Great post - thanks! You raise a good question on whether emerging firms will be able to compete with learning by doing by incumbents.
I'm not sure it matters in this case. Alternative technologies (hydro, nuclear, gas + CCUS) are lumpy investments with minimal opportunity for learning by doing. In contrast, geothermal's going to need to drill a lot of wells.
Within the geothermal, I think there's potential for technologies to be additive rather than competitive. Does EGS at conventional temperatures have an edge on superhot? Absolutely.
But as novel drilling solutions mature, I can't see why incumbents wouldn't adopt these to hit higher temps. Lots of opportunities for synergies / spillovers across tech.
Thanks, Peter, that was certainly my impression, and I probably should have made that more clear. Tim Latimer did say in that podcast I linked to that Fervo would be an enthusiastic customer of Quaise if and when they got the tech to work. Also came through with a few investors I spoke to that are in the pure-play technology plays. Very encouraging that there is an ecosystem coming together.
Great post - thanks! You raise a good question on whether emerging firms will be able to compete with learning by doing by incumbents.
I'm not sure it matters in this case. Alternative technologies (hydro, nuclear, gas + CCUS) are lumpy investments with minimal opportunity for learning by doing. In contrast, geothermal's going to need to drill a lot of wells.
Within the geothermal, I think there's potential for technologies to be additive rather than competitive. Does EGS at conventional temperatures have an edge on superhot? Absolutely.
But as novel drilling solutions mature, I can't see why incumbents wouldn't adopt these to hit higher temps. Lots of opportunities for synergies / spillovers across tech.
Thanks, Peter, that was certainly my impression, and I probably should have made that more clear. Tim Latimer did say in that podcast I linked to that Fervo would be an enthusiastic customer of Quaise if and when they got the tech to work. Also came through with a few investors I spoke to that are in the pure-play technology plays. Very encouraging that there is an ecosystem coming together.
I hadn't caught that - great to hear companies like Fervo are looking at emerging technologies as they make the most of what's available today