like do the things you need to do to get more of that rather than punching down at certain energy resources. And I think there's hope that that could happen. It's gonna take building a lot of consensus, talking to people across divides on things like nuclear power, energy efficiency. And again, I think geothermal is one of those that because it's emission free kind of appeals to a lot of folks on the left and Democrats, not that they're the only ones that care about emission free, there are others, of course. And on the right, because it is using a lot of the oil and gas technology. And again, not to stereotype, there are people on the right who care deeply about emissions too, but that's the way people can kind of get together, have conversations across divides and hopefully build some consensus. Do you see that happening with geothermal?
Jamie Beard (21:17.312)
No, this is a good question. So, and we've actually seen this in throwing these events. The two different groups of people, left and right, use very different sets of terminology to describe why they love geothermal.
And so the challenge we have in events like this is you have to pick a terminology to use in a single event and use it. Like you gotta make signs and stuff. And so when you have a, and like you said, on the right, at MAGMA in DC, it was aimed at the right because we need to get the right up to speed about what geothermal is, because it's showing up in executive orders. And it's catching people off guard. They don't know what it is, right?
If we lean right, but we adopted terminology for that, which was all about oil and gas workforce, it was about energy security, it was about dominance, it was about abundance, it was about drill baby drill. We're gonna go to San Francisco and do San Francisco Climate Week in a month. And I guarantee you, none of those terms are gonna show up in any signs because they don't speak to that demographic, right? But what does is climate change. climate mitigation, energy transition, right? But they're all the same thing. I mean, so the thing is, if we could just get over ourselves and realize that like, look, I get that you're calling this energy security, I call it renewable and emission free. We both love it, holy shit, we should do this, right? But here's the problem. It's the purity test, right? So. Yes so you mentioned like, with the Trump administration, it looks like maybe there's gonna be some punching down on renewables, solar and wind may suffer, et cetera. You're right. There's a reality with the Trump administration that some winners and some losers, this is gonna happen.
And when you approach that with a purity test like I have to agree with every single thing that administration does and says in order to get behind geothermal and get behind the administration's support of geothermal. It's just not gonna happen, right? So the way we thread the needle is where can we agree? Like is there a path, like purity test aside, I don't care what you think about social issues, I don't care what you think, whatever. Geothermal, what do you think? And if we can just do that as humans we might be able to fix our shit, right? But the purity tests, it's really hard, right? And there were, you know, there was even pushback on magma from the left because it was called magma. Now y'all, I think it was, I think it's really fricking funny that we call it, we made the red hats and all that stuff. And at MAGMA there was an audience full of MAGMA hats listening to Chris Wright talk about geothermal. That was awesome but there was pushback like, no, that sounds like MAGA, you're clearly playing off this thing that we hate. We need to get over ourselves. And if we can't get over ourselves, we're not gonna make progress.
I actually think if I can get, you know, even higher level here for a minute, like beyond energy, our whole democracy depends on our ability to do exactly what you're saying, right? It's just like you were saying with oil and gas where there's too much sometimes a caricature of who is in oil and gas. And when you actually talk to people in oil and gas they're a lot more complicated and complex than you thought they were.
Doug Lewin (23:17.312)
Right. And so one of my favorite podcasts I ever recorded was with David Spence. He wrote this book called Climate of Contempt about how like we're not going to be able to deal with climate change unless we can talk across divides. And I struggle with this too, because a lot of times I'm like, what do mean you don't believe in climate change? Like it's of course it's happening. It's science. But like you said, you have to sometimes get over yourself in order…
Jamie Beard (24:55.822)
Does it matter that you, does it matter if we're gonna work together and we both like geothermal, does it matter what you think about climate change? No.
Doug Lewin (25:02.452)
No, no, and, and if I say that it does and I just shut down having a conversation, then there's no chance of us understanding each other and both of us changing. He actually, David Spence in his book, Climate of Contempt has this quote from Ted Lasso that is be curious, not judgmental. And I just love that. That's like a great way to enter these conversations in order to try to get over some of these divides. So I really appreciate what you're doing. And I, and I think what you're describing as some of the things that are happening internal to those companies, those things don't happen, right? Unless the initial conversation happens and somebody sees, this isn't a threat. Maybe this is an opportunity. And just think about how you react differently if there's a threat in front of you versus an opportunity in front.
Jamie Beard (26:01.388)
Right. And look, there and right now we're in this environment of agitation politically where everybody's scared and nobody really knows what's going on. And there's there's all of this angst and the angst is starting to come out with statements about geothermal like, well, you know, because the Trump administration looks like they're going to support it, maybe we should be really concerned. Maybe we should be skeptical. And these are entities that in the Biden administration had been really excited. And I think when you start mixing visceral emotional reaction about politics generally with a concept like geothermal, we lose, right? Yeah, for sure. So, I mean, we just, need to find a way to narrow path, agree, no purity tests, agree on this one thing and go. And if we did that for geothermal over the next two, four years we could run really fricking fast.
