Geothermal Energy: Big Tech's Answer to AI's Growing Energy Consumption
Haley Zaremba

The renewable revolution’s biggest superheroes are at risk of turning into its biggest villains. For years, Silicon Valley’s biggest players have been among the most vocal and most deep pocketed proponents of clean energy investment. But now, thanks to the runaway energy demand driven by artificial intelligence, Big Tech’s emissions are sharply on the rise and its lofty decarbonization goals are becoming ever more far-fetched. The bigwigs behind tech companies including Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI are now pushing harder than ever for greater deployment of renewable energy infrastructure and increased research and development of novel clean and alternative energies, but keeping up with the voracious energy appetite of AI is a tall order. 

Google’s 2024 Environmental Report revealed that the company’s greenhouse gas emissions have surged nearly 50% since 2019, driven by the massive expansion of AI use in the company’s operations. As a result, the company now publicly recognizes that its own ambitious goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2030 is becoming increasingly challenging – if not impossible – to achieve. 

“AI-powered services involve considerably more computer power - and so electricity - than standard online activity, prompting a series of warnings about the technology's environmental impact,” the BBC recently reported. A study published earlier this year by scientists at Cornell University found that generative AI systems like ChatGPT use up to 33 times more energy than standard computers running task-specific software, and each and every AI-powered internet query (e.g., a Google search) consumes about ten times more energy than a traditional query. And AI is quickly becoming the norm. 

As a result, the amount of energy needed to sustain the AI sector’s growth is doubling about every 100 days. At this rate, the AI sector alone could be responsible for a whopping 3.5 percent of global energy consumption by 2030, according to some expert projections. “When you look at the numbers, it is staggering,” Jason Shaw, chairman of electricity regulator Georgia Public Service Commission, told the Washington Post earlier this year. “It makes you scratch your head and wonder how we ended up in this situation. How were the projections that far off? This has created a challenge like we have never seen before.”

In order to counteract the runaway train of AI energy consumption, Big Tech companies are throwing their weight behind as-yet underexplored and underdeveloped clean energy alternatives such as nuclear fusion, nuclear fission, and geothermal energy. Geothermal, which has recently become a far more feasible option for all terrains thanks to drilling technology borrowed from the fracking sector, has emerged as a popular choice.

Meta and Alphabet are among the major tech companies partnering with geothermal startups to power their data centers. Geothermal companies are popping up around the country and particularly in Texas, “due to an abundance of identified geothermal resources, 1-stop shopping permitting process and our regulatory certainty” according to Matt Welch of the Texas Geothermal Energy Alliance (TxGEA).

While geothermal offers virtually limitless clean with relatively low overhead costs, the upfront costs of developing geothermal resources are considerable. “That has soured some of the initial enthusiasm, with limited investments so far,” Reuters recently reported. “Analysts estimate just over $700 million in financing has been contributed to overall geothermal projects since 2020,” the report added. 

The outlook for geothermal is also dimmed by what is setting up to be a significant natural gas boom. The oil industry is currently doubling down on natural gas production, and the incoming presidential administration is certain to provide a significant boost to the sector. The result is an energy landscape that new geothermal projects will have an extremely difficult time being cost competitive in. 

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

Haley Zaremba is a writer and journalist based in Mexico City. She has extensive experience writing and editing environmental features, travel pieces, local news in the Bay Area, and music/culture reviews.

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