About · Last reviewed August 2026
NartIntel is a primer on geothermal power and why the sector is inflecting now. It is written to get an intelligent non-specialist oriented quickly, and to be honest about what is proven and what is still a target.
01 / A word from the builder
I was raised in the West Texas oilfield and became a third-generation geologist when I earned a B.A. in Geological Sciences from the University of Colorado at Boulder. I worked for many years outside geoscience and energy, engaged in the world of branding, marketing and business development. And yet, the instinct to explore the earth and its natural resources never left me.
Because I've long followed the rise of geothermal and other clean energy developments, I decided to create the resource I wanted for myself. That is how NartIntel was born. It's my first contribution to the geothermal energy community, and an expression of my desire to work in the sector as it grows and overcomes the challenges outlined in The Brief.
I have also used the technical engine behind NartIntel to lay the groundwork for an investment thesis weighted across distinct parts of the geothermal energy value chain. No fund built on that thesis currently exists, and that work does not influence the editorial decisions here.
02 / The site
The site's job is rapid orientation. NartIntel exists to bring someone up to speed on geothermal power and why it is inflecting now, quickly. A primer explaining why a sector is changing decays far more slowly than a market snapshot does, which is why the site is built as one.
It is deliberately not a situation report. A sitrep earns its credibility through update cadence, and promising a cadence creates an obligation this project cannot honestly make right now. The site carries a visible review date and gets refreshed periodically. It does not promise a schedule.
It answers an allocator's question rather than a curious reader's. A curious reader asks how geothermal works. Someone deciding whether to commit capital asks why it has not worked before, and what specifically changed. The second question is harder and it is the one the site is organised around.
That is also why the bear case is a named section rather than a methodology footnote. Drilling cost, subsurface risk, interconnection and offtake concentration are presented unprompted, because a case that only survives when the objections stay unstated is not worth presenting.
The intended path is what it is, then why now, then what could go wrong, then who is involved. The market map is depth to reach after orientation, not the first thing to hit.
03 / Methodology
The method. I work in a version of Interpretable Context Methodology (Van Clief & McDermott, 2026) — the workspace behind this site is a folder hierarchy where each stage of the work carries its own context and its own review point, rather than a system that emits an answer you have to take on faith. I learned to work this way from Jake Van Clief. I'm still learning.
The check. That makes the process inspectable. It doesn't make a figure true. Every number published here has a ledger entry naming its source and quoting the sentence it came from, and the site will not build if a page carries a figure without one.
Figures are traced to a primary source wherever one exists. A company release, a regulatory filing, a government dataset. Where a claim rests only on trade press or on a single research house, it is labelled that way in the text rather than presented as settled.
Targets are not track records, and the distinction is enforced. A design rating is not an output. A framework agreement is not a signed contract. A potential revenue backlog is not booked revenue. Most of the corrections this site has made were cases where a qualifier went missing between a source document and a summary, so the qualifiers are kept even when they make a sentence heavier.
Publishers are labelled where they have an interest. That includes the most-cited source here: the True North Institute whitepaper is the single document this site leans on most, and True North also invests in the sector it writes about. Where a claim rests on that whitepaper alone, the page says so.
Two dates, not one. Every page carries when its figures were compiled and when they were last reviewed, because those are different claims. Individual figures keep their own vintage: a 2024 agency projection is dated 2024 on the page, not folded into the review date.
Corrections are made in place and recorded rather than quietly overwritten. Sector figures move quickly, and anything time-sensitive should be checked against its primary source before being relied on.
04 / Editorial policy and disclosure
NartIntel argues a sector-level thesis and deliberately makes no company-level calls. Why now is an argument, not a neutral fact, and this site makes it. What it does not do is tell anyone that a particular company is cheap, mispriced, or worth buying. Companies appear here because they illustrate how a layer of the market works, not as recommendations.
Disclosure. I am performing analysis and developing a thesis toward a potential investment fund. No fund exists today, and none is being offered or marketed here.
Corrections are wanted, and a specific kind is most useful. This is a primer, so the valuable critique is a figure that is wrong, a figure that has gone stale, a source that does not say what it is cited as saying, or a gap in coverage that changes the picture. Those get fixed and credited.
Nothing here is investment, financial, legal or tax advice, and nothing here is an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security.
05 / The name
Named for the Nart sagas — the epic cycle shared across the Caucasus by the Circassian, Abkhaz, Ossetian and Vainakh peoples, and old enough that nobody can date its beginning.
In it, heat and metalworking are the powers that make civilization possible. The smith-god Tlepsh carries a name from the same root as Greek khálups and Latin chalybs — iron. He is the metal he works. The hero Sosruquo is born out of stone, too hot to touch, and Tlepsh hammers and quenches him until he holds an edge.
The premise hasn't changed. It has only become an asset class.