Par for the course in AI fantasy land
We're going to build 4 Gigawatts of capacity! Give us lots and lots of money!
... some time later ...
We've actually built err, 0.03 gigawatts... Give us some more money please!
Google-backed energy outfit brings 33 MW of 4 GW geothermal potential online in Utah
Google's bet on geothermal energy is starting to pay off. Fervo Energy, an enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) provider backed by the Chocolate Factory, achieved first power at its Cape Station power plant in Beaver County, Utah this week. The first of three 33 MW GeoBlocks has begun supplying electricity to the grid and is …
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Sunday 27th September 2026 20:20 GMT cyberdemon
Re: I wonder how long
Well it should be a while for that to happen at least. The earth isn't just a slowly-cooling boiled egg, there's a few Terawatts worth of very long-lived radioisotopes down there keeping it warm too.
That said, the earth's magnetic field is apparently overdue a reversal, which would be fairly cataclysmic for modern technology as it takes centuries to pass through zero. It's a complex system influenced in part by convection to/from the crust, so it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that excessive use of geothermal energy could accelerate that process..
One would hope that it would take an exorbitant amount of geothermal exploitation to have any effect though.. Something of the order of 100GW concentrated in one place might be a problem.. Which is er, about how much power the slop-mongers say they need in the UK!
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