Sriram Vasantharajan, Mazama Energy | theCUBE + NYSE Wired: Powering Tomorrow

Palo Alto studio connection Silicon Valley and Wall Street. So I'm John F co here with Dave Volante my co-host. Hello I'm John Furry your host of the cube. We are here at the cub's NYC studio. Of course we have our Palo Alto studio connecting Silicon Valley to Wall Street as technology is the market. AI infrastructure continues to grow. This is our powering tomorrow series where we talk to leaders who are bringing the energy and the power to the AI revolution. Also societal benefits the grid. Everyone wants energy to feed the AI. Girram Basatharo Jen is here. He's the CEO of Mazama Energy. They have an unique solution that could open up megawws, gigawatts, terowatts. There's whole another acronyms coming in. Triron, thanks for coming in on our powering tomorrow series as a leader. You're doing some really innovative things. Thanks for coming on, >> John. Thank you very much for having us. It's a pleasure and a privilege to be here. >> So you guys are doing something very very unique and I think it's a real breakthrough um in energy and clean energy specifically, but it's also the timing of what you're working on is very important because everyone's talking about the capex buildout for these gigawatt factories. You see that in Texas. Uh you see the demand for energy for AI and of course we know that the grid critical infrastructure is under pressure. So there's all this pressure for energy. We hear stats like one gigawatt factory can power x number of homes. So you're starting to see engineers and and entrepreneurs go to the constraints. The capital goes there and so does the entrepreneurs. So explain what you're working on. You have a very cool solution. Talk about the approach you're taking to energy. >> Thank you. We use an oldfashioned term geothermal energy. When I mention geothermal, your impression goes to Iceland and the conventional systems that come. But those kind of natural systems are geographically constrained and cannot be scaled. So what we do is engineer and build the geothermal system cuz what we're after is Earth's heat which is universal. So we drill the wells, create the reservoirs to extract, build the heat there. So these engineered geothermal systems is what mazama is about. Building it where it doesn't exist. However, there is something unique in what we do. We go much hotter, much more powerful temperature regimes than what the industry is doing. >> Talk about the the the geothermal because the to the average person they think volcano and they see the energy. There is so much energy in the earth. T take us through specifically how that all works and why now? What's the breakthrough? >> Okay, let's talk about the price, the size of what we call our super hot rock. The US Department of Energy and the Clean Air Task Force estimate if you can extract just 1% of this immense almost, you know, virtually uh inexhaustible resource. It's 4.3 terowatt of electricity. That's almost nine to 10 times what the US consumes today. It is a massive price. It's always been there. And what we're doing right now is creating the tech platform to harvest it not just reliably, but also in a very cost competitive manner. >> Talk about the safety and the efficiency because clean tech, we've been covering that since we've had the cube 17 years now. And before that was a big sector, but now there's breakthroughs. Talk about the clean tech aspect of it, the clean energy and the safety. >> Absolutely. >> It's not like drilling for oil or anything like that. Or is it? Kind of explain where this fits. >> Yes, drilling is common. The difference is we're just drilling for heat. We're not drilling for hydrocarbons and stuff. And heat is a universal commodity. So these wells in fact we're just drilling a well as I speak there in there reaching about 15,000 ft and we're doing it 80% faster than last year. So it is a safe reliable operation that we can do anywhere. >> I'm looking at um the briefing document and I really appreciate your team supplying that. It's a global resource as you say. I like the term super hot rock. That's the word. Okay. Because they're hot rocks. They're under they're they're in the ground. They're deep. the but the re it's pointed out that the resources are vast and available. Speak to that because this is one of those things where it's abundant. I mean is it always renewing itself? I mean this science behind it and you know explain the science behind the renewability does it it's vast and available and these super hot rocks if tapped certainly will bring a lot of energy blow away the scale that we seeing now that's constrained. >> Yes. The super hot rock potential is more than all of the fossil fuels that we have even discovered and it's a perennial source because the earth's core is constantly radiating this energy. So as we withdraw it, a fraction of what it does can power the entire humanity for decades to come. >> I have to ask you because this always comes up when people say, "Oh, that's such a great idea. How come no one's done that before?" Um, and usually it has to do with either the ingenuity andor technology. This is a real breakthrough. What's different now? What got you here? What was the What was the the path? >> Yes, my path came through oil and gas. For decades, me and my team worked on some of the most complex engineering and drilling problems around the world. So when this opportunity came to repurpose all that technology and learning and science but to do something of a scale that can rival what we have done before and probably even exceed it was just remarkable. >> Talk about some of the energy around the super hot rock when you get the the heat. Um explain the process because there's a specific method you guys have >> when you go down and you you find the the heat. >> Yes. >> Aka the energy. >> Yes. Take us through that dimension. And why doesn't things just melt? It's so hot, you know, like, you