Houston Chronicle

Houston knows how to dig holes. Perhaps when historians look back at this great city, when it has either returned to wetland prairie and piney woods or has advanced to its rightful place among the great cities of the world, it won’t be oil and gas per se that define us, but our general knack for poking, cracking, extracting and moving all manner of molecules into and out of the earth.

At least, that’s the idea behind the excitement over geothermal energy at this past week’s CERAWeek, the so-called Super Bowl of energy conferences in downtown Houston. The low-carbon form of energy has “arrived” as one geothermal consulting company president posted on social media. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy revealed a roadmap to ramp up domestic geothermal energy production to 90 gigawatts by 2050, a 20-fold increase.

The economic promise is that geothermal will bring high-paying jobs for the Houston geologists, engineers and others at risk during a transition away from oil and gas to forms of energy that produce less greenhouse gas emissions. The reality, of course, is complicated.

The big geothermal plants already under operation require hot rock, fluids and underground cracks to naturally exist in order to create steam that turns electricity-producing turbines. There are only so many places with that combination — think California and Nevada. Yet that limitation appears to be on the cusp of being overcome. In recent years, startups have tested new technologies that borrow from the fracking revolution. By injecting fluids into manmade reservoirs, far more sites could be tapped to store or produce clean energy.

Fervo, a Houston-based company, offers proof of concept that advanced geothermal projects can be a significant source of carbon-free energy. Its geothermal pilot in Nevada is already supplying 3.5 megawatts of power — enough energy to power more than 3,000 homes.

We’ve talked with skeptics in the industry. The transferable skills and jobs from oil and gas to geothermal may not be as seamless as wide-eyed politicians and consultants seem to think, and the new tech is too expensive to deploy widely. What America needs, they say, is for the government to get out of the way, but instead the Biden administration has announced onerous rules on methane leaks and put a moratorium on new permits for liquefied natural gas exports. Is it a war on oil? We’ve argued that the White House has struck an appropriate balance. Despite the loud protestations by industry lobbying groups such as the American Petroleum Institute, their members seem to be doing just fine. The latest data shows the U.S. produced more crude oil than any nation ever has. Exxon, Shell and Chevron announced bumper profits last month.

Those oil windfalls are freeing energy giants to dip their toes in the geothermal pool. During a panel discussion at CERAWeek on Tuesday, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said the company is pursuing geothermal pilot projects in California and Japan.

Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank, studied four different pathways for the state’s energy future: the status quo, more emphasis on oil and gas, accelerated renewables and an “all-of-the-above” mix. They concluded that we could be on the brink of another “Texas miracle” — another sustained period of outpacing the rest of the country on jobs and prosperity — if we pursue “economic growth and environmental stewardship.”

Go inside the Exxon offices in Spring and the first thing you’ll see is a wall etched with the names of the company’s patent holders that stretches up half a dozen floors. There’s plenty of room for new names there and at companies across the city aiming to lead with new technologies. Let’s get digging.