With the rise of artificial intelligence, the United States is trying to satisfy an unquenchable thirst for new sources of electricity.
Part of the answer may be deep underneath our feet, according to scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians from both parties, who want to harness the endless supply of heat generated below the surface of the Earth.
“The deeper you go, the hotter it gets,” Josh Prueher, CEO of XGS Energy, said.
The company announced a deal with Meta in June to power a data center in New Mexico.
It’s part of a new rush to develop and streamline production of geothermal energy across the West. A report published in June said New Mexico is “on the cusp of a geothermal boom” with the potential to harness about 160 gigawatts of power.
“That might be enough to power close to 40 million homes,” Prueher said.
A little help from the oil and gas industry
In seismic areas like Iceland, geothermal energy production is common. In the U.S., a few scattered geothermal plants generate electricity, but it still only accounts for 0.4% of the country’s power supply.
Recently, the industry has gotten a boost from advances in the shale revolution, said University of Utah chemical engineer John McLennan.
The same fracking technology that’s helped fossil-fuel companies bust up underground rocks to find pockets of oil and gas can be used to tap reservoirs of heat deep below the surface. To extract that heat, a well is drilled. Water is then injected into the hot rocks, which generates enough steam to produce electricity.
In Southern Utah, Fervo’s Cape Station project is under construction and could start producing power as early as next year.
“This is a very big deal,” said McLennan. “This particular geothermal technology has been under development for more than half a century.”
In Western states, more seismic activity means hot rocks are closer to the surface. But drilling is expensive and injecting water deep underground can cause earthquakes that might shut down a power plant, McLennan said.
Producing geothermal power can also use a lot of water. In the drought-strangled West, “it’s definitely an issue,” he said. “My sense is that this is an engineering problem that can be resolved. And it must be resolved.”
Both political parties want to push the technology forward.
While congressional Republicans accelerated the phasing out of wind and solar tax credits in their spending bill this summer, incentives for geothermal projects remained.
“I am bullish on the future of geothermal,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Nevada Democratic Rep. Susie Lee at a congressional hearing in May. Wright, who ran a fracking company and invested in geothermal before he joined the Trump administration, said faster permitting was essential.
That’s something the federal government has promised to do.
A plan for New Mexico
In New Mexico, the No. 2 producer of oil in the United States, lawmakers are eager to leverage that expertise to advance a new industry.
This year, the governor signed a bill that would allow oil and gas wells to be converted for geothermal production.
“It really looks like this is the moment where states, governments, industry, academia and national labs are all coming together,” said Jolante van Wijk, program manager for geothermal energy at the Los Alamos National Lab. “Really, people are trying to make this work.”
The lab has been developing geothermal expertise and technology since the 1970s, when it drilled into the ground near a volcanic field northwest of Santa Fe.
But Shari Kelley, the geologist from the state’s Bureau of Geology who contributed to the report touting New Mexico’s potential, said some of the hot-rock fever is a little “overhyped.”
She said it’s still unclear exactly where the hottest rocks with the best potential can be found underground. Another challenge is building new transmission lines to get power where it needs to go.
“That’s a big bottleneck for geothermal,” she said.
New power plants can be built right next to the data centers where the power is needed, said XGS CEO Josh Prueher.
The first phase of the company’s plant for Meta’s data center could come online by the end of 2027. The company also recently demonstrated closed-loop technology that uses “a fraction of the water,” Prueher said. The water heats up without ever touching any of the rocks directly. Instead, it recirculates within steel tubes.
“If you can say we’re not going to touch your water, that’s a really powerful enabler of projects,” he said. “We’re not necessarily climate zealots. We like geothermal because we think we can scale it to gigawatt scale very quickly.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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