The Energy Future Is Here, And It's Hot Rocks Plus Water. Some Assembly Required.
Earth's first 24/7 enhanced geothermal plant is cleaning up the internet a bit. (Your porn is safe.)
Here’s a little milestone to mark another big step in the world’s transition away from fossil fuels: This month, the world’s first fully-operational enhanced geothermal power plant started sending electricity into Nevada’s power grid, according to a joint announcement from Fervo Energy, the startup that built the plant, and search engine giant Google, which will be using the power to supply part of the electricity used by its server farms in Nevada.
In July, Fervo announced that its pilot plant, dubbed “Project Red,” had successfully completed a 30-day shakedown trial to show it could deliver electricity on a commercial scale. Now it’s actually delivering electrons to the grid, although on a small scale compared to big utilities, producing between two and three megawatts, enough to power a few thousand homes.
But what matters isn’t the amount of power the plant is generating; it’s the way it’s being generated. Up until now, geothermal energy has primarily been limited to places where volcanic activity deep in the earth heats up naturally occurring water, like the hot springs that have heated buildings in downtown Boise, Idaho, since the 1890s; or Iceland, which gets 70 percent of its electricity from geothermal and the rest from hydro; or the 18 electrical plants at The Geysers in Northern California (where the girls are warm, because magma.) Fun fact: there’s steam aplenty, but no actual geysers there.
Enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), however, go to where rocks are hot, and bring their own water to provide the steam. These plants drill two or more miles below the surface, then continue the well horizontally, using the same basic technology as fracking, only nowhere near oil or gas deposits. As Wired explains,
Fervo drilled two wells that each extended more than 7,000 feet down before turning fully horizontal. It then connected them by fracking, producing cracks in the rock that connected the two boreholes. Water enters one borehole cold and exits the other at a temperature high enough to drive turbines and generate power.
Here’s a nice video from Google explaining the system:
The new plant will help Google move toward its goal, set in 2020, of becoming carbon-free in all of its operations by 2030. The company’s Nevada data centers require far more energy than Project Red can deliver, so Google has also contracted for energy from solar and storage companies as well. But Google’s head decarbonization guy, Michael Terrell, told the AP that enhanced geothermal promises to become a major part of the company’s clean energy portfolio:
“Now that we’ve set a goal to be 24/7 carbon-free energy, we have found it will take more than just wind, solar and storage to achieve that goal,” Terrell said in an interview. “And frankly to get power grids to 24/7 carbon-free energy as well, we’re going to need this new set of advanced technologies in energy. Looking at this deal with Fervo, we saw an opportunity to play a role in helping to take these technologies to scale.”
As anyone who’s ever advocated for renewable energy has been reminded by a helpful Republican, the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind isn’t always blowing. Enhanced geothermal is one part of the answer to that. Fervo has already started work on a much larger, 400-megawatt plant in Utah that’s expected to come online in 2026, and it already has contracts for all the power that plant will generate. Later advances expected in the field involve drilling even deeper to access higher rock temperatures, since the more heat you have, the more energy stuff you can do.
Other companies are also getting in on enhanced geothermal, and since it relies on the same drilling and rock-fracturing technology as fracking — only clean, because you’re avoiding oil and gas deposits, and without all the toxic goop needed in fracking fluid (to avoid reactions with hydrocarbons) — it will also provide green jobs for workers and companies who in the next couple of decades won’t be drilling for oil and gas anymore.
The advantages of enhanced geothermal, when the technology is deployed at a greater scale, are pretty much what the energy doctor ordered as a means of filling out a renewable energy portfolio, filling in the energy gaps that can’t be met by wind, solar, and storage. As energy reporter David Roberts points out, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
1. is available (almost) everywhere
2. is baseload (always on) if needed
3. can flex (ramp up/down) if needed
4. has a tiny land footprint & no waste
5. will benefit from learning curves & get cheaper.
On top of that, as we’ve mentioned previously, early testing done by Fervo at the Project Red site indicates that EGS can also be used to store energy for when it’s needed most, and released to meet peak demand. That’s not how the Project Red plant will be operated, but it’s one more illustration of the potential flexibility of the technology. For more on all this, check out David Roberts’ interview with Fervo Energy CEO Tim Latimer, and this awesome Wired piece that we’ve promoted before, profiling Jamie Beard, founder of the geothermal energy nonprofit Project InnerSpace, which aims to expand enhanced geothermal worldwide.
By golly, if you want to feel cautiously optimistic about the energy future, we won’t blame you at all.
[Google / Wired / AP / Volts / Wired]
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Using fracking techniques gives it a better chance for acceptance in red states, as the jobs still involve big drills and hard hats. As opposed to wind and solar projects where workers are required to wear bright pink reflective safety leotards and tutus.
I try to use hand-crafted artisanal electrons I can get at my local farmers' market for all my energy needs.