know, the equipment survive. >> Yes. Equipment. Okay. The equipment will melt if you don't have our secret source. As you drill to these temperatures, 700° F and stuff, the electronics are rated for much less. So, what did we did? What's our secret source? You look around your house and say, "What keeps things cool?" Your refrigerator. So we took the refrigeration principle and created a patent that would keep our drill bit and electronic school even when the surrounding is at super hot temperatures. So by putting a refrigerator the existing conventional drilling technology now we have adapted to work at these temperatures. just give us an idea of the scope of the kind of um magnitude of energy you can extract with the super hot rocks in comparison to what people know today megawatt data centers gigawatt data centers what are some of the benchmarks that you see coming out of say a deployment you have a a site in Oregon right now u what are some of the results that you anticipate and compare the scope of the order of magnitude difference >> yes yes so last year we successfully proved our technology in the field and created the hottest ever engineered geotherm pilot and what it did is unlocked almost 5 gawatt of geothermal potential to put that in perspective that is more than all of the US geothermal production combined this year learning from that example we're drilling deeper but also doing it much faster and efficient it's going to double the potential 10 gaw of firm power that we and extract in a cost competitive manner. >> Obviously, there's a lot of people excited by this. You guys have some news that broke uh momentum is strong and there's vast resource looking at the map. You can probably put these uh on a commercial basis out. Talk about the the momentum the news the momentum behind this your mission and then what it turns into because I can imagine multiple sites up and running producing enough power to feed the grid in areas all over the world. >> Yes. I mean that is our vision is to be creating geothermal where it was thought not to be possible but then to create it at a scale firm reliable way and cost competitive. Okay we are about three things. One is to be cost competitive we means hotter the rock the more the power density we can extract power but we also need to do it faster cheaper and more efficiently and that's what we're doing it in the field. talk about the news specifically the momentum behind um the the support. >> Yes, we announced our second round of funding series B which is a immense validation of our path to move from technology proof of concept now to commercialization of super hot rock. We're excited to have a mix around the table right now of technology innovators like Bill Gates and Venode Kosla, energy savvy builders like John Arnold and big oil Konico Phillips and Shell coming in validating our path and then helping us scale to a commercial platform. >> Well, you got great support. First of all, the money is great. You need to have the capital, but also you're looking at a technological breakthrough in science. This is a scientific breakthrough. This is energy, okay, that's going to help fuel the next generation of society. And you have smart people coming in. These these people are have massive degrees. They know the science behind it. You must be attracting a ton of talent. What's the makeup of of uh your company? What I mean, I'd want to work for you immediately if I was in in in science and be like, "Okay, this is a real breakthrough." Talk about that piece of it. It's not just the capital. >> No. and the money that you could make. >> Oh, >> there's a technical mission here. >> It it is it is all founded on an innovative and integrated technology platform. It's not enough if you just have a drilling technology. What this requires is the whole suite. Okay? And I make a joke. I call it my team needs to know every blade of grass in there about super hotrop geothermal. How do you drill it? How do you create these pathways? And how do you get these wells to produce for longer time? >> You know, a lot of technical people love sci-fi. I mean, I love I'm a big sci-fi fan myself. >> You know, you see the journey to the center of the earth, you know, you see volcanoes. You must attract a lot of talent that have unique degrees. Is there a certain pedigree or if I'm a young person getting a PhD or I could be in high school on a robotics club, I could be doing things. What's the kind of talent that's attracted to this new opportunity? because you're a category creator at this point for this market. So, I'm sure there's multiple disciplines, chemistry, biology, science. What are some of the things that you look for or people might be interested in? >> Let me repeat that it takes a village. It's not just PhDs. Yes, I have one and we have a lot of PhDs that do the fundamental science but to transform that science into engineering and stuff takes all the disciplines from our financial accountants to our procurement to ensure our supply chain to the young women and men who are coming in who want to apply their skills to a whole new problem. It's there. I mean I've had people who had retired from oil and gas industry >> saying I'm coming out of retirement because this is a legacy opportunity to repurpose my skills to do something clean. >> It's exciting. It's a fusion between the uh the generations and I've never seen this in my career Chiron because normally the young guard replaces the old guard and that's the way it traditionally is in tech. But when you have these breakthroughs, it's almost magical because you have people who have been working on these areas. They come together, but then the young guns coming in. They may not be in the curriculum. Geothermal is a category for energy. There's no books yet. So like it's got to be exciting for the younger generation mentoring and then having people come in who are just salivating at the opportunity to get their hands on the