"The challenge is getting the water deep enough to generate steam. At least in the case of the Fervo trial, this involved technologies originally developed by the oil and gas industry to bore two parallel wells to a depth of 8,000 feet (2,438 meters). The rock was then fractured to allow water to pass between the two wells where it was heated to temperatures exceeding 190 degrees Celsius."
"This initial trial was quite small, generating around 3.5 megawatts. A year later, Fervo and Google expanded their collaboration, signing an agreement to supply an additional 115 megawatts of power to the grid. That's plenty for a conventional datacenter campus of a few years ago, but pales in comparison to the power required by modern AI datacenters, which are expected to exceed a gigawatt of compute capacity within the next couple years."
Datacenter power consumption has surged with the AI boom, prompting exploration of geothermal energy as a clean, abundant source. Ormat Technologies agreed with NV Energy to supply an additional 150 megawatts to support Google's datacenter expansion in Nevada. Google and partner Fervo Energy already brought an enhanced geothermal plant online in 2023 that converts crustal heat into steam to drive turbines. The Fervo trial used oil-and-gas drilling methods to bore parallel wells to about 8,000 feet, fracture rock, and heat water above 190°C. Initial output was small, then expanded with a 115-megawatt agreement, though AI datacenters may require gigawatts soon.
Read at Theregister
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