Geothermal energy, the heat of the earth, can be found under our feet everywhere on Earth.

Historically, we’ve only been able to access it in a few places, commonly in hot springs.

Much less commonly, in far fewer places, we find more intense heat, so close to the surface that it can be used to heat cities or generate electricity.

That intense heat could be developed anywhere… if we could go deep enough, cheaply enough. And that’s always been the challenge:

How to reach it, how to bring it back to the surface… and do so economically. New technology pioneered by the oil industry may be able to help.

Over the last two decades, in pursuit of oil and gas trapped in shale, drillers have perfected longer and ever more precise vertical and horizontal wellbores, at economies of scale.

Simultaneously, they’ve perfected fracturing techniques.

These may finally allow very deep, precision wells into hot rock formations, where water could be circulated to bring up the heat.

This could be done by fracturing the rock, or by running fluid through pipes.

Instead of water, some companies are testing supercritical CO2, which behaves like a fluid and could transfer heat more efficiently.

Costs for traditional drilling will remain a challenge. So other companies are experimenting with a high-powered laser to blast a deep hole.

There are many obstacles yet to overcome. But the promise of widely available geothermal energy is inspiring innovative solutions.