<story><title>Google&apos;s new geothermal energy project is up and running</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/28/23972940/google-data-center-geothermal-energy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>auspiv</author><text>Note that Fervo Energy (the geothermal start-up that Google partnered with) is founded by an ex oil&amp;#x2F;gas drilling engineer who decided to take all the lessons learned by oil&amp;#x2F;gas of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing over the last 20 years and apply to geothermal.&lt;p&gt;Turns out all the assumptions for the economics of geothermal were based on 20+ year old data. With the advances applied from oil&amp;#x2F;gas, geothermal is squarely back in the economic region of renewables.&lt;p&gt;It took them 72 days to drill their injection well to 11220 ft. 59 days to drill their production well to same depth. So from their 1st well to their 2nd, they&amp;#x27;ve already improved 18%. Oil&amp;#x2F;gas drillers can do 11220 ft wells within a couple days.&lt;p&gt;Sure 3.5 MW isn&amp;#x27;t a ton but this was literally a proof of concept. They can expand by orders of magnitude by drilling hundreds of these injector&amp;#x2F;producer doublets. They could probably get 2-3x more power per well after optimization. They can easily control production by altering the injection rate. I forget the exact delay but basically, if they ramp up&amp;#x2F;down injection, they see the same exact response on the production side a couple hours later. They expect to be able to combine this with solar&amp;#x2F;wind to get a firm 24 hour renewable base load.&lt;p&gt;16 page Fervo white paper with tons of data (pressure, temperatures, geologic setting, frac plans, etc) - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eartharxiv.org&amp;#x2F;repository&amp;#x2F;object&amp;#x2F;5704&amp;#x2F;download&amp;#x2F;11142&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eartharxiv.org&amp;#x2F;repository&amp;#x2F;object&amp;#x2F;5704&amp;#x2F;download&amp;#x2F;11142...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note that they do monitor induced sesmicity and have green&amp;#x2F;yellow&amp;#x2F;red light system for when to stop if necessary. Again, this was for the proof of concept with the Department of Energy.&lt;p&gt;Edit: with the exception of the high temps (376F max recorded), the drilling is all very standard oil&amp;#x2F;gas style that happens all the time across the US. 376F isn&amp;#x27;t unheard of in deepwater offshore but it&amp;#x27;s damn hot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>irq-1</author><text>The best thing about this technology is all the existing systems. Experienced workforce, an established manufacturing and supply chain, global projects. And it all comes from the oil and gas industry that will decline with green power, so there can be transition instead of a huge disruption.</text></comment>
<story><title>Google&apos;s new geothermal energy project is up and running</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/28/23972940/google-data-center-geothermal-energy</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>auspiv</author><text>Note that Fervo Energy (the geothermal start-up that Google partnered with) is founded by an ex oil&amp;#x2F;gas drilling engineer who decided to take all the lessons learned by oil&amp;#x2F;gas of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing over the last 20 years and apply to geothermal.&lt;p&gt;Turns out all the assumptions for the economics of geothermal were based on 20+ year old data. With the advances applied from oil&amp;#x2F;gas, geothermal is squarely back in the economic region of renewables.&lt;p&gt;It took them 72 days to drill their injection well to 11220 ft. 59 days to drill their production well to same depth. So from their 1st well to their 2nd, they&amp;#x27;ve already improved 18%. Oil&amp;#x2F;gas drillers can do 11220 ft wells within a couple days.&lt;p&gt;Sure 3.5 MW isn&amp;#x27;t a ton but this was literally a proof of concept. They can expand by orders of magnitude by drilling hundreds of these injector&amp;#x2F;producer doublets. They could probably get 2-3x more power per well after optimization. They can easily control production by altering the injection rate. I forget the exact delay but basically, if they ramp up&amp;#x2F;down injection, they see the same exact response on the production side a couple hours later. They expect to be able to combine this with solar&amp;#x2F;wind to get a firm 24 hour renewable base load.&lt;p&gt;16 page Fervo white paper with tons of data (pressure, temperatures, geologic setting, frac plans, etc) - &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eartharxiv.org&amp;#x2F;repository&amp;#x2F;object&amp;#x2F;5704&amp;#x2F;download&amp;#x2F;11142&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;eartharxiv.org&amp;#x2F;repository&amp;#x2F;object&amp;#x2F;5704&amp;#x2F;download&amp;#x2F;11142...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note that they do monitor induced sesmicity and have green&amp;#x2F;yellow&amp;#x2F;red light system for when to stop if necessary. Again, this was for the proof of concept with the Department of Energy.&lt;p&gt;Edit: with the exception of the high temps (376F max recorded), the drilling is all very standard oil&amp;#x2F;gas style that happens all the time across the US. 376F isn&amp;#x27;t unheard of in deepwater offshore but it&amp;#x27;s damn hot.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danpalmer</author><text>Thank you for this, lots to be optimistic about! Forgive my ignorance, but...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; They expect to be able to combine this with solar&amp;#x2F;wind to get a firm 24 hour renewable base load.&lt;p&gt;Why would they need solar&amp;#x2F;wind to get a renewable base load? I know solar&amp;#x2F;wind can&amp;#x27;t provide that base load by themselves (at least not in one region), but I expected that geothermal would basically be constant, or at least fluctuate by only small percentages throughout a day? Does solar&amp;#x2F;wind really bring anything to the table in terms of base load here, or is it just that geothermal would provide the base load and solar&amp;#x2F;wind could be used for seasonal usage on top?</text></comment>