"The ground beneath our feet holds so much energy that experts at the Department of Energy think geothermal power could generate 60 gigawatts - or nearly 10% of U.S. electricity - by 2050. Zanskar co-founder and CEO Carl Holland thinks that lofty number is too low, mostly because it's discounting conventional geothermal's potential. The DOE's figures assume advances in enhanced geothermal, which uses fracking techniques to access hot rock deep underground."
""They underestimated how many undiscovered systems there are, maybe by an order of magnitude or more," Holland said. With modern drilling techniques, "you can get a lot more out of each of them, maybe even an order of magnitude or more from each of those. All of a sudden the number goes from tens of gigawatts to what could be a terawatt-scale opportunity.""
The Department of Energy estimates geothermal could supply 60 gigawatts, nearly 10% of U.S. electricity, by 2050. Conventional geothermal currently generates about 4 gigawatts in the United States, rising roughly one gigawatt in the past decade. The DOE projection assumes advances in enhanced geothermal that use fracking-style techniques to access deep hot rock. Zanskar co-founder Carl Holland argues conventional geothermal is undercounted because many undiscovered naturally fractured systems exist and modern drilling can boost output per site dramatically. Zanskar uses AI to accelerate exploration, revived a New Mexico plant, found two sites totaling over 100 megawatts, and closed a $115 million Series C.
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