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Policy makers at the US Department of Energy have their hearts set on restoring coal to a commanding place in the nation’s power generation profile, but the effort is doomed to fail. The domestic coal industry took a hit from natural gas in the early 2000s, followed by a fresh round of competition from low-cost wind and solar, and now it is about to get a drubbing from geothermal energy.
The US Geothermal Industry Is Beginning To Spread Its Wings
If you don’t have a geothermal power plant in your part of the US, join the club. Until recent years, geothermal energy was limited to just a handful of locations concentrated in the Western states, where nature provides economical combinations of heat, rock, and water.
New drilling technology is beginning to open up new territories for geothermal exploitation, and the US startup Zanskar has come up with another way to tease more renewable energy from deep within the Earth. The company has developed its own custom-built AI to find new fields.
Identifying previously unknown fields is just one part of a broader challenge. The other part is to find them efficiently and economically, and that’s where AI comes in.
“We started Zanskar with the belief that AI would have as profound an impact on geothermal cost and scalability as modern drilling technologies have,” explains Zanskar co-founder and CEO Carl Hoiland. “It would do so by enabling us to find more hidden geothermal systems, and to produce more power from each of those systems, than legacy models assumed.”
Follow The Money To The Geothermal Anomolies
Zanskar surfaced briefly on the CleanTechnica radar in 2024, as part of a suite of startups engaged by the US Air Force to plumb for renewable energy on its facilities.
In the latest development, earlier today Zanskar announced a new round of Series C funding to the tune of $115 million, with Spring Lane Capital taking the lead.
“Zanskar is unique in that they have identified more geothermal anomalies in North America than any other company in decades,” Spring Lane Partner Jason Scott says of the company’s AI-driven business model.
In a show of confidence, Series B leader Obvious Ventures also participated in Round C, as did Series A co-leader Lowercarbon Capital.
“While other more costly approaches dig deep enough until heat is hopefully found, Zanskar can efficiently identify and unlock the more than 40 GW of untapped geothermal potential in the US much closer to the surface,” Lowercarbon Capital explains.
“Their precise subsurface vision halves the failure rate and drops drilling costs to $2m per well. Their suite of tools can be used for failing wells (repower), new wells at existing sites (brownfield), and new wells at new sites,” the firm adds.
The list of Round C participants also includes Munich Re Ventures, Susquehanna Sustainable Investments, Clearvision Ventures, Orion Industrial Ventures, Safar Partners, Imperative Ventures, StepStone Group, University Growth Fund, Cross Creek, GVP Climate, Tranquillion, Carica Sustainable Investments, UP.Partners, and All Aboard Fund, among others.
Regardless of the abrupt U-turn in federal energy policy, Zanskar plans to leverage its Series C haul to expand its current operations to multiple locations in the Western US, with the aim of delivering the clean kilowatts before 2030. That easily beats the timeline for constructing new coal, gas, and nuclear power plants.
“This Series C positions Zanskar for rapid growth by enabling the company to advance its gigawatt-scale pipeline through a historic geothermal exploration and development campaign,” Zanskar emphasizes, adding that plans for engaging additional strategic partners and customers are also in the works.
US Air Force Hearts Geothermal Energy
It’s no surprise to see the US Air Force emerge as a geothermal energy supporter. They have been on the prowl for energy resources that can be harvested on site, reducing their reliance on outside resources, including grid-supplied electricity as well as the fossil fuels needed for on-site power and heating systems. The Air Force was an early adopter of solar energy, and now attention has turned to geothermal.
In 2023 the Air Force began planning for two prototype-level projects at Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho and Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, with Zanskar assigned to Mountain Home and the Canadian firm Eavor taking Joint Base San Antonio.
“We are in an era of strategic competition with China, which means that our installations are no longer a sanctuary from the full spectrum of threats,” observed Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Energy, Installations, and Environment at the time.
“We need to ruggedize our installations with redundant energy systems and make use of clean energy sources that reduce our fuel demands,” Chaudhary added. “Geothermal sources strengthen our energy grids and give us the ability to isolate threats before they impact our operations. This type of capability will translate into victory in a high-end fight.”
From The US Air Force To Your Backyard
As of 2023, both the Zanskar and Eavor projects had a long way to go, with feasibility studies to be conducted before construction. In the meantime, though, the Air Force was already anticipating that its early-adopter status would help support a broader uptake of new geothermal systems across the US.
“The use of these technologies has the potential to expand beyond Air Force and Department of Defense installations to benefit communities across the United States,” the Air Force stated.
I’m reaching out to Zanskar to see if any updates are available on the Mountain Home project. In the meantime, the company emphasizes that its new system can also give existing geothermal facilities a fresh shot of adrenaline, as illustrated by the Lightning Dock project in New Mexico.
“We’ve already confirmed multiple large, previously unknown geothermal resources across the Western U.S., and deeper drilling has validated that these systems can produce far more energy than expected,” Hoiland adds.
What’s Next For Geothermal Energy
If you’re wondering how all this comports with the current US focus on fossil energy, that’s a good question. Despite the insistence on “beautiful” coal, in January of 2025, the White House announced that biomass and hydropower are also deserving of federal support, alongside fossil and nuclear energy. In February, Energy Secretary Chris Wright added geothermal energy to the list.
That’s not just Wright’s lips moving. On January 7 of this year, the Energy Department announced its intention to ramp up geothermal activity in Western states and help the geothermal industry expand eastward, with an initial focus on Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawai’i, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, and West Virginia. Hold on to your hats…
Image: A new cost-cutting, AI-driven, underground exploration system is revealing hidden geothermal resources in the US, and investors are taking notice (courtesy of Zanskar).
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