Endurance Energy is confident that this source can cover almost a third of the world's electricity needs. TechCrunch reports this.
Endurance Energy founder Andrew Redd previously worked as an engineer at SpaceX. In 2025, Redd left the company and founded his own startup, which raised $54 million to develop geothermal energy in the deep ocean.
Within a year, the Endurance team had grown to 25 employees, 12 of whom previously worked at SpaceX. The company's vice president of engineering previously worked at Helion Energy, a fusion startup.
According to Redd, the future energy source must be renewable or at least environmentally friendly, available around the clock, quickly deployable, and capable of generating tens or hundreds of gigawatts of electricity.
He quickly ruled out nuclear power because design and construction can take years. Solar and wind power are not available 24/7 without batteries, and hydropower is limited to where it can be built.
Geothermal energy is not a new idea—people have been harnessing the Earth's heat for thousands of years in the form of hot springs or geothermal power plants. But Redd, drawing on his experience at SpaceX, realized there was another possibility that people weren't seeing—no one had explored the oceans.
There are other startups that are involved in geothermal energy. But they need to drill thousands of meters deep into the Earth's crust to access temperatures high enough to operate a power plant. So far, the best opportunities for geothermal startups have been in the western United States, away from major population centers.
The best places to drill, where the earth's crust is thin and magma flows close to the surface, such as in Iceland or California, have long been known. More recently, startups like Fervo Energy, XGS Energy and Sage Geosystems have found other locations, but to find rocks hot enough to power a power plant, they need to drill thousands of holes deeper.
At several points around the globe, the Earth's tectonic plates are moving apart, allowing hot magma to rise to the surface. The West Coast of the United States, Japan and much of Southeast Asia are located near the so-called Ring of Fire, a geologically active zone surrounding the Pacific Ocean.
Some of the geothermal resources Endurance is looking at are several tens of kilometers offshore, while others are several hundred. Working underwater at the depths the Endurance offers is not easy. Robots will have to do much of the work. Salt water is known to be corrosive, so anything that will be underwater must be protected from both pressure and corrosion. But Redd believes the oil and gas industry's decades of experience in ocean drilling will help overcome this challenge.
Redd estimates that about 6 terawatts of electricity could be generated around the Circle of Fire over the next five to ten years. By comparison, the world uses on average about 20 terawatts from all energy sources at any given time.
