Geothermal power is a fairly new concept, so here’s a quick run-down:
When a lot of heat from the Earth’s core cycles underground, much of it spreads outwards and gets trapped in rocks a few metres below the ground that we stand on. That same heat can be used to heat underground water to produce steam that can then be used at turbine plants (like the one pictured left).
Now Google, who has ever expanding farms of servers using endless amounts of power, are looking to stay environmentally friendly with a sustainable energy source. Google seemed to like the sounds of geothermal, and so Google’s charitable organization invested $11 million into research to help reach the goal of the US to produce 100 gigawatts from geothermal in the next 40 years.
In a few years, Google won’t just be powering your web-searches anymore – they’ll be powering everything else, too.