Okay. Not an Oregon startup. But a startup in Oregon working on something hot. Literally. Mazama Energy has a location in Newberry, Oregon, that has some of the hottest rocks powering the world’s hottest enhanced geothermal system — which could be the key to solving the massive power needs of AI.
“With geothermal, you get global, round-the-clock energy that is carbon-free, cost-stable, and grid-independent,” said Sriram Vasantharajan, CEO of Mazama Energy. “Our team’s accomplishments expand the frontiers of geothermal power into significantly hotter and more heterogeneous rock regimes than ever before. The Newberry pilot provides a blueprint for unlocking baseload, utility-scale, carbon-free energy from the Earth’s crust worldwide, which is what the next generation of AI and cloud infrastructure requires.”
Located within the Cascade Range, Newberry is one of the largest geothermal reservoirs in the U.S. At the demonstration site, Mazama’s engineers first completed and stimulated a legacy well to serve as the water injector. Mazama then successfully drilled a new, 10,200-foot deviated producer well within six feet of its planned trajectory achieving optimal alignment with the injector. Initial circulation tests and diagnostics confirm comprehensive connectivity between the two wells and the creation of the hottest-ever EGS.
Mazama’s team successfully deployed a spectrum of innovative technologies – including directional drilling, high-temperature well construction, and proprietary stimulation — to deliver performance under conditions far beyond traditional oil and gas industry limits. The team operated year-round at a remote, high-altitude site, with zero lost-time incidents.
For more, visit Mazama Energy.
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