New England Is Ready for Large-Scale Geothermal Power Production

By Christopher Sawyer-Laucanno

In June 2005, President Bush, made a pitch for building nuclear reactors as an alternative to coal and oil-fired generating facilities. “Nuclear power is one of America's safest sources of energy," said Bush. As usual, the president is off the mark. Even if Bush and company want to ignore that the potential for radiation leaks still exists, and that there are no viable long-term solutions for storing nuclear waste, his own Homeland Security folks have warned that nuclear plants are deemed serious targets for terrorist action. There is a reason that no new nuclear facilities have been constructed since 1979: they are neither safe, green nor reliable.

There is a true green alternative, however, to fossil fuel generating plants (and, of course, nukes). In Northern Europe, and on the West Coast, geothermal power production--which uses heat under the earth’s surface as a natural fuel source--is increasingly proving to be a real solution. California, in fact, is the national leader in the use of geothermal energy for electricity generation. Seven percent of the state's total power production output is geothermally generated. With its 41 working geothermal plants, California accounts for almost 40 percent of the total worldwide geothermal power production. The combined production capacity of approximately 1,900 megawatts of electrical power per hour is enough to supply nearly two million typical households. And new plants are underway.

Up until now, geothermal energy has been thought to be impractical for use in New England. In contrast to the Western United States, where massive amounts of heat lurk near the earth’s surface, in New England the heat is further underground. And yet, in New England, at just a depth of three to five miles, the earth’s temperature reaches about 300 degrees farenheit, well above the temperature needed to boil water. As MIT professor Jefferson Tester notes, geothermal production is possible in New England due to advances in drilling technology that allow for heat extraction of depths up to 6 miles: “All the technology that goes into drilling and completing oil and gas production systems…could in principle be extended to deep heat mining. Hydraulic methods have been the ones that hold the most promise, where you go into the system and you pressurize the rock -- just water pressure.”

While Tester is interested in the math and theory of geothermal generation, Atlantic Geothermal, in Florence, Mass, a small visionary company founded by Wendell resident J. David Reynolds, is actively working to prove that geothermal power is viable for New England. Reynolds, who studied engineering at Northeastern, has devised a system that uses ocean water to power the turbines for making electricity. Reynolds’ plan is ambitious but given today’s drilling technology, far from impossible.

His plan, simply put, is to bore a tunnel from the ocean inland at a depth of about three or four miles. Geologic maps of coastal New England show that at this depth the temperature reaches at least 300 degrees F. Reynolds calculates that a tunnel 50 feet in diameter, and some 80 to 100 miles long, would be needed to produce enough constant heat to generate 1,600 megawatts of electricity per hour, nearly as much as that produced geothermally in all of California, or at the giant Hoover Dam that currently outputs 1,731 megawatts hourly.

He notes that the technology is here, the water is here, the heat is here. He also likes to point out that 100 years ago the state built a 25-mile long aqueduct from the Quabbin to Boston using mainly manual labor (his system uses robotic drilling equipment). And while he admits that it would be expensive, given the return of free power forever for a utility company, the cost could be absorbed within perhaps a decade. And it’s absolutely clean, absolutely renewable, with no waste by-products. In fact, the only by-product is desalinized water, which could also reduce dependence on the Quabbin and other reservoirs.

If industry buys in to Reynolds’ idea, New England’s dependence on dirty, non-renewable fossil fuels for electricity generation will be a thing of the past.

Geothermal Power - Are we ready yet?

Is the American public ready for large-scale Geothermal Electric Power?

That's the question we were discussing in the office the other day, so I figured it would be an excellent topic for the inaugural issue of the Hot Rocks Geothermal News blog. We hope to cover a wide range of issues here relating to Geothermal Power in general and Large Scale Geothermal Electric Generation (LSGEG) in particular.

We welcome and encourage feedback and commentary from our readers. Our goal is to engage directly with both the general public and those already involved in the geothermal, alternative energy, underground construction, mining, and electrical utility industries as a profession.

Our mission is simple. We seek to encourage government and private sector investment in rapid development and deployment of large-scale geothermal electrical generation everywhere it is practical in the United States. From there, we hope to spread our success model to the world. We look to Geothermal installations outside the US for inspiration in our efforts.

The stakes are enormously high. The effects of global warming due to the excessive pumping of hydrocarbon gases into the atmosphere threatens the coastline, the economy and even human life and civilization as we know it.

With this in mind we ask the single most important question for our industry.

