Google is making a $10.25m investment in a breakthrough geothermal energy technology, called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).
It is hoped that EGS will expand the potential of geothermal energy significantly. Today’s geothermal energy approaches rely on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water.
According to Google, the EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine.
According to a report from MIT, as little as 2% of the heat below the US between depths of 3 and 10km is more than 2,500 times the country's total annual energy use.
"EGS could be the 'killer app' of the energy world. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind," said Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives for Google.org.
Google has set a goal to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity, enough to power a city the size of San Francisco, in a few years.
Google is providing funding for two companies and a university -
AltaRock Energy,
Potter Drilling, and
Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab.