Google has announced that its innovative, state-of-the-art geothermal facility in Nevada is operational and connected to the grid, launching an approach that promises to unlock continuously operating clean geothermal energy across a much wider range of locations.

Where most geothermal projects require finding areas with easily accessible fractured, highly permeable hot rocks, the Nevada facility, built in partnership with Fervo, is a pilot for testing techniques taken from the oil and gas industry.

As we wrote when Fervo announced the results of its tests in July, it does for geothermal energy what fracking did for oil and gas, unlocking resources that would otherwise be inaccessible. The company does this by drilling horizontally into deep rock and then injecting pressurized fluid to fracture the rock, creating the fractured, permeable rock needed to harvest geothermal heat.

Fervo says the technique can also help get much more out of an existing resource, radically reducing one of the biggest risks in geothermal energy: the risk of drilling deep wells to underground resources and rendering them unusable.

The Nevada facility produces 3.4 megawatts of power continuously by pumping water from 3,250-foot (990 m) horizontal wells approximately 8,000 feet (2,440 m) below the surface, at temperatures up to 191 °C (376 °F).

Google initially envisioned the project as a way to do two things. First, to encourage progress towards our stated goal of operating exclusively on clean energy by 2030. The latter is a proof of concept that Fervo can use to accelerate the adoption of advanced geothermal energy as a way to deliver a commercial launch.

In September, Fervo began a much larger project in Utah. The Cape Station project, which is planned to be connected to the grid in 2026 and start full-scale electricity generation in 2028, significantly expands the scale. It aims to produce around 400 MW of energy for 24 hours.

The US Department of Energy estimates that geothermal energy could expand from very modest beginnings to provide up to 120 GW of clean energy by 2050; This covers approximately 16% of the country’s projected energy needs in a highly affordable and reliable manner. It is independent of weather conditions and daily cycles such as wind and sun. As it expands, Fervo says it hopes to reduce prices to the point where deeper hot rock resources can be exploited.

There are also other companies, like Quaise, that aim to make geothermal energy accessible and affordable almost anywhere in the world by using fusion-derived particle beam technology to drill deeper holes than anyone else in history.

It’s an exciting time for geothermal, and indeed all forms of clean energy, as the world mobilizes new technologies to clean up its act. This almost makes you think that we could pull this off and still have a relatively habitable planet to leave to our grandchildren.