"Its superheated interior burns with an estimated forty-four trillion watts of power," reports Brent Crane in his New Yorker piece about the future of geothermal energy.
At Utah's Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE), geologist Joseph Moore leads a $300 million quest to tap this immense underground heat source, drilling L-shaped holes miles into scalding rock to create artificial reservoirs that could provide limitless clean power.
While geothermal currently supplies less than 1% of global energy, the potential is huge — just 2% of heat from the top four miles of U.S. soil could meet the country's needs 2,000 times over.
Major tech companies are already taking notice, with Google, Meta and Microsoft incorporating geothermal into their AI data centers, while startup Fervo Energy plans to begin providing round-the-clock geothermal power to Southern California utilities by 2026.
Moore told The New Yorker, "We need to continue. I encourage this in every way possible."
Previously:
• This graph reveals the world's sources of electricity
• El Salvador is building a volcano-powered 'Bitcoin City' with no taxes
• Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air: the Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy
