How Texas Oil Workers, Technology Are Helping Build A New Renewable Boom

The Texas rock formation known as the Eagle Ford shale was once at the heart of the oil and gas boom. But beneath its bones lies another resource central to the new movement in the region's energy industry: heat that Texas companies like Sage and Fervo Energy hope to tap for clean power.

The field centered on that geothermal energy has long been a niche one in the renewables sector because of its reliance on a very particular set of underground conditions: accessible, superheated pools of underground water, like those found beneath pockets of California, the Pacific’s Ring of Fire and the nation of Iceland.

Over the past decade, however, hundreds of millions in investor capital have flowed into largely Texas-based firms seeking to develop methods that could be used to generate geothermal power virtually anywhere in the country.

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. It is part four in a four-part series.