Is the American public ready for large-scale Geothermal Electric Power?

Will they press their representatives and industry leaders to aggressively advance such an agenda?

Do they realize the impact of global warming and the effect conventional generation of electric power contributes to the overall problem?

Do they understand that a large-scale conversion to electric vehicles could also dramatically effect the amount of Carbon Dioxide and other gases spewed into the air, if and only if the generation of the electricity used to power the vehicles didn't itself cause greenhouse emissions?

Would they accept a 2 cents per gallon federal tax on gasoline to fund geothermal power initiatives?

Would they if they realized that at 140 Billion gallons of gas a year consumed in the US, a 2 cents per gallon tax would generate 2.8 billion dollars a year for such initiatives?

Do they know how much money is (not) being invested in Geothermal by the federal government right now?

The Fiscal Year 2006 Budget Request for Geothermal Technologies is $23.3 million, a $2.0 million decrease from the Fiscal Year 2005 Comparable Appropriation. The Fiscal Year 2005 appropriation included $3.6 million in funds for Congressionally Directed Activities.

If the American people want clean, inexpensive, reliable Geothermal electricity, they're obviously have to let their leaders in Congress know.

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Here are some recent news articles about Geothermal Power that depicts the current state of the US Geothermal Electrical Generation development.

Nevada to Quadruple Its Geothermal Power, Says GEA Report
Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]
Nevada is on-track to be producing more than 1000 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power in the next 3-5 years, a level that would meet roughly 25% of the state's total power needs, according to a new report from the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA).

Legal snag in plan to build Ore. geothermal power plant
12/22/2006 - The Associated Press
BEND, Ore. (AP) — Plans to build a $300 million geothermal power plant at Newberry Volcano in Central Oregon hit a legal hurdle after one of the companies involved in the deal filed suit, accusing one of its partners of acting in bad faith.

Billion-dollar geothermal power plan in New Zealand
By MARTA STEEMAN - The Dominion Post - Thursday, 30 November 2006
State power firm Mighty River Power has announced plans to develop more than $1 billion of geothermal power plants in the next 10 years.

UTC Power's Geothermal Power Plant at Alaskan Resort Named 'Project of the Year'
Wed, 29 Nov 2006 - Author : UTC Power

California OKs reopening dormant geothermal plant
LOS ANGELES, Dec 14 - Reuters
A 55-megawatt geothermal power plant dormant since 1990 has been given the OK to reopen, the California California Energy Commission said on Thursday. The Bottle Rock Geothermal Power Plant will initially operate at 20 megawatts with plans to expand.

Abundant Power from Universal Geothermal Energy
Technology Review, August 01, 2006
An MIT chemical engineer explains why new technologies could finally make "heat mining" practical nearly anywhere on earth. MIT professor Jefferson Tester explains his thoughts on geothermal energy: how it’s used today, its future implications and large-scale universal possibilities. Read the reactions! Extensive blogged responses to the article are also included.

US Geothermal Progresses at Raft River Geothermal Plant
RenewableEnergyAccess.com, December 15, 2006
As construction continues at the geothermal plant being built in Raft River, Idaho, Daniel Kunz, president and CEO of U.S. Geothermal. Inc. reports promising results regarding current well drilling. According to Kunz, geothermal hot sports are extensive and reach “planned injection well sites” and consequently will be a substantial support to the future plant.

New geothermal heating utility launched in China
InsideGreenTech.com, December 4, 2006
The biggest geothermal heating system in the world? ‘The potential is there’ claim representatives from Shaanxi Green Energy, a newly formed geothermal heating company recently introduced in Xian Yang, China’s geothermal city. Opportunity lies in the combined expertise of the Icelandic/Nordic founding companies and China’s progressive attitude toward green energy in this region.

Icelandic geothermal capital entering United State
InsideGreenTech.com, November 14, 2006
Glitnir, the Icelandic energy company known for their commitment to the use of renewable resources, has entered the US geothermal market. Glitnir reps believe that they have the experience and expertise to be successful in this growing market. Possibilities are certainly promising as news of their expansion coincides with the Geothermal Energy Association’s report of the rising development of geothermal power in the US.

Welcome to Hot Rocks Geothermal Consulting

Welcome to our blog.

We will be posting Geothermal-power related articles here starting in January 2007.

Stay tuned for details, and check out our existing geothermal-power-related sites:

EarthwormTunneling.com

and

Maxlore.com

....