Doug Lewin (27:39.452)
Yes, we could. And look, and I understand the concerns that a lot of folks, including Secretary Wright, have over intermittency of renewables. So again, if you want to deal with that, develop these other sources. So it does look like DOE is going to put some significant support behind geothermal. That's really exciting. I want to ask you about learning curves, because this is obviously a big thing in everything going on with energy transition and energy expansion, right? We have seen a huge drop in the cost of solar, 90 % and a huge drop in the cost of batteries, again, 90%. I don't even think this story has gotten enough play yet, but batteries in 2024, 20 % price reduction just in 2024. This is the big question around nuclear. Can small modular reactors actually have a learning curve? Because nuclear has not had a learning curve. It's gone up.
What do learning curves look like on geothermal? Where are we at as far as cost? And how does that compare to other resources? And are we starting to see declines? Are they rapid? Are they incremental?
Jamie Beard (28:29.388)
Yeah, so the oil and gas entrepreneurs that get into the field and do geothermal stuff, Tim and Fervo is one example, Cindy in Sage is another, within a well or two are seeing massive reductions in cost, 50 % cost reductions, et cetera, right? All of this though is expected because remember, geothermal has not benefited before this kind of rush of innovation and technological innovation from the oil and gas industry.
Geothermal had not benefited from new or even recent drilling technologies. I mean, the industry was drilling decades behind oil and gas in terms of capabilities.
Doug Lewin (29:29.329)
And because of a lack of investment or lack of people or all the above?
Jamie Beard (30:17.138)
That's actually a complicated question. is a squeeze in capital in geothermal. Geothermal is massively undercapitalized. Undercapitalization does not help when you're trying to innovate. So you actually get risk adverse when you're undercapitalized. So you cannot fail. Therefore, you should not try anything that might fail. So that crushes innovation.
And when you're dealing with innovating drill bits that are going miles below into high temperature, have to, like you're gonna fail sometimes.
And when you fail with drilling, it's often expensive failure. So the industry has not been incentivized to try new big bold things. And because of that, there's not been a whole lot of technological progress in terms of trying new things, bigger, bolder, faster, deeper and cheaper. But we're starting to see that now in the startups. And I think, when I mentioned the shale boom in my open, I mean that as the analogy. I mean it in a lot of different ways. Cost scale industry are iterating very fast in the field to make changes to drive costs down and doing it really fast. like zero to six, 10 year span going from zero to world changing geopolitics completely scrambled, right? Geothermal's right there in that early curve. And I think that's really, it's something that we need to remember. Like we've done, this is not impossible. We've done it before.
It's shale. We've got the model and we know the curves of shale. Let's do it again because it's the same technology but for a different purpose.
Doug Lewin (31:49.148)
Yeah, and those curves for the shale boom were awesome. Yes, yes. All right. So we cannot have any conversation about energy going more than what have we been about 30 minutes without bringing up data centers. Data centers have changed the whole conversation in the energy landscape to demand projections now, particularly, by the way, within ERCOT, even where I've seen independent analyses where they kind of take a haircut to all of the demand projections that the regional transmission operators and independent system operators are putting out themselves. still looking at eight, nine percent annual growth rates. That is so some people will say that's unprecedented. It's not unprecedented. We experienced that in the 50s and 60s when we were just still like electrifying homes period and adding air conditioning in the state of Texas. So that is the kind of growth rate we're talking about.
You also have, obviously, customers with large balance sheets that desperately need power. And you guys have just put out a report today that geothermal can meet a very large portion of the data center demand. So can you talk a little bit about the, the report you all put out, and the sort of accelerant that this data center demand might be for this nascent industry?
Jamies Beard (32:17.138)
Yeah, for sure. So that report was really cool in that it put a number on an opportunity. And the number is, look, two thirds of data center demand growth could be economically serviced by geothermal and 100 % could be serviced hard stops, meaning it'd be more expensive to do it, but we could do it. And here's the thing about data centers right now. Economics don't really matter. So like that makes this report even cooler because we could do two thirds economically, but data center developers and the Open AIs of the world don't give a shit how much it costs right now. They just want it done. And that makes it a perfect pivotal opportunity for geothermal to jump in and get on the learning curve in an environment where cost is not the driver, speed and scale is. And again, like back that up with the oil and gas industry, you know speed and scale, speed and scale.
