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Wall Street Journal on underutilized geothermal potential in the U.S.

Wall Street Journal on underutilized geothermal potential in the U.S. Steamboat Springs plant of Ormat, Nevada (source: Commons/ Wikimedia)
Alexander Richter 15 Sep 2010

Big news outlets are starting to give geothermal energy a closer look, with a recent article by the Wall Street Journal highlighting the underutilized potential in the United States and the increase in development since the stimulus package.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal looks into geothermal energy and its potential for the United States.

Most existing geothermal plants are located in areas of the U.S. West, Iceland and other parts of the world where underground steam or hot water has bubbled to the surface. Developers drill wells several hundred feet through hard rock into underground reservoirs of hot water or steam, then pipe the hot water to the surface through fractures in the rock. The hot, pressurized water or steam is then used to run turbines that generate electricity.

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that the Western U.S. has about 30,000 megawatts of untapped conventional geothermal power, almost enough to meet California’s electricity needs on a mild day. Much of it remains untapped due to difficulty in finding and evaluating “blind resources”—underground reservoirs that aren’t visible from the Earth’s surface. Even in areas known to hold hot water, developers can be reluctant to spend the $2 million to $10 million it takes to drill a well unless they are certain there is a good resource underneath.

Over the past several years, a handful of companies have been working on new ways to find and better evaluate hidden geothermal pockets. Their efforts received a boost last year when the Obama administration awarded $340 million in stimulus funds to developers and researchers testing some of these new technologies.

“We feel that innovative exploration approaches could help us find these blind systems that have no surface expression,” says Ed Wall, program manager of the Energy Department’s geothermal technologies program. “We wanted to come up with a combination of technologies that would improve the hit rate.”

For the full article see link below.

Source: Wall Street Journal