As electricity demand from data centers soars, Meta and Google are looking at a novel solution: harnessing clean heat far below Earth’s surface.

Big tech companies across the United States are struggling to find enough clean energy to power all the data centers they plan to build.

Now, some firms are betting on a novel solution: harvesting the heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface to create emissions-free electricity, using drilling techniques from the oil and gas fracking boom.

On Monday, Meta, the company that owns Facebook, announced an agreement with a start-up called Sage Geosystems to develop up to 150 megawatts of an advanced type of geothermal energy that would help power the tech giant’s expanding array of data centers. That is roughly enough electricity to power 70,000 homes.

Sage will use fracking techniques similar to those that have helped extract vast amounts of oil and gas from shale rock. But rather than drill

Keep reading this article on The New York Times Energy & Environment.