They're going to do the natural gas developments for data centers anyway. Let's slip geothermal in here. Let's do some co-production. Let's build hybrid systems. Let's get geothermal cooling in. Let's do the 50 % efficiency reductions with geothermal cooling. Like now is the moment over the next five years to get all of the different ways geothermal can apply to data centers done in pilot projects. And then it's just a matter of scaling.
I think that here's the quiet part on the data center thing. Yes, demand growth, yes, that's scary, potentially unprecedented. Yes, it's probably gonna be a big piece of the US grid in almost no time. And yes, that's interesting. But there is a really potentially more interesting kind of national security angle to data center development and AI growth that many of the tech majors, it's actually driving their decisions about growth and building data centers. And really what this is is geopolitical. This is about war and this is about competition with China and this is about being afraid that rogue actors will be the first to achieve AGI, artificial general intelligence or super intelligence.
And if that were to occur, essentially apocalypse now, the world ends, it's scary. And there's an amazing paper called Situational Awareness. If you want some very disturbing bedtime reading, that's a good one to read. It's one of those things that you read it and you realize how far ahead of the curve China is on investment in almost every way in geothermal and AI and also in building out energy capabilities, right? So when you look at this from a US perspective and know, Innerspace is global and we don't take nationalistic positions, but if you're a US hyperscaler and you are paying attention to these national security implications and this race to AGI and super intelligence for AI this is driving a lot of the urgency, right? It's competition with other actors and achieving this. And how do you power that growth? Well, you gotta get it from somewhere really fricking fast. And that's what's kind of contributing to this price insensitivity. It's like, we don't just how fast can you build it? We'll pay it.
Doug Lewin (35:01.76)
Yeah, I mean, this is another place where I think Republican, Democrat, anything in between or to the side of that, if you're an American, you have an interest in making sure that we have enough power to meet these data center loads, that there is AI development in this country. There is a race going on. And that should be another kind of a water's edge kind of a space, I think. You said a minute ago, China is developing as China, did you say it? Maybe I misheard you. Is China ahead of us in geothermal?
Jamies Beard (35:49.76)
Yeah, in terms of investment massively ahead.
Doug Lewin (36:01.76)
In terms of investment… but they don't have, there's not shale formations?
Jamies Beard (36:17.24)
China has drilled the deepest geothermal well in the world now. mean, it's a government research program. But the important part about China is this, when China decides they wanna do something and own something, they just do it. And about five or so...
Doug Lewin (36:28.19)
Is it Sinopec or like who's? I mean, it all is government. There's not a lot of hearings and buy-in and all that. It's just like somebody decides.
Jamies Beard (37:13.24)
And there's no protests and slowness and what, right? You just go. And about five or so years ago, China decided to dump a billion dollars into geothermal. And so like, if you look at US investment, I mean add up all investment and startups plus government investment, we need to hurry up, right? Because that, it's a pole position. China's learning a lot of stuff and they're on the bleeding edge of, and again, there's not a whole lot of information sharing about these research programs. So we don't entirely know, but we do know that there's investment in a race. And so like from my perspective, that's awesome. Like drill the deepest well, how did that turn out, right? But again, if you're looking at it from a US national security perspective, who's gonna own, I mean, taking on the Trump administration talking points of energy dominance and AI.
If you look at it from that perspective, we are in a race and have to hurry up.
And it just seems like one of those areas where we should have every advantage because of what you were talking about. We have industry. this should be a race that we win.
Doug Lewin (38:00.206)
I do want to come back to a minute to the I don't think I followed up properly on the question around like learning curves and all that. Like where are we right now if you're to line up? Like we are seeing very large numbers for just gas turbines for combined cycle plants. We're seeing now IRPs around the country, prices that are in the $2,200 a kilowatt, $2,400, $2,500 a kilowatt kind of a range. And to put that in perspective, like just a couple of years ago, we were looking at like $1,000. So we've just seen this way beyond any sort of inflation kind of a trajectory. Those are really high numbers. Like how far away are we from actually like crossing this? I know you can't say.
Like, because there's so many different companies, different technologies, and it's a little opaque because people don't always say, but like, are we in a $3,000 $4,000, $5,000? Like, how far off are we for geothermal, for KW? How far away are we to where like the lines might actually cross?
Jamie Beard (39:02.136)
Yeah, so this is another thing and one day, Tag, try to nail a geothermal startup down on what they've signed on their PPAs. Most of this is not publicly available, But the best I can guess is they probably signed at $100 per megawatt hour for these.
Doug Lewin (39:07.206)
That's what Jigar Shah now says, it's like everything's $100 a megawatt hour, everybody needs to their head around.
