Under your feet

Speaking of carbon-free energy . . . .

Money, ingenuity, forward thinking, technical brilliance and common sense solve a lot of problems. Rather than deny the existence of certain challenges that may be upon us, many of the largest companies in the world are doing something about it. It just requires some thinking.

For this week’s example, take Google. According to the Associated Press, Google has teamed up with Fervo Energy to get a twofer: 1. creating needed electricity 2. without creating greenhouse gas emissions. This time with geothermal energy.

Here’s geothermal for beginners: Wells are drilled, usually 8,000 (or more) feet below the surface, and water is injected. The deeper you drill, the hotter it gets. How hot? Steel-melting hot. And when the water is pulled back to the surface, it produces steam, which is used to spin a turbine to produce electricity, like any other power plant.

The problem with this process is the same one the oil and gas industry had with drilling into shale: Too little of the oil and gas could be pulled from one vertical well to make it cost effective, so the industry started covering more territory underground. That is, drilling sideways.

When those looking for geothermal steam use such drilling maneuvers, more steam is produced for electricity generation with fewer wells, which means less surface disruption and harm to the natural local environment. Not only are no greenhouse gases produced, but surface damage is minimized.

Google has a goal of operating 24/7 with carbon-free energy by 2030, but its leaders know it’s not possible with wind and solar alone. Michael Terrell, who leads decarbonization efforts for Google, says, “. . . we’re going to need this new set of advanced technologies in energy . . . we saw an opportunity to play a role in helping to take these technologies to scale.”

Speaking of scale, the U.S. leads the world in geothermal, too, but it still accounts for less than half a percent of the nation’s utility-scale electricity generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

In other words, it’s scalable, but hasn’t been scaled up yet.

But when a company like Google puts its collective mind to something, it tends to succeed.

If it does with this process, the rest of us win, too.