Meta Inks a New Geothermal Energy Deal To Support AI (theverge.com) 26
Meta has struck a new deal with geothermal startup XGS Energy to supply 150 megawatts of carbon-free electricity for its New Mexico data center. "Advances in AI require continued energy to support infrastructure development," Urvi Parekh, global head of energy at Meta, said in a press release. "With next-generation geothermal technologies like XGS ready for scale, geothermal can be a major player in supporting the advancement of technologies like AI as well as domestic data center development." The Verge reports: Geothermal plants generate electricity using Earth's heat; typically drawing up hot fluids or steam from natural reservoirs to turn turbines. That tactic is limited by natural geography, however, and the US gets around half a percent of its electricity from geothermal sources. Startups including XGS are trying to change that by making geothermal energy more accessible. Last year, Meta made a separate 150MW deal with Sage Geosystems to develop new geothermal power plants. Sage is developing technologies to harness energy from hot, dry rock formations by drilling and pumping water underground, essentially creating artificial reservoirs. Google has its own partnership with another startup called Fervo developing similar technology.
XGS Energy is also seeking to exploit geothermal energy from dry rock resources. It tries to set itself apart by reusing water in a closed-loop process designed to prevent water from escaping into cracks in the rock. The water it uses to take advantage of underground heat circulates inside a steel casing. Conserving water is especially crucial in a drought-prone state like New Mexico, where Meta is expanding its Los Lunas data center. Meta declined to say how much it's spending on this deal with XGS Energy. The initiative will roll out in two phases with a goal of being operational by 2030.
XGS Energy is also seeking to exploit geothermal energy from dry rock resources. It tries to set itself apart by reusing water in a closed-loop process designed to prevent water from escaping into cracks in the rock. The water it uses to take advantage of underground heat circulates inside a steel casing. Conserving water is especially crucial in a drought-prone state like New Mexico, where Meta is expanding its Los Lunas data center. Meta declined to say how much it's spending on this deal with XGS Energy. The initiative will roll out in two phases with a goal of being operational by 2030.
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'software in its infantry'.
An army of Agent Smiths?
Re: Yet another reason why "AI" is a failure (Score:4, Insightful)
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This reminds me of a phrase that I recall was attributed to Winston Churchill, it goes something like how Americans can be trusted to do the right thing but only after all other options have been exhausted. Another way I've heard this behavior on seeking the "right" solution over the best solution, only to have the "right" solution fail, is that reality can be denied for only so long. There's been denying reality on a need for "firm" electricity production for a long time, people trying the "right" soluti
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Indeed. And they obviously do not expect energy needs to get much lower as these are strategic energy investmenst. But here is a real problem: That energy costs money. Will the rather pathetic business models ever be able to generate enough revenue to pay that electricity bill? I have some serious doubts on that front alone. And then there are all the other problems with the current AI hype.
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This is called "Hedging your bets". (Score:4, Interesting)
It does not mean that all of this has a chance to be a success.
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While true, there is a decent chance this could work. There is a lot of promising new tech in this area, ironically some of it coming from the fracking industry. Geothermal works well, the issue has always been the limited number of places you can install it. A lot like extracting gas, it wasn't practical to access some of it until people figured out how to frack relatively cheaply.
Re:This is called "Hedging your bets". (Score:4, Interesting)
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Are they doing fracking in Switzerland? That has to be at least as damaging as a geothermal project, and it happens everywhere there are oil deposits in the US. Apparently we are willing to accept a few earthquakes in exchange for energy.
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Fracking for oil is a bit batty. It's a US thing. There is far more flowing oil available around the world that we don't need to employ fracking for oil anywhere.
That said, the mechanism of pumping water into a hot spot could be a way to get geothermal steam. It would be an unusual solution but if Switzerland were needing to "frack" for steam then that could well be disturbing the local geology.
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I'm not advocating for fracking. I'm merely pointing out that in the USA there are a gigantic number of fracking projects, some of which have arguably caused minor earthquakes, and yet it continues to be employed.
'As of 2012, 2.5 million "frac jobs" had been performed worldwide on oil and gas wells, over one million of those within the U.S.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Therefore I don't expect that a few geothermal sites are going to even make a ripple.
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It's quite different if it's below an area with 1.3 million inhabitants, some very large chemical plants and most of the buildings are made from concrete and stone and not designed to withstand earth quakes.
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What makes you think fracking is done only in rural areas?
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On the plus side (Score:2)
If AI fails, that's more renewable always-available energy.
LLMs are stupid (Score:2)
The only advances is in pointless wasting of electricity.
Obligatory Rick and Morty reference (Score:2)
Rick gave "gooble box" technology to an intelligent species to generate electricity, but unbeknownst to them he took a majority of the generated power. This leads Morty to question Rick's ethics, calling it "slavery with extra steps".
Maybe Meta really needs to put hand cranks or foot treadles on Alexa!