Oil-and-gas companies are accelerating investments in geothermal energy, betting the technologies that fueled the shale revolution can turn the budding industry into a large producer of clean power… Many of these companies are using the same technology employed by frackers, but instead of searching for oil and gas, they are looking for underground heat. The new geothermal industry is the result of a surprising confluence of interests among the oil-and-gas, technology and green power industries. The heat that the drillers find underground can be used to generate a steady, round-the-clock supply of carbon-free electricity, which is coveted by tech companies for their power-hungry data centers. 

Finding pockets of underground heat is relatively easy in places with lots of geothermal activity, including parts of the U.S., Indonesia and New Zealand. When the heat is deeper in the earth, it is more difficult and more expensive to find. Those constraints have kept the sector’s share of U.S. electricity generation at less than 1%. …Oil companies understand subsurface geology, have experience building infrastructure projects and have cash available to deploy. That is why Chevron is joining with other companies and pursuing geothermal pilot projects in Japan, Indonesia and the U.S.

Excerpts from Amrith Ramkumar, Frackers Are Now Drilling for Clean Power, WSJ, Feb. 29, 2024