How fracking could unlock a clean energy future
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Technology pioneered by the oil and gas industry is fueling a new type of carbon-free power plant.
Southern California Edison, one of the country’s largest power companies, has just announced a deal to buy electricity from a seven-year-old start-up called Fervo Energy. Like other energy companies, Fervo will use hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to tap an energy source trapped deep underground.
But instead of oil and gas, Fervo is hunting heat, a more abundant resource that neither pollutes the air nor contributes to global warming. The heat will fuel a new type of power plant: an enhanced geothermal plant.
Most power plants work by converting a turbine’s rotating energy into electricity. Many of the world’s energy challenges stem from this seemingly simple problem: how to get a turbine to keep spinning.
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