This Geothermal Startup Plans To Use Oil Tech For Green Energy

This geothermal startup plans to use oil-tech approaches to cut the cost of green electricity and speed up deployment, betting that better reservoir control can make geothermal compete with solar and natural gas. Birch Geothermal, co-founded and led by Mike Matson, launched Friday as a portfolio company of VC firm Montauk Capital. Matson previously worked on oil and gas systems, including drilling and reservoir engineering at Kinder Morgan, and later held executive roles across green-tech startups and served as geothermal lead at Boston Consulting Group. Birch plans to use sensors and autonomous systems to manage how water moves through geothermal wells, drawing on reservoir-design techniques from oil and gas. It argues this will deliver reliable baseload power while benefiting from natural gas turbine order backlogs of about five years. Matson sees opportunities across the Mountain West despite competitors being limited by high demand.