Jamie Beard (39:08.136)
It's a fair guess yeah, but I don't know for sure like get him Tim or Cindy to tell you okay But but like that but I think there's a consensus amongst startups that are doing bold things in the field that they can get it down aggressively so like within a short number of years and a couple of wells down to 80 and then potentially 60. And you start over a five year period taking huge chunks out, right? As you iterate in the field. But again, like this is Jamie guessing. I think Cindy actually, y'all might be able to back me up. Cindy actually may have said 80 and 60 on her panel today.
Doug Lewin (40:02.139)
Yeah, and of course you can't forget that there's not the cost of gas, right? Which now is up over four bucks, which is kind of shocking. One more question before we kind of move to close here. There is, as I was just talking about, the capital cost of turbines has really kind of gone through the roof. There's Heatmap News called the gas turbine crisis. Geothermal needs turbines too so this is a problem in the geothermal space I take it.
Jamies Beard (41:01.206)
Yeah, so the trend has been forward-looking entities in the space have locked up the so so geothermal uses different types of turbine technologies a little bit different than natural gas and there's very few suppliers of those technologies and you know forward-looking entities over the last few years have actually moved to to lock in those supplies in case they have rights of first refusal and things on supplies. And what we're looking at in terms of a geothermal boom is the potential of actually hitting a ceiling because we can't build the surface equipment because there's no supply chain and there is no supply. And so, you know, I look again at this administration that's really all about breaking rules and doing really big, bold things that have never been done before.
I mean, you can look at that catastrophically and a lot of people are feeling that way. I look at it and think, well, hell, then let's go ahead and, you know, Defense Production Act, turbo machinery and surface equipment. Like that may have never been done before at a time that we're not in war, but maybe we try that now because we already know that there's a shortage. And if we keep going over the next few years, there's going to be a massive shortage and we're going to hit a ceiling.
So there's some opportunity to do some pretty big, bold things on behalf of executive order style fast moves. And the turbo machinery and surface equipment piece of geothermal is going to be a pain point. It's a pain point for natural gas for sure. Geothermal is probably worse because there's even fewer suppliers that have locked up the chains.
Doug Lewin (41:19.495)
I am also hearing there's big opportunity there. Obviously, there's a really steep capital cost and all of that to actually be able to manufacture rank and cycle engines. if somebody can get it together, there's a huge opportunity.
Jamies Beard (41:39.495)
God, like if you're an entrepreneur looking for a way to get into geothermal turbine machinist surface equipment, figure out how to make turbines work better, so more efficiently. I mean, there's so much, everybody's focused on the subsurface piece and nobody is paying attention to the surface. The surface is where all the entrepreneurship needs to happen now.
Doug Lewin (41:19.495)
VCs and investors that are listening pay attention to that as well. Jamie, I can't thank you enough for doing this, not only the podcast, but the event you're doing here in Austin, the one you're about to do in Houston, the one you did in DC for bringing people together and having these important conversations, supporting this industry, bringing people together, really like making it happen. We'll put a link in the show notes to your TED Talk, to the Wired piece about you. I hope everybody.
Jamie Beard (42:35.719)
People look into being entrepreneurs in this field.
Doug Lewin (42:59.758)
Anyone who knows who Jamie is and knows what Project Innerspace is, just a fantastic organization. I want to ask you though, before we close with anything that I didn't ask you that I should have, anything else you'd like to add before we end?
Jamies Beard (43:01.495)
I always want to make a pitch in every, whenever there's any demographic we can reach, I always want to make a pitch, a closing pitch to people who are looking for something new, entrepreneurs or people in oil and gas, anybody. And we're at South South by Southwest, so it's creatives and artists and filmmakers and everybody in between musicians. Geothermal needs you. There needs to be new talent, new brains, new energy, big thinking into the space.
So if you're excited about anything you've heard today at Geothermal House or anything, jump in and try. I mean, this is blue sky territory, it's frontier land, there's massive opportunities and geothermal needs, a lot of excited, interesting, interested people.
Doug Lewin (42:48.438)
Jamie, where do they go if they want to learn more? Where would you direct people? Obviously, Project Innerspace's website, we'll put a link to that in the show notes. Where else should people go?
Jamie Beard (43:39.395)
Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of startups right now that are hiring. So like you should Google, you should Google geothermal startups and look at their look at their their personnel pages. I mean, there are there are startups out there that have 20, 30 openings right now on their teams. So if you're looking to jump into a to a startup, geothermal is hiring. If you're looking for more of the nonprofit space, Project Innerspace is hiring. So yeah, I mean, figure out what, if you want to start a company, ping us and we can give you some advice in the space. But there's room everywhere in geothermal for all types of people. So if you've got the interest, give it a shot.
Doug Lewin (44:19.495)
You're an amazing resource and inspiration. Let's all give a round of applause for Jamie.
Thanks, y'all.
Thank you for listening to the Energy Capital Podcast. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you did, please like, rate and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. Until next time, have a great day.
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