Geothermal

A volcano that had rumbled for weeks erupted in southwestern Iceland, spewing semi-molten rock into the air in a spectacular show of Earth's power in the land known for fire and ice.The eruption that started Monday night occurred about four kilometres from the town of Grindavik, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said. The town near Iceland's main airport was evacuated in November after thousands of earthquakes damaged homes and raised fears of an imminent eruption.On Tuesday, fountains of orange lava shot into the…

2023 was a busy year in science. Here are 10 stories worth revisiting as we wind up the year.1. Canadian Jeremy Hansen chosen to fly to the moonA Canadian astronaut was selected as part of the crew for NASA's Artemis II mission to the moon.Jeremy Hansen and three crew mates will fly in an Orion capsule that will orbit the moon and fly farther into deep space than any humans have gone before.Hansen will not land on the moon, but the planned 10-day mission will be the first of a series of missions expected to culminate with…

CLIMATEWIRE | Corporate America has learned to love renewables. Now, it is beginning to dabble in next-generation climate solutions.An advanced geothermal project supported by Google began generating electricity last week, a big step in the search for technology that can affordably fill gaps in wind and solar generation with carbon-free power. The small facility, a pilot project in northern Nevada, uses drilling and fracking techniques honed by the oil and gas industry to coax heat from the Earth to generate power —…

Sorry to interrupt your Saturday, but did you somehow miss that Google made a geothermal energy plant in the middle of Nevada? You know, that place with all the water for turbines? Or the incredibly dumb way security researchers were able to pull private information from ChatGPT? This week's YouTube-coated version of TMA covers that and getting far too enthusiastic (or entirely non-plussed) about all these other things from this week in tech.This week:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcWrQqEq8LERead this:Not everything on…

Google has announced that its innovative advanced geothermal plant in Nevada is now operational and connected to the grid, pioneering an approach that promises to unlock clean, always-on geothermal energy across a much larger range of locations. Where most geothermal projects need to seek out areas where highly-fractured, highly-permeable hot rocks are easy to get to, the Nevada plant, built in partnership with Fervo, is a pilot to prove a technique borrowed from the oil and gas industry.As we wrote when Fervo announced…

Photo: GoogleGoogle is now using geothermal energy to meet the massive power needs of its data centers. Google announced a first-of-its-kind geothermal project is now operational in Nevada in a blog post on Tuesday, using heat from the Earth’s core as energy.Like It or Not, Your Doctor Will Use AI | AI UnlockedThe tech giant has been carbon neutral since 2007, meaning it purchased carbon offsets but still uses fossil fuels, but Google has bigger goals on the horizon. By 2030, the company intends to run on carbon-free…

Google says a first-of-its-kind geothermal energy project is now feeding carbon-free electricity (CFE) into the Nevada grid that powers its data centers in the area. The company says that the enhanced geothermal system (EGS) is delivering a round-the-clock supply of CFE to the grid. It's a step toward Google's goal of entirely powering its data centers and offices on CFE by 2030.Google teamed up with clean energy startup Fervo Energy in 2021 to work on an EGS. Unlike other sources of CFE such as solar and wind, geothermal…

Earlier this month, one corner of the internet got a little bit greener, thanks to a first-of-its-kind geothermal operation in the northern Nevada desert. Project Red, developed by a geothermal startup called Fervo, began pushing electrons onto a local grid that includes data centers operated by Google. The search company invested in the project two years ago as part of its efforts to make all of its data centers run on green energy 24/7.Project Red is small—producing between 2 and 3 megawatts of power, or enough to power…

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. 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…

Fervo's "next-generation geothermal" technology has proven itself in testing, becoming the most productive enhanced geothermal plant in history. The company hopes its approach will radically expand access to clean energy, like shale did for oil.There's a near-unlimited amount of clean energy under our feet, in the form of hot rocks. You can generate clean electricity 24/7 – not intermittently, like solar and wind – if you can get water down into that rock and back to the surface to drive steam turbines. A reliable source…