The ‘owner’ of the Internet, willing to drill the ground of the United States to reduce what you pollute when using it

A leading internet company has the idea of drilling the ground of the United States to reduce pollution. It’s a project that leaves the world amazed. The sovereign country has already surprised us on other occasions with initiatives like the first 100% autonomous truck.

Now it’s back in the spotlight thanks to a corner of the internet that has become greener.

This is an action carried out in the northern Nevada desert. When you find out what it’s about, you’ll understand how committed this giant is to the environment.

The company Fervo is carrying out a pioneering geothermal operation in the mentioned location: the Red Project. It has begun injecting electrons into a local grid containing data centers managed by Google, often referred to as the internet giant.

The latter company invested in the project two years ago to achieve its goal of having all its data centers operate on green energy 24 hours a day. The Red Project is small and produces between two and three megawatts of energy, or enough to power a few thousand homes.

The owner of the internet is betting on this appetizing project from the United States

However, this is an essential demonstration of a new approach to geothermal energy that could allow natural heat from the Earth to be harnessed worldwide.

Hot rock is a material that is everywhere, with temperatures rising to hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit in the first kilometers of the surface, but geothermal plants provide only a small fraction of the world’s electricity supply.

This is largely because they are specially built in places where naturally heated water is easily tapped, such as hot springs and geysers. The hot water is pumped to the surface, where it produces steam that powers turbines.

Nevada’s “enhanced” geothermal system (EGS) works differently. It does not drill into a natural hydrothermal system. Instead, Fervo excavated into completely dry rock and developed an artificial one by pumping water back to the surface at a much higher temperature.

It’s a strategy supported by hydraulic fracturing (fracking) techniques borrowed from the oil and gas sector. Fervo’s two wells were drilled to over 2,000 meters deep each before becoming 100% horizontal. Then, they were connected by hydraulic fracturing, creating cracks in the rock that connected the two wells.

Internet changes with this project involving the soil of the United States

The water enters one well cold and comes out of another at a temperature high enough to power turbines and produce energy. Fervo announced that its experiment went well after a month of testing, during which temperatures at the bottom of the wells reached 375 degrees Fahrenheit (191 degrees Celsius).

During that time, enough water circulated to generate about 3.5 megawatts of electricity. According to Fervo CEO Tim Latimer, the numbers have remained stable since then, suggesting that the project is ready to be connected to the grid in the long term.

Geothermal energy could help Google achieve its goal of reducing the impact of energy-consuming data centers. The internet giant is involved in this initiative in the United States that surprises everyone and is so successful. This country continues to attract attention with initiatives like it did in the past with Terafab, the robot that installs solar panels.