Compare and contrast

Bush to cut funding for geothermal

Posted by David Roberts at 5:32 PM on 14 Mar 2007

Read more about: energy | geothermal power

The Bush administration wants to eliminate federal support for geothermal power just as many U.S. states are looking to cut greenhouse gas emissions and raise renewable power output.

A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.

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8 Comments | Post a Comment

Residential?

I remember sunflower saying that geothermal on a residential scale was sort of pointless - seeing as I'm moving to a new home shortly (and am, of course, thinking of a dozen ways to improve efficiency), why was that again? I understand it's crazy expensive, but is that all?

by PBrazelton at 8:02 PM on 14 Mar 2007

Well

Well for California

Back in 2002 apparently there was known to be atleast 4000MW of geothermal availible using conventional technology.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/geothermal/overview.html

Thats about 3 to 4 nuclear plants right there.

As is, California has 2030MW of Geothermal
1126MW of which is owned by PG&E

4360MW of Nuclear in California
2200MW owned by PG&E

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 11:08 PM on 14 Mar 2007

Not enough info to judge

Sorry, David, but I don't consider this kind of posting all that helpful. From the intro, I thought the issue was federal funds for the construction of plants, and was ready to argue against that. (The federal government should get out of the business of funding all commercial electricity plants.) But the issue here is about funding of R&D, which the federal government wants to cut off entirely.

Now, while expenditure on R&D can generate positive externalities, R&D budgets are limited and priorities have to be set. Do we need $28 million of public money spent on research each year? I don't know. Perhaps the government should be spending twice that, or one-fifth that.

Just because an energy source has potential does not immediately argue for any particular level of R&D. R&D is supposed to help by providing new information. What is that new information we need, and what difference will that information make to the cost of geothermal power? It could be that little new information is needed and that geothermal's potential is not being realized because of bias against geothermal energy, or for alternatives to geothermal energy, or simply because it is uneconomic.

Again, I am not arguing for or against maintaining current spending levels, just saying that there is not much we can discuss based on the information provided.

These are only my personal opinions.

by Ron Steenblik at 11:47 PM on 14 Mar 2007

Oh yeah

Source for the California power plants
http://www.energy.ca.gov/database/index.html#powerplants

Also good little youtube on geothermal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szdx8F_g3Z0&eurl=

Apparently, while the current hotspots are nice which you have to dig 1 mile down.

The MIT article claims that if we dug 6 miles down, 1/10th of the availible energy could supply enough power for our entire grid.

That is pretty appetising.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 11:53 PM on 14 Mar 2007

Hrmm

Well one thing to look out for is that geothermal puts out quite a bit of sulfur.

The other thing to look into is that ideally the water used would be recycled.

Those two could bump up the capital costs.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 12:43 AM on 15 Mar 2007

Meanwhile, MIT proposes more use of coal!

http://www.energybulletin.net/27223.html

The 5% Project

by JMG at 7:15 AM on 15 Mar 2007

Hrmm

Carbon Capture and Storage mostly just seems to me a
"Let us build the plant now, and then we will try to not have to do CCS later"

The other issue is whether CCS is actually effective.
Especially when it's being used for things like pressurizing oil wells, where it will just be pumped right back out.

Also, if it's pumped into an area near people.
What happens when a leak pops up is that everyone gets asphyxiated.
Since CO2 is heavier than the surrounding air, and pushes out all the breathable oxygen.

But yeah, I wouldn't mind a stance of "cancel all commercial coal projects"

But thats only because I doubt it would work well.

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 10:30 AM on 15 Mar 2007

Heh

Reword that to "cancel all coal plants, until they prove CCS works"

-David Ahlport

by GreyFlcn at 10:38 AM on 15 Mar 2007
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