An article in Scientific American discusses Google's investments in a variety of Geothermal Electrical Generation technologies and companies. It seem that Google, one of the world's largest consumers of energy itself, sees the clear benefits that Geothermal Electric Generation technology improvement would have upon the Earth's (and Google's) economy and environment.

The article says:

Mastering said drilling is why Google.org also invested $4 million into Potter Drilling, a Redwood City, Calif., enterprise built from EGS drilling work done at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico during the last oil crisis in the 1970s. As it stands, the oil and gas industry routinely drills wells of more than 18,000 feet--nearly 3.5 miles, or 5.5 kilometers--which would "essentially unlock the entire country" to produce geothermal power, said Dan Reicher, director for climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org and former assistant secretary of energy for energy efficiency and renewable energy at the U.S. Department of Energy, at the same conference.

But that also means that would-be geothermal companies are competing with the flush oil and gas industry for drilling rigs. "There are roughly 1,900 drilling rigs in the U.S.," added Lou Capuano of ThermaSource, another geothermal drilling outfit, at the conference. "Seven, maybe up to 11 now, are geothermal."

And, even if the rigs become available, it remains unclear just exactly what is lurking where under the surface. Maps for geothermal potential have not been updated since 1974 despite more than a million new oil and gas wells in the interim offering more data. So Google.org is also giving $489,521 to Southern Methodist University's Geothermal Laboratory to update the resource maps.

We at Atlantic Geothermal applaud Google's investments in this area, and we encourage other megacorporations to do the same. The future will belong to those companies that do make such investments. Google has long proven to everyone that they are that type of company. Bravo!