From Watts Up With That?
Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Rising electricity demand from data centers drives both the quantity and price of geothermal installations. …”
Guosheng Securities: Rising electricity demand in data centers drives both volume and price increases for geothermal energy.
Zhitong Finance· Jan 20 16:53
Trump’s requirement for U.S. tech giants to assume responsibility for their data center electricity needs may catalyze demand for off-grid power systems in U.S. data centers.
According to Zhitong Finance APP, Guosheng Securities issued a research report stating that recently, Trump’s requirement for U.S. technology giants to self-finance the power supply of their data centers may catalyze the construction demand for off-grid power systems in U.S. data centers. In terms of geothermal installed capacity potential, the global geothermal potential is approximately 162GW, nearly 10 times the current installed capacity, with the U.S. and Asia (mainly Indonesia) having a potential geothermal scale of about 35.0GW/74.3GW.
Currently, Meta (META.US) and Google (GOOGL.US) have deployed several hundred MW-level geothermal power projects, while the next-generation enhanced geothermal technology broadens the application scenarios for geothermal energy.
The price of geothermal power purchase agreements for AI data centers has risen to 100 USD/MWh, representing an increase of over 45% compared to 2024.
…
U.S. Geothermal: Rising electricity demand from data centers drives both the quantity and price of geothermal installations.
Quantity: Meta and Google have deployed several hundred MW-level geothermal power projects, while next-generation enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology expands the applicable scenarios for geothermal energy. 1) Meta: In 2024, Meta signed a 150MW geothermal power purchase agreement with Sage Geosystems, with the first phase expected to come online by 2027. In June 2025, Meta signed another 150MW geothermal power purchase agreement with XGS Energy to secure power for its New Mexico data center, with completion expected by 2030.
Paying Chinese companies to drill deep and pump water into active geological zones on the US West Coast. What could possibly go wrong?
Quite a lot potentially.
The 1700 Cascadia Megathrust Earthquake and the Future of Cascadia Margin
The 1700 tsunami that impacted the Puget sound region was triggered by a megathrust earthquake off the coast of northern California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia on the so-called Cascadia margin. The event happened on the evening of January 26th as documented in Japanese historic records. In Japan, the event was called an “orphan” tsunami because the earthquake was so far away it was not felt. … These trees were killed by a tsunami in 1700 when the elevation of the land fell, and they were completely inundated and then buried by sand. Large storms eroded the sand from the trees and exposed them. They remain as evidence of the huge tsunami more than 300 years ago.
Oral accounts from indigenous Native American and First Nation tribes living on the coast of Vancouver Island in Canada that have been passed down from generation to generation tell of an earthquake and tsunami on a winter’s evening. … the only survivors were those people who lived 75 feet above the waterline. So the tsunami must have been massive!
Subsidence and tsunami records suggest that the earthquake was in the range of a magnitude 8.7-9.2 on the Richter scale. So what is a megathrust earthquake? It’s a very powerful quake usually close to or greater than a magnitude 9. These quakes occur at subduction zones where one plate is thrust under the other. … In the 2004 Indian Ocean event, an area 180 km wide and 1000 km long moved up by 30 meters! In the 2011 Tohoku event, an area 200 km long by 500 km wide moved up by 20 meters!
…
Such a disaster will happen along the Cascadia margin at some time in the future. …
…Read more: https://courses.ems.psu.edu/earth107/node/1614
I think you can tell I’m not a fan of poking holes in unstable geological zones and pumping in water.
To be fair some designs are “closed loop”, where the water circulates through pipes and is never supposed to come directly into contact with the hot rocks. But I remember when I used to help my uncle maintain his old concrete block condominium building. It only takes a small movement in concrete and presumably also in unstable hot geothermal stone to crush or break even the most flexible embedded water pipes.
How dangerous is geothermal?
I don’t know.
I doubt anyone knows.
But let’s hope the new rush to Geothermal doesn’t turn into a real-life version of the movie “How it ends”, that nobody finds out the hard way that the rushed installation of lots of Chinese built geothermal plants in unstable Ring of Fire geological zones on the US West Coast was a bad idea.
Before anyone suggests that regulatory oversight and engineering would prevent any unsafe geothermal installations, Chinese companies have a troubling track record of putting profits ahead of engineering integrity and safety, when it comes to big money energy projects.
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