New technologies developed to extract oil and gas from deep within the Earth have also opened the door to accessing super high temperature heat just about anywhere.

These enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) could play a valuable role in the global transition to clean, renewable energy and for powering new data centers by significantly reducing land requirements and infrastructure needs, and by eliminating the need for other constant sources of electricity, such as coal and nuclear, according to a recent Stanford University study. The research, published in Cell Reports Sustainability, reveals that EGS can significantly reduce the amount of wind, solar, and battery infrastructure needed for a clean, renewable energy transition, while achieving costs comparable to systems without EGS.

“EGS is a promising clean, renewable technology that works together with wind, solar, hydro, and batteries to help power the world for all purposes, thereby providing energy security while eliminating energy-related air pollution and global warming at low cost” said study lead author Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and Stanford School of Engineering. The study is the latest in a series of analyses by Jacobson looking at how most of the world’s countries could transition to 100% wind, water, and solar energy.

Powering an energy transformation

Using enhanced geothermal could help transition 150 countries to clean, renewable energy at a lower cost.

Belle Long

Unlike conventional geothermal plants limited to volcanic and tectonic-plate-boundary regions with readily-accessible below-ground heat, EGS requires drilling three to eight kilometers or nearly two to five miles deep, injecting fluid to crack rocks, then pumping the heated fluid back up to generate electricity.

The Stanford study compared scenarios with and without EGS and found that adding EGS to the renewable energy mix produces substantial infrastructure savings. When EGS provided just 10% of electricity supply, onshore wind capacity needs dropped 15%, solar capacity fell 12%, and battery storage requirements decreased 28%. Total land requirements declined from 0.57% to 0.48% of the countries' combined land area, a difference that could prove especially important for small or densely populated nations, such as Singapore, Gibraltar, Taiwan, and South Korea.

The study found that clean, renewable energy dramatically reduces costs whether or not EGS is included. Both scenarios cut annual energy costs by roughly 60% compared with business-as-usual fossil fuel use. When health and climate costs, such as air pollution-related illnesses and sea level rise, are factored in, total social costs plummet by approximately 90%.

The cost of energy remained similar across all clean, renewable energy scenarios in the study, with or without EGS, suggesting that adding a baseload power source like EGS has minimal impact on overall system costs. The results challenge arguments that intermittent renewables require expensive backup power to maintain grid stability. They also suggests that EGS can readily substitute for the current role of coal and nuclear electricity, which is to provide a constant level of electricity – or baseload power – day and night. Further, because EGS provides constant electricity, it may be useful for providing electricity to off-grid data centers, which are growing in number throughout the world.

The transition to all renewable energy would also create millions of jobs, according to Jacobson. In an all-renewable world with EGS, the study projects 24 million net new long-term positions worldwide, slightly fewer than the 28 million jobs in scenarios with all renewables but no EGS, due to reduced construction needs for wind, solar, and batteries when EGS is used.

The technology faces some uncertainties. EGS costs are still evolving, though the U.S. Department of Energy has projected they could drop significantly by 2035. The first major U.S. EGS plant – a 2-gigawatt facility in Utah – was approved only in October 2024.

“Due to improvements in EGS drilling speeds, EGS costs are declining rapidly,” Jacobson said. “These speeds allow EGS projects to be completed quickly, unlike with nuclear, which requires planning-to-operation times of 12 to 23 years worldwide. Also, unlike nuclear, EGS has no risk of weapons proliferation, meltdown, radioactive waste storage leaks, or underground uranium mining lung cancer risk.”