tblakeslee

Geothermal Energy Sources 101

A great job of quickly covering the basics of a very promising technology. The big Island of Hawaii has a 30 MW geothermal generating facility.
The biggest problem with geothermal is that it could really replace coal as a source of baseload power so it is seen as a threat to the very powerful coal states. The DOE budget was reduced to zero last year and even a bill to authorize $95 million for development was ignored by the DOE as they budgeted only $30 million for the 2009 budget. Powerful political forces don't want the fantastic potential of geothermal to be realized. The heavily subsidized fossil fuels get all the money ($400 million for coal in 2009). Even Barack and Hillary are trying to outdo each other to get coal votes with endorsment of "clean coal" Geothermal is the answer if we can just cut through the political manuvering financed by $13 billion in subsidies. We need a Manhattin Project in geothermal.