Iceland drilled a hole in 2009 that nobody expected would change everything. Engineers were aiming for hot water about two kilometers down when their drill bit punched into magma at 2,100 meters. Not metaphorical magma-hot rock. Actual molten rock at 900°C.
The borehole didn’t explode—it became the hottest geothermal well ever created, producing superheated steam that could generate electricity five times more efficiently than conventional geothermal sources.
When You Accidentally Drill Into Hell and It Pays Your Electric Bill
Here’s the thing about geothermal energy: we’ve been doing it wrong for decades, or maybe just timidly. Traditional geothermal plants tap into naturally occurring hot water reservoirs, which sounds great until you realize those only exist in specific geological sweet spots—places where tectonic plates are having their ongoing territorial disputes. Iceland, New Zealand, parts of California. Everyone else? Out of luck.
Or so we thought.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) basically said “what if we just made our own hot water reservoirs?” You drill deep—sometimes 10 kilometers deep—fracture the hot rock with high-pressure water, and create your own underground radiator. The United States Geological Survey estimated in 2008 that EGS could provide 100,000 megawatts of electricity by 2050. That’s enough to power about 100 million homes, assuming we figure out the whole “controlled fracturing of subsurface rock” thing without causing earthquakes. (Nevada felt a 4.5 magnitude quake in 2013 near an EGS test site, which was… not ideal.)
The Rock Under Your Feet Is Hotter Than You Think And Possibly More Valuable
Wait—maybe we’ve been overthinking the depth requirement. Turns out some of the most promising geothermal development is happening in unexpected places. Munich, Germany, gets 38% of its heating from geothermal sources, and it’s not exactly sitting on a volcanic hotspot. The city taps into water that’s only 80°C at about 3,000 meters depth. Not superhot, but consistent, reliable, and crucially—always there.
The economics are starting to make sense in ways that would’ve seemed absurd a decade ago. Drilling technology borrowed from the fracking industry (yes, that fracking) has dropped costs by nearly 40% since 2010. Companies like Fervo Energy raised $244 million in 2024 to build what they’re calling “geothermal batteries”—systems that can store energy by pumping water underground when electricity is cheap, then releasing it through turbines when demand spikes.
Its basicaly turning the Earth into a giant rechargable battery.
Why Your Next Data Center Might Sit On Top Of Ancient Volcanic Rage
Google and Microsoft aren’t drilling for geothermal energy out of environmental nobility—though they’ll certainly frame it that way in press releases. They’re doing it because data centers are energy-devouring monsters, and geothermal is the only renewable source that runs 24/7 without depending on whether the wind blows or the sun shines. A geothermal plant operates at about 90% capacity year-round. Solar? Maybe 25% if you’re lucky.
Meta announced in 2023 that it would partner with Sage Geosystems to develop geothermal energy for it’s data centers. The project uses something called “geopressured geothermal,” which is tapping into underground reservoirs that contain both hot water and dissolved natural gas under immense pressure. You get energy from the heat, energy from the gas, and energy from the pressure itself when you release it through turbines.
That’s not renewable energy—that’s geological arbitrage.
The Inconvenient Truth About Infinite Energy Right Below The Basement
But here’s where it gets complicated, because of course it does. The deeper you drill, the more expensive everything becomes—not linearly, but exponentially. Going from 3 kilometers to 6 kilometers doesn’t double your costs; it quadruples them. Drill bits fail. Pipes crack under pressure. High temperatures destroy sensors and equipment.
Quaise Energy, an MIT spinoff, thinks they have a solution: millimeter-wave drilling. Instead of mechanical drill bits, they’re using the same technology that powers industrial microwave ovens to vaporize rock. In 2024, they successfully drilled through 30 meters of granite in a test that would’ve taken days with conventional equipment but took hours with their system. If—and this is a massive if—they can scale this to depths of 20 kilometers, they claim they could tap into 500°C temperatures anywhere on Earth.
Anywhere. Not just volcanic zones or tectonic boundaries. Your backyard in Ohio. A parking lot in Nebraska. The Australian outback.
The potential is staggering, almost absurdly so. The heat energy stored in the Earth’s crust down to 10 kilometers is estimated at 13 million exajoules. For reference, total human energy consumption in 2023 was about 600 exajoules. We’re talking about an energy source that could power civilization for thousands of years without depleting.
Unless we screw it up first, which—let’s be honest—is absolutely something we’d do.
