AI's energy hunger fuels geothermal startups but natural gas rivalry clouds future
Geothermal energy startups are on the upswing with big tech companies looking to feed their power-intensive AI data centres, but long-term investments remain uncertain as oil majors double down on natural gas.
Meta and Alphabet's Google are among the tech companies partnering with startups proposing to produce geothermal electricity, to power their data centres.
Large data centre operators are also racing to meet the energy needs of artificial intelligence, accelerating a range of clean technologies in the process.
«We believe geothermal, along with abundant natural gas, can be part of the all-of-the-above energy mix we need to meet the demand,» said Trey Lowe, chief technology officer at U.S. shale gas producer Devon Energy, an investor in geothermal startup Fervo Energy. Geothermal has been promoted as a faster way to generate carbon-free electricity than nuclear, and without the intermittency of wind and solar. But the startups still face high upfront costs, particularly for drilling, and long project approval times.
That has soured some of the initial enthusiasm, with limited investments so far — analysts estimate just over $700 million in financing has been contributed to overall geothermal projects since 2020.
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