Tapping geothermal energy stored beneath the earth’s surface as a way to generate renewable energy is one of the new approaches for the future that has attracted environmentalists and oil and gas engineers. It is not only a way of generating electricity that does not rely on greenhouse gas emitting hydrocarbons, but it uses the same skillsets and efficiency that the oil and gas industry has been honoring and refining for years.
At least that’s what attracted the former finished engineer (not what it seems) to bring Tim Latimer into the industry and launch Fervo Energy, a Houston-based geotechnical technology developer that doesn’t raise money from anyone other than Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Venture.
With the new $28 million in cash in hand, Fervo’s plans to move its projects forward, which Latimer said will “bring in hundreds of megawatts of electricity in the next few years.”
Growing up in a small town outside of Texas near the Sandy Creek coal power plant in Texas, Latimer was one of the last coal-fired power plants to be built in the United States. Like many children in Texas, Latimer came from an oil family and got his first job in the oil and gas industry realizing that the world would be renewable and that the oil industry – known to his friends and family – could be tall and dry left.
That’s one of the reasons he started working at Fervo, the entrepreneur said. “Most importantly from my point of view, since I started my career in the oil and gas industry, providing people who are part of the energy shift on the fossil fuels side, clean fuels to work in the future.” We’ve been able to hire challenging contractors and support people … and I’ve put them in our jobs. “
When the Biden administration talks about finding jobs as part of a power shift for workers in the hydrocarbon industry, they are talking about them. Geological power is no longer limited by geography, so there are plenty of resources to tap into and there are already high-paying jobs in areas dependent on geological service work, Latimer said (late last year, Vox published a good overview of the history and opportunities presented by technology ).
