 Practical Investment Analysis for the New Energy EconomyRewriting America's Energy MapIn 2014, the Department of Energy opened an underground field laboratory in Utah called FORGE. The mission was pretty straightforward: figure out how to create geothermal reservoirs where nature didn't put them. Over the next decade, researchers drilled and fractured the rock beneath them, pumped water down and measured flow rates, all the while refining techniques that could make geothermal work anywhere — not just in volcanic hotspots. The timing matters, trust me. You see, while this was happening, U.S. oil and gas companies successfully unlocked a massive wealth of oil and gas reserves utilizing horizontal drilling techniques with hydraulic fracturing — tapping into hydrocarbon resources that were previously believed to be unextractable. These weren't complicated techniques, mind you. Companies like Haliburton were fracking wells as far back as the late 1940s, but it wasn't until the 1980s that pioneers like George Mitchell started to get the formula right. FORGE took those same tools and pointed them at a different problem — engineered heat extraction. Last year, Fervo Energy brought the first large-scale commercial result online at Cape Station… just four miles from the FORGE site. The plant will generate 70 megawatts using Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS) technology developed and tested at that government lab; a second phase will add 250 MW by 2028, and Southern California Edison has already contracted 320 MW under 15-year power purchase agreements. Just think, it only took a decade to go from government R&D to commercial scale. Of course, nobody saw this infrastructure shift accelerate. And the market is still blind:
Now, the geographic constraint that limited geothermal to seven western states for a century just broke. Gold didn't spike — it settled. After a historic run, gold isn't crashing back. Now it's coasting at $5,000 like it belongs there. Because now it does. Central banks have spoken with their balance sheets: more gold, fewer Treasuries, and no interest in going back. NatGold gives you the same foundation — a blockchain-backed token secured by real, in-ground gold. Fully verified. No vaults. No smoke. Just weight. If $5,000 is the new floor, what's the ceiling? Click here to claim your NatGold — and step onto solid ground. Rewriting America's Energy Map Look, traditional geothermal really only works one way. You need three things in the same place: heat close to the surface, naturally occurring water, and permeable rock that let fluids circulate. If you had all three, like in Iceland or the geysers in California, then you built a plant. Without all three, you simply move on. That's why the U.S. has 93 conventional geothermal plants clustered in just seven states — California, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho, and New Mexico. I guess the rest of us were just geologically unlucky. Fortunately, EGS doesn't care much for luck. You see, what it does is create reservoirs by drilling two to three miles down into hot, dry rock that exists everywhere. Then water gets pumped down one well, heated by the rock (often exceeding 300°F), and extracted through another well as steam or superheated fluid. That heat drives turbines. The cooled water cycles back underground. It's a closed loop with zero emissions, no fuel costs, or any of those pesky intermittent issues that wind and solar come with. In fact, the Department of Energy's projections see geothermal capacity climbing to 90 gigawatts by 2050. For the record, that's up from 60 GW in its original 2019 GeoVision study. For a little context, that's enough to power roughly 68 million homes operating 24/7 without weather dependence. In fact, New Mexico alone holds 163 gigawatts of identified geothermal potential — enough to power 122 million homes. Granted, the state only has one operating geothermal plant right now: Lightning Dock, which has been producing 19 MW since 2013 — a mere 0.01% of the state's potential being used. The thing is, Lightning Dock got lucky with naturally occurring hydrothermal conditions. With EGS, that luck isn't necessary. Over in Texas, it turns out the Permian Basin is good for more than a few billion barrels of oil. Hot rock formations and the existing workforce make EGS deployment faster and cheaper in the Lone Star State than starting from scratch. Washington D.C. is finally starting to catch up, too. The Hot Rock Act was recently introduced in Congress, which will accelerate the development of geothermal. Bipartisan support is rare enough, so enjoy it while you can. What makes the Hot Rock Act different is its focus on the next frontier — superhot rock systems that could produce 10 times more energy per well (at half the cost per megawatt-hour) compared to conventional geothermal. Tariff revenue is exploding:
A portion is already being funneled into a federal payout system I call "Tariff Rebate Checks." In some cases, that could mean payouts worth up to $8,276 per quarter. Click here to see how this payout structure works before the next distribution cycle begins. So far, geothermal energy has been nothing more than a niche industry with limited growth prospects. As you can see, that landscape is changing fast. For us, the key distinction here is between the players that own proprietary drilling technology, and those that simply develop projects using off-the-shelf tools. Take Fervo as a good example. Their advantage comes from the combination of oil and gas expertise and proprietary fiber optic monitoring systems that optimize reservoir performance in real time. As EGS scales, the cost curve will follow the path solar took over the past 15 years — declining rapidly with deployment volume. In fact, early drilling results at Cape Station already show faster completion times and lower costs with each successive well. Trust me, that learning curve compounds quickly when you're drilling over a hundred wells at a single site. Don't get me wrong, I'm not suggesting that geothermal will replace solar and wind. Rather, it'll complement them by solving the baseload problem that those technologies can't address. That's not speculative — it's how every major energy transition has played out. Here's where I'm looking first. Until next time,
Keith Kohl A true insider in the technology and energy markets, Keith's research has helped everyday investors capitalize from the rapid adoption of new technology trends and energy transitions. Keith connects with hundreds of thousands of readers as the Managing Editor of Energy & Capital, as well as the investment director of Angel Publishing's Energy Investor and Technology and Opportunity. For nearly two decades, Keith has been providing in-depth coverage of the hottest investment trends before they go mainstream — from the shale oil and gas boom in the United States to the red-hot EV revolution currently underway. Keith and his readers have banked hundreds of winning trades on the 5G rollout and on key advancements in robotics and AI technology. Keith's keen trading acumen and investment research also extend all the way into the complex biotech sector, where he and his readers take advantage of the newest and most groundbreaking medical therapies being developed by nearly 1,000 biotech companies. His network includes hundreds of experts, from M.D.s and Ph.D.s to lab scientists grinding out the latest medical technology and treatments. You can join his vast investment community and target the most profitable biotech stocks in Keith's Topline Trader advisory newsletter.
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