Filed under: Emerging Technologies
Interior Dept opens 190 million acres for geothermal power development
In order for electric vehicles to make any actual impact on greenhouse gas emissions, a great deal of progress will need to be made on renewable sources of power generation. Wind power generation has been expanding rapidly, and solar is growing in some areas. Another source with huge potential is geothermal. If the natural heat energy held within the planet can be tapped, it could be almost limitless. That's easier said than done in most places but there are some areas where it could be very practical. The U.S. Department of the Interior has decided to offer up leases for geothermal development on 190 million acres of Federal land. It's estimated that up to 5,540 megawatts of power could be generated from these lands by the middle of the next decade. That could increase to 12,100 megawatts by 2025. The available lands for development will not include any national parks or wilderness areas.
[Source: TreeHugger]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1985 Gripen 12:13PM (10/27/2008)
Am I the biggest geek here and the only one who noticed that 12,100 megawatts is equal to 12.1 gigawatts, which is one decimal place removed from the "1.21 jiggawatts" (which I'm assuming probably read "gigawatts" in the script but Christopher Lloyd didn't know how to pronounce it) required to send a DeLorean through time? ;-)
They're going Back... To the FUTURE!!!!
Reply
EVan 2:29PM (10/27/2008)
The US currently produces about 463,700 megawatts of electricity. (2005 estimate)
12,000 megawatts may sound like a lot but even if it was all online in 2005 it would have only made up 2.5% of our electricity needs and we're supposed to wait 15 more years to reach this goal.
Geothermal is an awesome source of clean electricity that doesn't suffer from the reliability problems that wind and solar have. It's just not available in the high populations areas. The US needs to get its act together and invest a MASSIVE amount into a high-voltage direct current transmission infrastructure to get these remote sources of energy to our population centers.
Reply
demosthenes 3:35PM (10/27/2008)
"In order for electric vehicles to make any actual impact on greenhouse gas emissions, a great deal of progress will need to be made on renewable sources of power generation."
Huh? Even EVs powered by coal plants produce half the greenhouse gasses as a Prius. I'd consider that an "actual impact." I guess everyone has different standards though...
Reply