© 2026 Monument Traders Alliance, LLC
One of the biggest energy breakthroughs of the year happened earlier this month.
But it didn’t involve a new nuclear reactor, a massive solar farm, or some revolutionary battery technology.
It happened thousands of feet beneath the Utah desert.
On October 1, a relatively unknown company called Fervo Energy (FRVO) announced that its next-generation geothermal power plant had officially begun commercial operations.
For the first time, a newly developed enhanced geothermal project was generating electricity at commercial scale. And it reached that milestone ahead of schedule.
The plant is currently producing 33 megawatts of electricity, with plans to expand to roughly 500 megawatts over the next two years.
That might not sound like much compared with some of the enormous power plants operating around the country. But what Fervo accomplished could have implications far beyond Utah.
And here’s where things get really interesting.
Google is already lining up to buy the electricity.
Last month, Google signed an agreement to purchase 396 megawatts of geothermal power from Fervo, with an option to increase that amount to nearly 1,000 megawatts.
Why is one of the world’s largest technology companies making such a big bet on a relatively obscure energy source?
Because geothermal could help solve one of the biggest problems facing the AI revolution.
Most people know that the Earth gets hotter the deeper you go underground.
But what many investors don’t realize is that we can use that heat to generate electricity.
It’s called geothermal energy, and the basic idea is surprisingly simple.
Drill deep enough into the Earth and you encounter extremely hot rock. Circulate water through that rock, bring the heated water back to the surface, and use that energy to generate electricity.
Unlike solar panels, geothermal doesn’t stop working when the sun goes down. Unlike wind turbines, it doesn’t depend on the weather.
It can generate electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
That’s incredibly valuable when you’re trying to power enormous AI data centers that never sleep.
There’s just one problem.
Traditional geothermal power plants generally need to be built in places where nature has already created the right underground conditions. That’s why geothermal has historically been concentrated in places like Iceland, California, and Nevada.
But new technology is beginning to change that.
And here’s the part I find fascinating.
The breakthrough isn’t coming from the renewable-energy industry.
It’s coming from oil and gas drilling.
Over the last two decades, American energy companies perfected technologies that transformed the oil and natural gas industry.
Horizontal drilling allowed them to drill thousands of feet underground and then turn sideways, accessing resources that were previously difficult to reach.
Hydraulic fracturing allowed them to create pathways through rock so oil and gas could flow.
Fervo is adapting those same technologies for an entirely different purpose.
Instead of drilling for oil, it’s drilling for heat.
The company drills deep wells into hot underground rock, creates pathways for water to circulate, and then brings that heat back to the surface to generate electricity.
Think about that for a moment.
The same technological revolution that helped turn America into an energy superpower could now help create an entirely new source of electricity.
And Fervo is proving that it can work commercially.
Its Utah facility took just 23 months to build and commission. The company expects to bring two additional generating units online by early next year, with a much larger expansion scheduled for 2028.
This isn’t just a promising technology sitting in a laboratory anymore.
It’s producing electricity and generating revenue.
Fervo is particularly interesting because it represents the next generation of geothermal development.
The company only went public in May, raising approximately $2.2 billion. It already has more than 1 gigawatt of binding power-purchase agreements and a development pipeline that extends well beyond its first Utah project.
But investors should understand that Fervo is still in the early stages of building its business. Developing power plants requires enormous amounts of capital, and the company is currently operating at a loss.
For investors looking for a more established way to participate, there’s Ormat Technologies (ORA).
Ormat’s been developing and operating geothermal power plants for decades. It already generates substantial revenue from selling electricity and building geothermal equipment around the world.
And the AI connection is becoming increasingly obvious.
Earlier this year, Ormat signed a long-term agreement involving up to 150 megawatts of geothermal electricity to support Google’s data centers in Nevada.
The company’s revenue grew 10.6% last quarter, and management raised its full-year outlook.
In other words, Ormat offers exposure to geothermal through an established business rather than a newly public company.
But there’s another angle that might surprise you.
Helmerich & Payne (HP).
You probably know it as an oil and gas drilling company. But its expertise in drilling deep, complicated wells is exactly what next-generation geothermal developers need.
In fact, Helmerich & Payne already has drilling rigs working at Fervo’s Utah project.
It also announced a partnership with Baker Hughes earlier this year to expand geothermal drilling in the United States.
It’s a classic picks-and-shovels opportunity. As geothermal expands, somebody has to dig all those holes.
I’m not suggesting geothermal will replace nuclear, natural gas, solar, or wind.
America is going to need enormous amounts of electricity in the coming years, and I believe all those energy sources will play important roles.
But geothermal has something particularly attractive: the potential to provide reliable, around-the-clock power without requiring fuel deliveries.
And the opportunity could be much larger than most investors realize.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that advances in geothermal technology could eventually support 90 gigawatts of generating capacity by 2050.
That’s the equivalent of roughly 90 large nuclear reactors in terms of nameplate generating capacity.
For decades, the energy industry has spent enormous sums drilling into the Earth looking for oil and natural gas.
Now, some of those same technologies are being used to unlock something that’s been sitting beneath our feet all along.
Heat.
And in a world where AI is creating an unprecedented appetite for electricity, the next big energy breakthrough might not come from building something new.
It might come from learning how to tap the enormous power already beneath our feet.
