The NYT reports:
The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.
The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.
But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.
The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source.
Syd Henderson says:
Hopefully they won’t give up on it entirely. This project didn’t cost all that much considering the potential.
December 12, 2009, 11:16 amJAY says:
There’s a reason why there is no private investment in geothermal. It is not economically viable. Only the government “invests” in such pipe dreams.
December 12, 2009, 11:23 amGov98 says:
Wait wait wait…are you telling me we’ve been misled about the potential of this energy source. I heard that the middle of the earth is millions of degrees hot!*
*Prof. Al Gore (climate psuedo-scientist)
December 12, 2009, 11:29 amLarryA says:
Did you notice the part about earthquakes?
December 12, 2009, 11:48 amSteve2 says:
Were Iceland’s geothermal projects public or private? My understanding is that they’ve been successful, but I don’t know who did them.
December 12, 2009, 12:02 pmFub says:
Actually there is considerable private and economically viable investment in geothermal energy, and by “the little people”. It’s just that they’re not tapping the phantasmaGoreical “millions of degrees hot” geothermal sources.
The use of earth as a relatively constant temperature heat sink or source for heat pumps to heat or cool residences and commercial buildings is quite common, and it reduces heating and cooling costs.
Troglodytes discovered the underlying phenomenon in prehistory. That’s in part why they were troglodytes.
December 12, 2009, 12:14 pmsubpatre says:
B-b-b-but wait! Saint Al Gore says there’s millions of degrees under there and we can get free energy from it. [snark off]
Having used and built using ‘geothermal’ for over forty years, it’s potential is overhyped —it will never be a significant source— and under valued at the same time.
The latest rage, geothermal heat pumps, alter the subterranean temperature and often fail later directly due to that. If widely adopted, they will create significant groundwater changes: Changing dissolved mineral content, altering the subterranean stream flows, etcetera. There is also the ever-present danger of failed systems polluting the aquifer.
OTOH earth-sheltered construction is the easiest, simplest, and most efficient use of geothermal energy; incurring no added environmental risk. Yet underground shelter has been all-but obliterated by building ‘codes’ that favor energy-intensive methods and materials.
Geothermal energy extraction, such as the AltaRock project, will always ultimately run into the limit that rock —the stuff way down there— may be hot, but it doesn’t transfer energy well. Transferring the heat from the rock will only work a short time, as heat won’t transfer back. Indirect extraction from geysers or hot springs is done in Iceland and some other spots. It is safe, although fickle and obviously of limited use.
The deep-drilling is a fine experiment (short of earthquakes) but cannot and should not be counted on. Instead look at our own regulations that prohibit incremental savings.
December 12, 2009, 12:28 pmABlast says:
@Steve2:
There are several flavors of geothermal. One type involves a long U-shaped pipe embedded in the ground into “hot” water reservoirs such as create geysers and hot springs. Then water is pumped down the pipe where it heats up, and is brought back to the surface very hot… in some cases, even as steam. The water remains in the pipe the whole time, and this is called a “closed” system. Yes, they work fantastically well, but have limited capacity, and fairly expensive to install.
Another closed-loop type system, or “earth-coupled” system, is used by air-conditioners and heat pumps, that use water as a cooling/heating medium, and use the ground as a heat sink but the water only changes a few degrees C during the trip underground, but it can significantly improve efficiency of the heat pump.
An “open system” is one where water is pumped underground and discharged out of the pipe and into the ground, where it is heated very hot, and then enters another pipe and is brought back to the surface. This is sometimes referred to as “hot fractured rock” system. This system is the one that has caused earthquakes.
December 12, 2009, 12:41 pmGordon Langston says:
RAM Energy is still pursuing geothermal leases in the Imperial Valley. We’re considering signing a lease with them at this moment. OTOH there is little talk of expansion here in Mammoth Lakes where there’s an operating Geothermal Plant.
December 12, 2009, 1:25 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Not to mention earthquakes.
There are always tradeoffs, and unintended consequences. Always. Nothing operates in a vaccuum – see windmills v. bats.
And it’s not enough to have good intentions, as UNICEF discovered when they sank drinking wells in Bangladesh to relieve infant mortality due to contaminated surface water, and ended up poisoning a whole bunch of people with naturally-occuring arsenic. You have to look at the big picture, and ask what positive and negative side effects are likely; work out a plan for measuring those, collect the data, and figure out whether the trade-off is worth it.
December 12, 2009, 1:26 pmJames N. Gibson says:
And the fact that has been missed by all this discussion is that all these ideas were tried back in the 70s under the Carter Administration only to either be abandoned or extensively cutback under Reagan. The Enviro types always felt that this was wrong and have worked all these years just to have the government try the idea again with our money. Has the tech changed any, “NO”; Just the party in power.
