🌐 Geothermal Comes With the House: The Future of Home Energy

According to the latest U.S. Department of Energy research, at least 90 gigawatts of clean, renewable geothermal energy that resides beneath the U.S. will be installed by 2050. That’s a lot, enough to power 65 million homes.

Geothermal holds an essential key to our clean energy future.

Kathy Hannun got the memo about geothermal’s potential to revolutionize the U.S. energy market earlier than most. Hannun joined Google X, Alphabet’s moonshot factory for world-changing business ideas, after completing her undergraduate degree at Stanford University in 2010.

Her job: scout for new energy technologies. A few years in, a Google colleague drafted a lengthy memo about geothermal’s potential. Kathy investigated. What she discovered changed her life.

In 2015, Kathy began incubating, within Google X, the startup that would become Dandelion, a home geothermal energy company—today the largest and fastest growing in America.

Dandelion’s mission: Make geothermal energy so easy to adopt that homeowners would say “yes” without hesitation. 

To achieve it, Kathy knew that she and her co-founding team would have to solve several thorny problems:

1. Avoid Tearing Up The Lawn

Historically, installing geothermal ground loops below ground—to tap heat—has been a messy business. Homeowners don’t like seeing their yards uprooted into construction sites. Neither do the neighbors. It makes for lousy branding and a poor customer experience.

So Kathy went to Sweden, where she discovered that geothermal energy heats nearly 20% of Swedish single-family houses. The Swedes were ahead and developed far less intrusive drilling techniques, nearly laparoscopic in precision—requiring only lightweight machinery.

Kathy brought that technology back to the U.S. and deployed it.

2. Make Every House A Candidate For Geothermal

Most of America’s housing stock is middle-aged; the average home is 40 years old. Aging ductwork and electrical panel systems are frequently incompatible with newer heat pumps that geothermal systems use to circulate air into and out of a house.

So Kathy and her team developed a new one. It’s called the Dandelion Geo, and it’s the most efficient heat pump on the market. It doesn’t discriminate based on age; both old and new homes can enjoy the benefits.

3. Give Homeowners A Deal They Can’t Refuse

Historically, geothermal energy systems cost upwards of $50,000 for a typical home, cementing geothermal’s niche status, accessible only to a wealthy clientele or environmental diehards. Turning geothermal power into a mass market necessitated a different approach.

Dandelion’s innovations in installing ground loops outside the house and the most efficient heat pump inside dramatically lower costs. Coupling these breakthroughs with modern financing strategies adopted from the home solar industry—like zero money down long-term leases—has begun unlocking geothermal potential.

For her work as Dandelion’s founding CEO and now President, Kathy has been named a CNBC Changemaker, a TED Fellow, one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and one of MIT Technology Review’s “35 under 35.”

After installing several thousand systems in homes throughout the Northeast, Dandelion announced its national expansion earlier this fall.

Dandelion’s expanding dealer network is excited about a geothermal system that is easy and profitable to install and beneficial for the planet.

Dandelion’s industry-disrupting approach also has the attention of America’s homebuilding giants.

Lennar, the second-largest homebuilder in the U.S., is integrating Dandelion Geo heat pumps and ground loops into new residential developments—which means zero carbon geothermal energy will become the default heating and cooling source for thousands of Americans.

This is a pivotal moment: geothermal energy is no longer an upgrade—it comes with the house.

Dandelion underscores a broader trend we’re tracking at Supercool: the rise of the underground climate economy. Cities like Boise (episode 5), with its municipally operated geothermal system, and Vancouver (episode 2), which recovers waste heat from sewers, are tapping their underground resources to build resilient, low-carbon infrastructure.

Dandelion’s solution adds a crucial layer to this movement, empowering communities and individuals to embrace an energy source that is unobtrusive, cost-effective, low-carbon, and long-lasting.

The clean energy revolution is here and happening right beneath our feet.

Take me to the podcast:

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Number of the week: 70%

That’s how much a Dandelion geothermal system can save customers on annual utility bills. Plus, it comes with up to a 75% reduction in a home’s carbon footprint.

