Googlethermal
August 20, 2008
Wind and solar-based power sources are intermittent (at best), and that makes them sub-optimal replacements for "always on" fossil fuel power plants. Enter Google. Enthusiastic about the potential of what the DOE calls Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), Google just sunk $10M into two leading EGS start-ups.
Underground water tends to be much hotter in the western US than the eastern, but if you drill down a few kilometers, the differences even out. And where non-EGS geothermal is a passive approach that works primarily along fault lines, EGS systems are man made structures that can be deployed almost anywhere.
Clearly, if EGS proves to be cost effective and scalable, wind and solar's temperamental nature can be mitigated by this third zero emission power source. You could call it the Earth, Wind and Fire approach to renewable energy.
Image courtesy of the DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) division
Comments
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Why didn't anybody tell me about this?
Posted by: Chris | August 19, 2008 at 10:58 PM
I tried but you wouldn't listen.
Posted by: Andy | August 20, 2008 at 03:21 PM