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Google's New Geothermal Energy Project is Up and Running (theverge.com) 28

Posted by msmash from the making-inroads dept.
A first-of-its-kind geothermal project is now up and running in Nevada, where it will help power Google's data centers with clean energy. From a report: Google is partnering with startup Fervo, which has developed new technology for harnessing geothermal power. Since they're using different tactics than traditional geothermal plants, it is a relatively small project with the capacity to generate 3.5 MW. For context, one megawatt is enough to meet the demand of roughly 750 homes. The project will feed electricity into the local grid that serves two of Google's data centers outside of Las Vegas and Reno.

It's part of Google's plan to run on carbon pollution-free electricity around the clock by 2030. To reach that goal, it'll have to get more sources of clean energy online. And it sees geothermal as a key part of the future electricity mix that can fill in whenever wind and solar energy wane. "If you think about how much we advanced wind and solar and lithium ion storage, here we are -- this is kind of the next set of stuff and we feel like companies have a huge role to play in advancing these technologies," says Michael Terrell, senior director of energy and climate at Google.
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Google's New Geothermal Energy Project is Up and Running More

Google's New Geothermal Energy Project is Up and Running

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  • Sounds great right? Just dig a hole and pour in some water. Well... I wished it were that simple. This article breaks it down pretty well. [energysage.com]. I guess the biggest issue that investors worry about is resource depletion and cooling of the site. Pump in enough coolant and the local area around the drill site might have a loss in production. There are certainly some situations were it still looks very low cost, but those are location specific situations. What I'd like to see is more research in to generating fuel

    • The interesting thing about this project is that it uses two bore holes with connections between the two fracked -- so the volume from which you can collect energy is the dependent on the the distance between the two. Potentially very large. So, it might run cold eventually, but if it gets 20 or 30 years, then that will offset the cost of the holes; it should, also, be a good candidate for geological energy storage if it does run cold, just by pumping hot water down in the good times.

      We will see. I don't th

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        This is a pretty standard tactic and not that innovative.

        The most innovative design I've seen was a hot dry rock proposal that was entirely closed-loop. The problem with open loop is that it's hard to tell exactly what will happen when you inject the water; oftentimes a lot of it will just bugger off. And oftentimes the strata is such that you know it'll bugger off. The design instead drilled down to the reservoir depth, then turned horizontally and branched out, forming what was effectively a heat sink i

    • Since the article was specifically about a "new approach" to geothermal, I wish it actually told us what that new approach is, how it differs from previous approaches, and specifically whether it addresses any of the pitfalls that your link mentioned. (I couldn't figure out any of these answers from the article)

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        This new plant uses a closed loop. All other geothermal plants consist of two wells, one which draws up steam, and one which sends the cooled steam condensed into water back down again. This one is instead a loop, where the same water cycles round and round inside a closed pipe.

        There are two major advantages. First, it works where there is no underground water. The one they built harvests heat from rocks, so it can be deployed much more widely.

        Secondly, because it is a closed cycle, it uses less water. Trad

  • Renewables like this that can provide a base load are something worth putting effort into. Given it needs a lot of the drilling/fraking tech used by the fossil fuel industries it would be a good pivot point for sectors of that market to switch to.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Rei ( 128717 )

      The grid doesn't need baseload to go with renewables; it needs peaking, or at least load following.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ukoda ( 537183 )
        Actually it needs both. When variable sources such as solar and window are low, batteries can handle short term peaking. Dynamic load control, such as hot water heating and EV charging can help too. Ideally then things like geothermal could ramp up to handle the remaining peak. So in that sense maybe my calling it baseload was too simplistic.

        Basically I see geothermal, hydro and similar solutions, even nuclear in some cases, as an important complements to solar, wind and tidal sources if you want to

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Rei ( 128717 )

          If you're talking about things that "ramp up or down in response to supply or demand changes", you're not talking about baseload. You're talking about... wait for it... peaking or load following. ;)

          Baseload is power generation that ramps little up or down. Nuclear is the classic example.

          And to move off of terminology issues, the problem with ramping high-capital-cost low-operating-cost generation techs up and down (e.g. using them as peaking or load-following) - if they're even capable of that - is that

  • And pretty obtuse for Nevada, which deserves the title of "sunshine state" a lot more than Florida.

    • Having a dispatchable power source, even at low percentage would make a solar + battery grid significantly easier to manage. So useful even if it is more expensive than solar which it will be.

    • Nevada is also full of young and still hot rock. Geothermal will work there unlike say Wisconsin where the rock is over a billion years old.

      https://data.nbmg.unr.edu/publ... [unr.edu]

      https://data.nbmg.unr.edu/Publ... [unr.edu]

      • 3.5 MW though? A solar plant in Nevada would only need a space the size of a few city blocks to do that, in the middle of nowhere with no other demand for the land.

        • Multiply by three to deal with winter nights, then by 14 to deal with winter cloud cover. You'll need to recharge those batteries somehow.

          • Winter cloud cover? NV has between 260 and 290 sunny days a year, not counting merely overcast. Where are you getting that it needs to be 14x bigger?

            • Actual data from the solar panels installed in the BPA service area. Also actual data from my water syatem's solar panel that powers the level transmitter on the water tank.

              Right now that tank solar panel is putting out about 5% of capacity at 11 AM on this dark and foggy day in Eastern Washington.

              It doesn't matter how many sunny days you get, it's how to keep the lights on when there is a heavy overcast and dead calm.

              https://transmission.bpa.gov/b... [bpa.gov]

              See the graph? The pretty green line is wind plus solar,

  • From way back in 2018, Las Vegas' electric usage:

    https://www.generatorsource.co... [generatorsource.com]

    Here's some more figures, trying to sell solar power of course:

    https://www.energysage.com/loc... [energysage.com]

  • ... heat is transferred to water, which creates steam, which drives a turbine with an electric generator attached.

    The difference between nuclear and thermal is just the heat source. In the second case, water is in a closed system where hot water is cooled and sent back to the heat source. There is no concern regarding radioactive water pollution. While geothermal is, indeed, location-specific, so are nuclear power plants.

    • A turbine driving a generator describes most power sources (coal, natural gas, hydro, wind).

      It's the exceptions that are relatively rare. PV Solar is one - it's incredibly elegant. ICE engines with valves and pistons are the opposite of elegant, yet somehow ended up being a good compromise of various properties.

  • Would it be crazy to have each rack in a data center stored in an insulated cabinet that pumps cool air in at the bottom and allows hot air to exhaust from the top? The top of the cabinet could use a conical or pyramid shape to direct air towards an exhaust pipe and maybe be assisted by a fan. That exhaust could then flow through the roof of the data center to keep the ambient temperature cool. I imagine if it was that easy, someone would have already done it before, but what do my fellow Slashdotters th
    • How about this:

      https://www.eaton.com/us/en-us... [eaton.com]

      • That's very interesting. At the same time, they don't even make any claims (as spurious as manufacturer claims are) about how much efficiency can be gained (I'm sure the answer is "it depends"). Does anyone have any experience with a system like this? It claims to be passive, so that seems to be a huge plus.
  • Will they just leave a hole in the ground?

  • So why is this presented as something revolutionary?

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