Geothermal needs better tools for superhot drilling. Hephae can help.

A startup called Hephae Energy Technology has built a drilling tool meant to make a newer kind of geothermal power cheaper to develop. Next-generation geothermal projects don't rely on finding natural hot-water pockets the way traditional geothermal plants do. Instead, they drill into hot rock wherever it's found, which means they could eventually supply on-demand electricity across the western United States. But drilling costs, which can run into the millions per well and account for up to half the cost of building a plant, have held the industry back.

Hephae's tool tracks conditions underground and helps guide the drill, similar to equipment long used in oil and gas drilling. The difference is that it can handle much higher temperatures, up to 210 degrees Celsius, without needing to pause and cool down, something that currently costs geothermal operators roughly $500,000 to $1 million per well in downtime. The company has already tested its tool at Fervo Energy's Cape Station in Utah, a large geothermal project expected to be fully running by 2028, and plans to send another to Mazama Energy's site near Oregon's Newberry Volcano.

None of this changes what's available to homeowners today. It's a look at the engineering and investment happening behind the scenes as companies try to make this newer form of geothermal energy cost-competitive with nuclear, solar, and wind power on the broader electric grid.