Drilling starts on a seafloor geothermal well off Oregon
Serguey Asael Shinder1 min readEndurance Energy has started drilling an offshore geothermal well hundreds of kilometres off the coast of Oregon, IEEE Spectrum reported. The company's seafloor drilling system was deployed from the vessel Ocean Guardian on 16 September 2026, and the target is a well 1,500 metres below the seabed.
The pilot moves geothermal drilling from land to the ocean floor, where the heat gradient is reached without competing for surface sites.
What it means
Geothermal has always had the property a grid operator wants and renewables mostly lack: it runs whether or not the weather cooperates. What it has lacked is places to put it, because the good resource sits under land that is either protected, populated or far from demand.
Offshore drilling is expensive and the failure modes are worse than on land, so the number to watch from this pilot is not temperature but cost per well. A firm, weather-independent resource is worth a premium over solar and wind on a system with high renewable penetration, and the size of that premium is the whole question.