Why Geothermal’s moment is now
Not hypothetical but happening now: Inside Fervo Energy’s geothermal push with Jack Conness
Jack Conness is the senior regulatory and policy associate at Fervo Energy, which is headquartered in Houston and has offices in California, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. Conness has worked in the energy sector for multiple organizations and previously worked in the baseball industry, including as an analyst for the Boras Corporation. He recently spoke with American Habits editor Ray Nothstine about the geothermal innovation taking place at Fervo Energy.
Nothstine: What is Fervo Energy, and can you explain the basics of geothermal energy?
Jack Conness: Fervo Energy is an Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) company pioneering a new wave of clean, firm geothermal power.
There’s what I call the “old school” version of geothermal energy — drilling vertically into the ground, pulling up steam, and generating power from that. It’s been around for decades. What we’re doing at Fervo represents the “new school.”
We still use heat from the earth, but our method produces no carbon emissions and delivers constant, reliable electricity — unlike solar and wind, which can be intermittent. What sets Fervo apart is how we apply advanced technologies from the oil and gas industry to geothermal energy. We’re using tools like horizontal drilling, fiber optic sensing, and hydraulic stimulation to unlock geothermal resources in places where traditional methods wouldn’t work.
Here’s how it works: we drill vertically into the ground, then horizontally to create artificial reservoirs in hot rock, like techniques used in oil and gas to access natural gas. Then we inject water into these reservoirs. As it flows through the hot rock, the water heats up and returns to the surface. That hot water then transfers its heat to a working fluid, which vaporizes at a lower temperature than water. This vapor or working fluid drives a turbine to generate electricity.
Importantly, the water itself doesn’t turn into steam. It’s continuously cycled back underground to be reheated and reused. It’s a closed-loop system that operates repeatedly. The water never even sees daylight. That’s the core of what we’re doing.
Why is geothermal energy a great answer for a nation that requires much more energy demand in the future, particularly with powering large scale AI data centers and general population growth? Why is it more efficient than say wind or solar?
Conness: We have a much smaller footprint than other energy sources, which I think is a big advantage.
I often describe geothermal as the “Goldilocks” of energy — it fits right in the sweet spot. On one side, you have oil and gas, which are burned around the clock to provide 24/7, 365-day-a-year energy. Obviously, that’s incredibly valuable. But oil and gas come with significant carbon emissions and ongoing fuel requirements.
Then on the other side, you have solar and wind. They’re clean, but they only produce energy at certain times of the day or when the weather allows.
Geothermal combines the best of both worlds. It offers the reliability and consistency of oil and gas — that always-on power — but with the clean, carbon-free benefits of renewables.
You touched on this, but the innovative advances in drilling in the oil and gas industry have really helped create a climate where there have been new breakthroughs in technology and Fervo and geothermal energy are a great example of that.
Conness: No, you’re 100 percent right. What the oil and gas industry did with fracking and the take-off it had in the early 2000s is the reason why we exist today. That old-school geothermal has been around for decades. The most prominent system in the U.S. today is the Geysers in California. Those were being built in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. We’ve known about geothermal for a long time. It’s just been very cost prohibitive and geographically restricted.
But to your point, our CEO, Tim Latimer, his background in his previous career was in the oil and gas industry. He’s a drilling engineer. He knows the ins and outs of all that. He worked the rigs and fully understands how fracking revolutionized the oil and gas industry, and that’s where his inspiration came from in terms of applying this incredible technology to geothermal energy.
At American Habits, we emphasize the importance of local innovation and control. How does Fervo’s work support that idea—by delivering benefits not just nationally, but also to local communities and consumers?
Conness: I love that question because local community impacts often get overlooked at the macro level, especially when it comes to smaller, more rural areas.
Take our first major project, Cape Station, for example. It’s bringing 100 megawatts of clean electricity to the grid in 2026, and a total of 500 megawatts by 2028. In layman’s terms, that’s enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes, which is fantastic.
Cape Station is in Milford, Utah — a town of about 1,400 people in Beaver County, which itself has around 7,000 residents. So, we’re talking about a very small community, but one that’s playing a major role in delivering a big energy impact.
Just last week, I was on-site in Milford for our inaugural event, Cape Connect. We hosted more than 150 guests, including investors, policy leaders, and members of the local community. All those people needed places to stay, food to eat, and the town of Milford really stepped up. The town welcomed everyone, filled the hotels, and brought people into local diners.
It’s a real and positive economic impact, not just energy on the grid, but dollars flowing into the community. These are the kinds of benefits that are sometimes missed in the big-picture energy conversation. And I’ll share with readers a recent Reuters article that covered this in more detail.
Related to that, are there examples where local, or state governments have either championed or hindered geothermal progress?
Conness: At least for the kind of work we’re doing, a lot of it is still new and we’re figuring things out as we go. One of the biggest challenges to geothermal progress, and this applies to other energy sectors too, is navigating the regulatory and policy landscape. What we really value—and what would benefit the entire industry—is consistency across project sites.
Right now, we’re often dealing with different rules and different people saying different things at the local, state, and federal levels. That creates layers of bureaucracy and slows down the progress we’re trying to make. It’s not unique to geothermal, but it’s especially burdensome when you’re trying to scale something new. If we could just repeat the same permitting and review process across sites—particularly when working with Bureau of Land Management offices—we could move faster and reduce costs.
When you add in the broader issues the energy sector faces—like permitting delays, interconnection timelines, supply chain constraints, and macroeconomic factors such as interest rates—it all adds complexity to the work we’re doing. That’s why predictability is so important. Knowing what the process will look like, how long it will take, and what to expect across different jurisdictions is a game-changer for staying on schedule and hitting milestones.
