By Susan Wilson
Google has been investing a lot of money lately in green technologies. Along with green vehicles and solar energy, Google is investing in Geothermal Energy by giving a whopping $10 million to Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).
Google previously invested in new technology with a $130 million investment in eSolar and a $2.75 million infusion to Aptera earlier this year. Now Google announced it is adding to its green portfolio with this $10 million investment in EGS which is split between three recipients.
AltaRock Energy, will be receiving $6.25 million. AltaRock is developing methods of reducing the costs of EGS so that the technology becomes more affordable thereby more widely implemented.
Potter Drilling will receive $4 million to develop “innovative drilling technology to enable clean energy solutions, including Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS).” Potter Drilling uses a process known as “hydrothermal spallation”, which has “the potential to lower the cost and expand the range of deep hard rock drilling.”
The final recipient of Google’s EGS investment is Souther Methodist University (SMU) Geothermal Laboratory. SMU’s lab will receive a $489,521 grant to update the geothermal map of the U.S. and enlarge our understanding of the location and amount of geothermal resources.
The Department of Energy (DOE) released a report stating that using EGS could increase geothermal energy production to 20,000 MW by 2020. Enhanced Geothermal Systems go beyond just drilling down to a pocket of hot water. According to the DOE:
With EGS, a new reservoir is targeted within a volume of rock that is hot, tectonically stressed, and fractured. However, due to secondary-mineralization processes, those fractures have sealed over time, resulting in low permeability and little or no production of fl uids. Through a combination of hydraulic, thermal, and chemical processes, the target EGS reservoir can be `stimulated,’ causing the fractures to open, extend, and interconnect. This results in the creation of a conductive fracture network and a reservoir that is indistinguishable from conventional geothermal reservoirs. EGS technology could serve to extend the margins of existing geothermal systems or create entirely new ones, wherever appropriate thermal and tectonic conditions exist.
Google’s continued commitment to investing in renewable energy is helping to advance renewable resource research during a time when others are looking to drill in protected environments like ANWAR and off shore for unknown amounts of possibly usable oil that won’t be recovered for years, possibly decades to come.
Google’s investment is in technologies that should be useable next year or within a few short years.
