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Mountain View, California - (Cheap Web Hosting Directory) - August 25, 2008 - Google search engine company, through its philanthropic arm Google.org, announced $10.25 million in investments in a breakthrough energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS).

In the continuing effort to develop electricity from renewable energy cheaper than from coal, Google’s announcement also includes funding for research on next-generation geothermal resource mapping, EGS information tools, and a policy agenda for geothermal energy.

Dan Reicher, Director of Climate and Energy Initiatives for Google.org noted, ”EGS could be the ‘killer app’ of the energy world. It has the potential to deliver vast quantities of power 24/7 and be captured nearly anywhere on the planet. And it would be a perfect complement to intermittent sources like solar and wind.”

EGS expands the potential of geothermal energy by orders of magnitude. The traditional geothermal approach relies on finding naturally occurring pockets of steam and hot water. The EGS process, by comparison, replicates these conditions by fracturing hot rock, circulating water through the system, and using the resulting steam to produce electricity in a conventional turbine.

A recent MIT report on EGS estimates that just 2% of the heat below the continental United States between 3 and 10 kilometers, depths within the range of current drilling technology, is more than 2,500 times the country’s total annual energy use.

Google’s Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative focuses on solar thermal power, advanced wind, EGS and other potential breakthrough technologies. Google has set a goal to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity, enough to power a city the size of San Francisco, in years, not decades.

To advance EGS, Google.org announced funding for two companies and a university:

• AltaRock Energy, Inc.: $6.25 million investment to develop innovative technologies to achieve significant cost reductions and improved performance in EGS projects. For more information, please visit www.altarockenergy.com.
• Potter Drilling, Inc.: $4 million investment in two tranches, to develop new approaches to lower the cost and expand the range of deep hard rock drilling, a critical element to large-scale deployment of EGS. For more information, please visit www.potterdrilling.com.
• Southern Methodist University Geothermal Lab: $489,521 grant to improve understanding of the size and distribution of geothermal energy resources and to update geothermal mapping of North America. For more information, please visit www.smu.edu/geothermal.

Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org added, ”Innovation is the path to massive quantities of cleaner, cheaper energy. The people we’re funding today have a real shot at lowering the cost of EGS, and bringing us closer to our goal of Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal.”

Mr. Reicher added, ”EGS is critical to the clean electricity revolution we need to solve the climate crisis, but EGS hasn’t received the attention it merits. That’s why we’re pressing for expanded support from government and increased investment from the private sector. We’re big believers in EGS and we’re looking for more opportunities.”

The announcement represents the latest step in Google’s commitment to a clean energy future. Google has been working hard on energy efficiency and making its business environmentally sustainable. To this end, the company has taken concrete steps to reduce its carbon footprint and accelerate improvements in green technology, including:

• Developing cutting-edge energy efficiency technology to power and cool its data centers in the U.S. and around the world using 50% less energy than the industry standard
• Generating electricity for its Mountain View campus from a 1.6 megawatt corporate solar panel installation, one of the largest in the U.S.
• Accelerating development and adoption of plug-in electric vehicles through the RechargeIT initiative (www.google.org/recharge)
• Joining with other industry leaders to form the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a consortium that advocates the design and use of more energy-efficient computers and servers (www.climatesaverscomputing.org)
• Working on policies that encourage renewable energy development and deployment, such as a U.S. Renewable Energy Standard

For more information on EGS, including a 3-D model of a project in Australia, a Google Earth layer, an introductory YouTube video, and our policy brief, see www.google.org/egs.

For more information on the Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative, including $30 million in investments to advance solar thermal and advanced wind technologies, see www.google.org/rec.html.

With the largest index of websites available on the World Wide Web and the industry’s most advanced search technology, Google Inc. delivers the fastest and easiest way to find relevant information on the Internet. Google’s technological innovations have earned the company numerous industry awards and citations, including two Webby Awards; two WIRED magazine Readers Raves Awards; Best Internet Innovation and Technical Excellence Award from PC Magazine; Best Search Engine on the Internet from Yahoo! Internet Life; Top Ten Best Cybertech from TIME magazine; and Editor’s Pick from CNET. A growing number of companies worldwide, including Yahoo! and its international properties, Sony Corporation and its global affiliates, AOL/Netscape, and Cisco Systems, rely on Google to power search on their websites. A privately held company based in Mountain View, California, Google’s investors include Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers and Sequoia Capital.

To learn more about Google’s clean energy future, please visit: www.google.com/renewableenergy.

For more information, visit www.google.com.

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