technology and apply what they've been thinking about. >> Absolutely. And it it works both ways. We have our senior people who want to transfer their knowledge and experience. And then we have the young guns who are going to make this into an industry and scalable willing to lap it up. We have all sorts of engineers, all sorts of subjects matter experts. We need them all, >> I imagine. And they see the results coming in. Yeah. We can now jump back in. Seeing a lot of that on the AI, a lot of systems folks coming in. Um, so I love love that story. explain also the the investors because you also have some bigname investors that actually are that know the technology. What's their reaction? What does it mean for them? >> This has been I mean they're betting long. Correct. I mean this is a huge challenge something that's been around forever. But what they saw in this vision is with the repurposing of oil and gas and all these science technologies there is a tangible path to work this. This is not a science problem. the heat exists. We don't It's how do you engineer it to do it efficiently and in a cost-effective way? >> I mean, it's the best time to be an engineer right now. We're seeing a lot of areas not just AI but in energy uh even on the finance side, you're seeing a lot more engineering. Talk about the engineering aspect of of this era we're in because a lot of people who got their PhDs were in college in the 80s 90s, you know, this was all on paper and it's becoming a reality in many fields. biochemistry, thermal energy that you're doing. I mean, the AI revolution, >> the tooling, the technology era we're in >> brings that to life. I mean, even see AI, some of the concepts that that are breaking through on AI were I mean, I learned in college. Yes. >> But was we couldn't actually have supercomputers. >> That's correct. >> So, you're having this whole renaissance. Yes. >> Of engineering. >> Yes. And and what I tell these people is apply to mazama because this is fundamentals that are going to power not just AI or the data centers but our industry our electrification our hospitals and stuff. So anybody there who's willing to take a challenge solve some difficult engineering problems we're ready for you. >> All right let's dig into that. What are some of the things that you can put on the table that uh would attract an engineer who wants to solve hard problems? Is it on the uh drilling side? Is it on the on the mechanism? Is it the extraction? What are some of the areas that you're looking to focus on as you got the support coming in, the momentum with the with the capital, but also the breakthrough? What what are some of the things that someone would might want to jump in on? What are some of the areas you're you're focused on? >> Like I mentioned to you, these are all patented and innovative technologies. So having different viewpoints and eyes on it from physics to mechanical engineering and the stuff will allow us to make it more robust and repeatable and scalable. So that's what we're after. The efficiency, the reliability of what we're doing and then scaling it. >> Yeah, I imagine the distribution where you put the plants. Let's talk about what's going on in Oregon because I think that's a real good template, the work you're doing there. And we were talking before you came on camera around the grid in the Pacific Northwest. This could actually fund energy for the entire Pacific Northwest with the potential. Talk about that impact. I think this impact is I mean it's almost mind-blowing >> when we do the math when we look at how much resource is there and how it can be extracted in a sustainable way and cutting it is so the magnitude of it is the entire Pacific Northwest imagine 80% can be powered from our site it's multi- gigawatt and we're just starting to unpack it in layers >> when you talk about the vision take me through the um the future. Go a couple years out. What do you envision uh the future to be? Your preferred future. What would it look like? Multiple sites, North America, US, global. What would be your preferred future a couple years out? >> It's it's all of the above in a way. This is truly this this breakthrough is global. Has to be global because what it leads to is energy affordability and because it's a local resource, energy security. Okay, we are going to start in western US. It's ideal for this. But from there, we want to start creating geothermal systems all across the globe. >> Sure. Congratulations on the funding and certainly the momentum. Um, I guess my final question is, has there been a surprise for you? Like a a surprise maybe you didn't think was going to happen sooner or something that happened randomly in the in the journey. Take us through a moment where you're like, "Wow, that can't believe that happened." What would that moment be? >> It It's a It's a geeky tech thing. Okay. So, imagine you're drilling two wells, pencils that go down to 10,000 ft, >> and then you create the pathways to for the water to flow. So, when we were drilling our second well, we extracted a rock sample and we actually saw materials, the propins from the first well in there. It's like the Rosetta Stone looking at and saying, "You don't need more proof than this. This is how you can connect the reservoirs >> and you got and that's the breakthrough. Congratulations and we'll keep in touch. Certainly a great momentum and a great mission really is tied beautifully with societal needs but also on the capital side commercial side. Uh great opportunity. Thank you for what you do. Appreciate you coming in. >> Thank you very much for this opportunity. It was a pleasure having this discussion. >> This is powering tomorrow series with the cube and NYC wired program and community. I'm John Fer host of the cube. These are the innovators solving the problems for tomorrow. That's the focus of this series, bringing that energy and that financial capital and the efficiency to power the world. Thanks for watching.