Pulling carbon-free power out of superhot rock - and drilling the hottest geothermal well on Earth to prove it works.
Most clean-energy companies are fighting over sunlight and wind. Mazama Energy went the other direction - straight down, into rock hot enough to destroy the equipment sent to reach it.
Mazama Energy is a geothermal developer building Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) that tap superhot rock - subsurface formations above 374 °C. Conventional geothermal tops out around 200 °C; Mazama is pushing well past it. Hotter rock means dramatically more energy from the same footprint: up to ten times the power density, while using 75% less water and drilling roughly 80% fewer wells than current approaches.
The payoff is a rare kind of electricity - carbon-free, available 24 hours a day regardless of weather, and independent of the grid's ups and downs. The company's stated target is power at under five cents per kilowatt-hour, the range where clean firm power starts to compete head-on with fossil fuels.
Headquartered in Frisco, Texas and incubated by Khosla Ventures, Mazama draws its DNA from two founding companies: AltaRock Energy, with deep geothermal EGS experience, and Blade Energy Partners, with oil-and-gas drilling expertise. That combination - reservoir science plus hard-won drilling engineering - is the core of the thesis.
“With geothermal, you get global, round-the-clock energy that is carbon-free, cost-stable, and grid-independent.”
Solar and wind are cheap but intermittent. Grids increasingly need firm clean power - electricity that is on all the time - to balance them and to feed always-on loads like AI data centers. Nuclear can do it but is slow and costly to build. Mazama's bet is that superhot rock can deliver firm, carbon-free baseload almost anywhere there is deep heat.
Rather than searching for rare naturally-hot, water-filled reservoirs, Mazama engineers its own reservoir in dry superhot rock using its Thermal Lattice stimulation system. Going hotter - into the superhot regime - is what multiplies the energy per well and shrinks the surface footprint.
Mazama sits in the fast-moving next-generation geothermal field alongside players like Fervo Energy, Sage Geosystems, Quaise, and Eavor. Its distinguishing angle is temperature: chasing the superhot rock (>400 °C) regime that promises the steepest cost curve.
Mazama's platform, MUSE (Modular Unconventional Superhot Energy), bundles three proprietary technologies that together make superhot geothermal buildable.
The integrated system for creating and operating superhot rock reservoirs - the umbrella over Mazama's drilling, stimulation, and heat-recovery tools.
Specialized drilling for horizontal well paths through superhot volcanic rock, using high-temperature materials and cooling solutions. Peak rates of 100 ft/hour and single runs up to 2,760 ft.
A stimulation system that creates durable, high-capacity reservoirs to enhance heat production from deep rock - the engineered "battery" of the system.
Predicts long-term well performance and maximizes sustained heat recovery, so a reservoir keeps producing over its full lifetime.
Figures are company-reported approximations for the Newberry demonstration and the superhot rock target regime.
Formed from AltaRock Energy and Blade Energy Partners and incubated by Khosla Ventures to pursue superhot rock geothermal.
The U.S. Department of Energy funds a first-of-its-kind superhot rock EGS demonstration on the western flank of Newberry Volcano, Oregon.
Closes a Khosla-led Series A with Gates Frontier, then reaches 629 °F (331 °C) bottomhole - the hottest EGS ever demonstrated, with zero downhole equipment failures.
Advances to commercial-style horizontal wells, starting with a 15 MW pilot at Newberry and a roadmap to a 200 MW development.
Total disclosed funding of roughly $36M in venture capital sits alongside the $20M federal grant that de-risks the Newberry demonstration.
It develops enhanced geothermal systems that extract heat from superhot rock (above 374 °C) to generate low-cost, carbon-free, round-the-clock electricity.
Superhot rock is subsurface formation above roughly 374 °C. Its higher temperature yields up to 10x more power density, using 75% less water and 80% fewer wells than conventional geothermal.
On the western flank of Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon, where it ran its record-setting 629 °F (331 °C) pilot and has permitted a 200 MW development.
It was incubated by Khosla Ventures and backed by Khosla Ventures and Gates Frontier, with a $36M Series A, plus a $20M U.S. Department of Energy grant.
MUSE (Modular Unconventional Superhot Energy) is Mazama's technology suite - the Mazama Drill, Thermal Lattice, and Heat Harvester - for building and operating superhot rock reservoirs.
Profile compiled from public sources. Figures such as temperatures, funding, and capacity are company-reported and approximate. Last reviewed July 2026.