A Texas-based clean energy startup believes its technology could revolutionize how the world thinks about geothermal electricity — and go a long way toward eliminating carbon emissions from power generation.
MIT Technology Review recently detailed tests performed earlier this year by Fervo Energy in remote northern Nevada. In this area, the Earth’s interior heat comes relatively close to the surface. Whereas conventional geothermal power plants cycle water through hot underground rock, Fervo instead pumped water deep underground and held it in position, rapidly increasing pressure.
When the company released the valve, water surged to the surface for hours at a time.
According to the report, the results showed that the system could not only lead to a new way of generating carbon-free geothermal power but also one that could adjust output as needed or even store energy for long periods. In effect, a "giant and very long-lasting battery.”
The report suggested that it could help provide power to the grid when intermittent sources — wind and solar power, in particular — are lagging. And although questions remain about the technology’s costs, effectiveness, and safety, a practical, commercial application could harness an enormous untapped energy resource. The amount of energy that could be captured a few miles below the surface of the U.S., the report said, could produce some 2,000 times the nation’s annual energy demand.
"If we can come up with a way to solve this, we might really have a way to change the world,” co-founder Jack Norbeck told MIT Technology Review.
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