“Show me the money!” Rod Tidwell made Jerry Maguire shout it before he would sign anything, and geothermal has reached its own Jerry Maguire moment, and it’s all about water. More on that in a moment.
Our team dug into all things geothermal in last week’s Play Fundamentals report. Funding for geothermal reached $3.4 billion in 2026 to date, more than triple any prior year. Money is finding a home across a range of bets, from Fervo’s IPO to deep drilling, superhot rock and AI exploration.
Land has repriced too. In 2016 every BLM parcel sold at the $2/acre minimum; in 2026 only 16% did, and the August Utah sale set a top bid of $1,207/acre, 12x 2021. The report’s bid model on 306 BLM parcels shows buyers paying $49/acre for proximity to an existing geothermal site and $22/acre for 345 kV transmission, against $8/acre for the temperature gradient. Proven rock and a way onto the grid set the price. Beyond the money sit investment grade commitments, with hyperscalers signing more than 1 GW of offtake, about 60% of it with Google.
The report is just as clear about what stands between today and 10.5 GW by 2035, and I read that list as milestones. The rig fleet has to grow from 6 to 51 and drill about 2,800 wells while shale operators bid for the same rigs. ORC turbine supply runs at about 300 MW/year, median grid interconnection exceeds five years, and water loss below 1% has no commercial precedent.
That last point is why all eyes are on Cape Station. “Show me the water data!” Evidence of water containment would pull the sector forward, and a miss would dampen the hype around EGS but it wouldn’t change the demand underneath it. Either way, I’d resist reading too much into one result. It is still geology, and the rock giveth and taketh in ways you can’t predict until you drill the well.
It’s easy to point at risks while a technology is emerging. There were plenty of lists like this in the early days of shale, and looking back those lists read more like a chronicle of milestones achieved. What keeps me optimistic on geothermal is the prize: we forecast Lower 48 load up 40% by 2050, with data centers driving about half of it, and that growth needs firm, clean power. In our NYISO modeling, a 100% renewable mix needs 222 GW, 3.6x the least-cost mix. The best EGS sites come in at $102/MWh, level with the Three Mile Island restart.
Fervo opens Cape Station to investors on November 19, with a drill rig, a power plant and no formal presentations. Rod Tidwell got his money by holding onto the ball in the end zone. Geothermal gets its money when the water it sends down comes back up.
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