TL;DR
For a century, geothermal power meant living near a volcano or a hot spring. That limit just broke. Fervo Energy drilled into hot, dry rock in Utah, cracked it open, pumped water through it and is now selling the electricity on the grid, around the clock, from a 33-megawatt block that can supply roughly 25,000 to 30,000 homes. Hundreds more megawatts are under construction, Google has signed up for 396 of them, and Fervo says the site could someday reach 4.3 gigawatts, about four large nuclear plants' worth. If the costs keep falling and the rock keeps giving heat for years, clean power that never waits for wind or sun could be built in far more places than anyone thought. The open questions are the price per kilowatt-hour, which is not public, and whether the heat lasts at plant scale.
Below the line, for paid subscribers: The full story: where it stands, how we got here and what's dated next; our Odds board on 5 milestones, starting with "Two more 33-megawatt Cape Station blocks are online by 2027"; our labeled speculation on what it adds up to; and every source.