Quote of the Week:

“Geothermal has such enormous potential. If we can capture the ‘heat beneath our feet,’ it can be the clean, reliable, base-load scalable power for everybody from industries to households.”

- Jennifer Granholm, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy

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Related Stories

Framingham, MA, is Ground Zero for Utility Geothermal in the U.S.

Eversource Energy, the largest utility in New England, now operates a district geothermal energy system (here’s the explainer video) in downtown Framingham, heating and cooling homes and commercial buildings. It’s a first for a U.S. fossil fuel company as the clean energy transition takes root.

Fervo Energy Applies Oil & Gas Industry Techniques to Geothermal

The deeper you drill, the warmer the earth, the hotter the geothermal sources to tap. But to get down there is expensive. So Fervo deploys horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques, cutting drilling costs in half and reducing drilling time by 70%. Among its customers, Fervo works with Google to power a Nevada-based data center on carbon-free geothermal energy.

“Geothermal energy used to be a niche source of electricity for volcanic regions like Iceland. But Fervo Energy’s innovations are making geothermal more accessible and cost-effective—unleashing its potential as a reliable, clean power source.”

- Bill Gates, Investor in Fervo

Speaking of Iceland, Geothermal Is Everywhere

Nearly 90% of homes in Iceland are heated by geothermal energy through district heating networks, like the one now operational in Framingham, MA—thanks to Iceland’s volcanic activity and abundant below-ground heat. In total, 70% of all energy in Iceland comes from geothermal power generated at several plants, like the Hellisheiði Geothermal Power Plant (above) near Reykjavik, the 8th largest in the world.

The Largest Geothermal Plant in the World is in California

California often drives the environmental agenda in the U.S. Its vehicle emissions rules, for example, have been adopted by 12 other states. The state’s commitment to a clean energy future goes back decades. Constructed in 1960 and spanning 45 square miles, The Geysers geothermal power plant is still the largest in the world, generating enough energy to power over 700,00 homes.

Geothermal Strengthens U.S. National Security 

Localized energy generation, a minimal above-ground footprint, and production capability even in harsh conditions are all part of the appeal of geothermal power to the U.S. military—which is now actively testing varying systems on Air Force, Army, and Naval bases in Arizona, California, Idaho, and Texas. Startups, including Fervo Energy, Eavor Technologies Inc., GreenFire Energy Inc, Sage Geosystems Inc., and Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, Inc., are all participating in the effort.

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Ask Our Upcoming Podcast Guests A Question 

Coming up on Supercool are conversations with:

Amit Gupta, CEO of Aeroseal

Aeroseal is a climate tech company on a mission to reduce the world's carbon emissions by one gigaton annually. How? With leak sealing technologies.

Manual solutions inadequately seal the ducts and walls in buildings. Aeroseal’s technologies - HomeSeal Connect and AeroBarrier Connect - inject a fog of sealant particles into these pressurized spaces. Software tracks the entire process, creating a certificate of completion showing before and after leakage.

Aeroseal is one of the fastest-growing clean technology companies in the U.S. and currently has a presence in 27 countries and all 50 states across the U.S. The company’s technology has sealed nearly 200,000 projects and saved nearly $2 billion in wasted energy.

Al Subbloie, Founder & CEO of Budderfly

Budderfly is one of the fastest-growing Energy as a Service (EaaS) companies in the U.S. For businesses with repeatable footprints, including restaurants, retail, and health facilities, Budderfly installs, monitors, and manages a combination of patented technologies, high-efficiency equipment, and proprietary energy software for its customers at no out-of-pocket cost.

Businesses benefit from lower energy bills, a reduced carbon footprint, more reliable operations, and an improved customer and employee experience.

Budderfly has ranked on the Inc. 5000 America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies list from 2021 to 2023 and the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 list in 2023.

Have a question you want me to ask Amit or Al?

Send it to me at [email protected] by Monday morning, 12/9, at 10am ET, and I’ll pose it.

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