And then there’s the backdrop of surging demand for electricity. Everyone knows we need more energy, and a lot of different ideas are being thrown around to meet that need. That leads to a crowded policy space with lots of voices, lots of competing visions. It can be chaotic at times, and hard to tell what’s realistic and what’s not.
What makes what we’re doing stand out is that it’s not hypothetical. We’re not pitching a concept or a future pilot. We’re building a utility-scale geothermal power plant now. It’s a real, on-the-ground project that will deliver clean, reliable electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes.
I hope this isn’t a dumb question and a scientist somewhere is likely laughing at me, but I equate those hot springs with the American West. Is geothermal something that is more scalable or usable in certain geographic areas of the U.S.? Is it say less of an option on the Eastern seaboard?
Conness: That’s a great question and I think of Iceland as being a good example. They sit right on top of a volcano, basically, so accessing geothermal heat is relatively easy there.
Historically, geothermal energy has only been feasible in geographies like that—the Geysers in California, Iceland—places where the earth’s heat is close to the surface. But that’s starting to change.
What’s exciting is how we’re taking innovations from oil and gas—like fracking—and applying them to geothermal. The newer technologies are enabling us to reach heat sources in regions that were previously considered off-limits.
It’s a real, on-the-ground project that will deliver clean, reliable electricity to hundreds of thousands of homes.
Right now, our focus is the Intermountain West, but as we prove out the model and demonstrate scalability, the potential expands significantly. We’re learning how to drill deeper, faster, hotter, and cheaper. We’re breaking records every day. Just recently, we drilled a 15,000-foot well reaching 500 degrees Fahrenheit in just 16 days. That used to take much longer, and the wells weren’t as deep or nearly as hot.
So instead of depending on high temperatures near the surface, we’re unlocking geothermal in places that used to be written off entirely. And I don’t mean this flippantly, but the earth is hot everywhere down deep enough. We’re sitting on an inexhaustible heat source. The challenge has always been how to access and harness it—and that’s what Fervo is solving.
This is exciting because it has major implications for long-term affordability and energy stability. If it’s constant and scalable, it could mean lower costs for consumers too, right?
Conness: Exactly. We’re at a real inflection point. After years of research and development, we’re moving from pilot projects, like our three-megawatt test in Nevada three years ago—to true utility-scale development. Right now, in Utah, we’re building a 500-megawatt project. As we replicate this process, economies of scale kick in, and we’re already seeing meaningful cost declines.
We’re improving every day—drilling more efficiently, refining techniques, and continuing to innovate on-site. That’s why we’re already beating internal cost expectations. The momentum is real, and it’s translating into tangible progress.
Why are you involved in this industry, Jack? You seem excited about it, and I find that encouraging so I’d like to know what brought you to this point?
Conness: It’s a funny story and I’m not making this up, but I did check out your Twitter page, and I see you’re a big baseball fan, right?
Huge baseball fan, yes.
Conness: Right out of school, I landed my dream job working in Major League Baseball. I was with Scott Boras, the baseball agent, and at the time I thought, ‘This is it. I’m going to do this for the rest of my life.’
But one day at work, I came across this article from 2021 about Fervo. It was talking about harnessing heat from the earth to potentially change the world. I remember thinking, ‘How is this even real?’ Everyone has big ideas, but this one felt different. It stuck with me. My curiosity got the better of me and eventually, I left the baseball world behind.
I can’t believe you left Scott Boras.
Conness: Trust me, people said the same thing to me back in 2021. They couldn’t believe it. I had a pretty cushy setup, and to them, walking away from that seemed crazy. ‘What a fool,’ some said.
But after reading about Fervo, I just knew the timing was right. Sure, it was a risk and back then, it was still just an idea. But I believed in it. So, I started taking on a range of energy-related roles, all with the goal of eventually being part of Fervo.
Then one day, I saw a job listing at Fervo and thought, ‘This is it. This is where I want to be. And lo and behold, I was fortunate enough to land the job—and now I’ve come full circle. I went from sitting at a desk in the baseball world to working at Fervo, which is incredibly exciting.
As I mentioned earlier, geothermal really is a Goldilocks energy source. It’s the perfect blend, where we can take the historical strengths of the oil and gas industry and apply them to cutting-edge clean energy. The transition is seamless. There’s no steep learning curve; workers from oil and gas are already doing much of the same type of work. It’s incredibly collaborative and we’re repurposing skilled workers straight into this next-generation energy space.
What do you wish more Americans and lawmakers understood about energy today? Do you ever throw your hands up or get a little bit frustrated or feel like there is something out there that people need to understand that they don’t think about?
Conness: What I really wish more everyday Americans and lawmakers understood is the opportunity we have right now to lead the world in next-generation geothermal technology.
Why does that matter? Well, if you think back, the oil and gas industry in the U.S. transformed global energy markets through innovation in technology and production. That leadership brought enormous economic and national security advantages to our country.
We now have a similar opportunity with geothermal. If we lead on this front—developing the technology, investing in infrastructure, and scaling it—we can reap those same kinds of benefits again. And not just for ourselves. We can export this expertise and advantage globally.
That’s why I think it’s so important to recognize that we’re able to be an industry leader. People like when the U.S. leads in something meaningful. And right now, there’s no one else in the world doing what we’re doing at this scale in geothermal.
If this takes off, it gives the U.S. a significant competitive advantage, economically and from a national security standpoint. That’s what I wish more people understood.
And just to add one final point, I’m not just talking about ideas here. This isn’t theoretical. We’ve got steel in the ground today. Construction workers are on site. Drilling rigs are up. Turbines are being purchased, shipped, and installed.
We’re not just talking about the future; we’re building it right now. It’s an exciting reality right now.
