In his presentation to the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas yesterday, Dan Reicher, director of climate and energy initiatives at Google.org, suggested that Enhanced Geothermal Systems, or E.G.S., might well be “the killer app” of clean energy technology.

Coming from Google, those are big words. If Mr. Reicher and the search giant are right, the implications could be profound. Traditional geothermal systems have long been deployed in Japan, Europe and Australia, but its potential is limited to those spots on the planet where hydrothermal vents are already present and reachable.

E.G.S. advocates, on the other hand, highlight its global ubiquity.

Midway through the conference, which brought roughly 1,000 academics, politicians and curious onlookers to Nevada over the last two days, I had a chance to buttonhole Mr. Reicher and two other principals in the exploration of next-generation geothermal technology: Steven Chu, the Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Don O’Shei, whose company, AltaRock Energy, just received a $6.25 million investment from Google (see yesterday’s post.)

Excerpts from our low-budget video conversation follow: