In August 2008, Google.com invested more than $10 million in an energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), wherein it worked to develop electricity from a renewable source that is cheaper than coal. The EGS scheme involves drilling a well miles into the earth's hot cruts and circulating a fluid through pipes back to through pipes back to the surface where the hot water and steam, thereby powering a turbine that creates electricity.
An overview of geothermal power plants, which use treated municipal waste water that is sent into under ground geothermal fields to create sources of steam which can be used to generate electricity. Lessons about how to build shallow and deep drilled geothermal power plants which have been learned from geothermal power plant projects in the Santa Rosa, California area are examined. A risk of small earthquakes which is associated with the construction of geothermal power plants is discussed.