No even mentioned in all this is that when you bring up water from these deep hot spots its so filled with minerals it corrodes the pipes quickly. The outflow water then creates huge areas of mineral salts, like the dead-layer of land around the geysers at yellowstone. The Geysers at San Fran were mentioned in this but what of the facility south of LA at the Salton Sea. The dead area is huge and has been that way for decades. And both facilities are suffering from depletion of the hot water reservoir by extraction.
December 12, 2009, 1:33 pmABlast says:
@Laura(southernxyl):
Conventional geothermal heat pumps do no such thing. The number of Kcal of energy they transfer is minute compared to the heat capacity of the ground area involved. Millions of homes have earth-coupled (open and closed) heat pumps (including me).
Some massive, commercial energy generation facilities can affect subterranean temperatures slightly, but not a conventional geothermal heat pump as installed on millions of homes and businesses.
December 12, 2009, 1:42 pmHarry Eagar says:
Syd Henderson sez: ‘This project didn’t cost all that much considering the potential.’
That’s backward. Any project will real potential will cost a lot.
This approach will fail for the same reason ocean thermal energy conversion fails: The amount of heat you can get into water is small per volume. To get any considerable amount of work out, you have to move Amazons of water.
December 12, 2009, 1:47 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
ABlast, individual homes have solar energy that works just fine for them, too. I don’t think individual energy systems are what this post is about.
December 12, 2009, 2:02 pmSteve2 says:
Ah, thanks yall for the info. I knew geothermal power generation was used in Iceland, but I was sketchy on the details – and on the details of what’s been proposed in this country.
December 12, 2009, 3:41 pmdearieme says:
The Kiwis seem to make it work.
December 12, 2009, 3:42 pmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_New_Zealand
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December 12, 2009, 3:56 pmShane says:
Others have pointed out that private entities do invest in geothermal. But even if true, what does that say about anything? There are a lot of projects worth doing that wouldn’t exist without government funding and/or investment – highways, bridges, power plants (especially nuclear/hydro/geothermal), and just plain ordinary scientific research.
December 12, 2009, 5:41 pmpismoclam says:
Obamanation can just give Immelt, GE, and Acorn another 20 billion of ‘your’ money and they will solve the problem. Or better yet give them 40 billion just to be safe.
December 12, 2009, 6:40 pmJohn Moore says:
Sigh. Highways and bridges are part of the commons (these days). If government didn’t built them, they would still exist, btw, though arguably far fewer.
A lot of scientific research does seem to need government funding (with the resulting corruption as in “climate change
).
Power plants are built by companies for the most part.
December 12, 2009, 10:16 pmJoseph Somsel says:
I’ve been in the electricity business for over 30 years and geothermal is the single “alternative” source of power with any legitimacy and potential.
Not much potential, I’ll agree, but some. We could probably get a GW or so from Nevada to feed California if the wind boys hadn’t reserved the transmission capacity on the Pacific Intertie.
The type that AltaRock was pouring taxpayer money down a dry hole is “dry rock” gethermal. Fat chance. The heat is down there but as someone above noted, the successful projects use existing hot groundwater or steam to extract it. Pumping water down into a formation and expecting it to carry the heat back is asking for problems as the hot water dissolves all sorts of minerals (including arsenic) and usually clogs up the formations and the hardware.
We need to differentiate between geothermal to make electricity and “ground source” geothermal. The latter is for home use and requires only very small, normal temperature differences. It works well technically but is seldom cost effective. It just doesn’t pencil out for most home owners at current natural gas, fuel oil, or electricity prices. It can be used to save on air conditioning bills as well as home heating though.
Electrical geothermal is major infrastructure and big machines. To work it needs very rare geological circumstances and easy access to consumers.
December 12, 2009, 10:45 pmRicardo says:
The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. [emphasis added]
This is a bit much.
I’m aware there are some scientists who claim there is a correlation between drilling into the earth and seismic activity. Similar claims have been made about oil rigs in the past as well as a seismic monitoring station in Parkfield, CA. Some even claim the skyscraper Taipei 101 agitated an old fault line running underneath the city.
As far as I know, there is no rigorous proof of causation here and certainly those who consider themselves of a skeptical mindset (as in, say, “climate skeptics”) might want to reserve judgment.
December 12, 2009, 10:51 pmAllen says:
I worked for a power company in the regulatory accounting department. Our problem building power plants wasn’t capital, it was regulation. The permitting process is prohibitive, you can’t imagine how much overhead is involved in getting government permission to do anything. Nuclear and Coal are both very doable in private industry. hydro’s not practical because of the amount of land needed for a decent sized headwater. I do know of a few small power companies in Ky that are refitting old TVA dams with hydropower equipment to generate electricity, so it’s definately the headwater and not the equipment.
I know that couple of small Michigan communities self funded a fairly large bridge project in the 1970′s without federal help.
Some of the science the feds pay for are good and need federal funds, but really, unless the feds are paying for some research that they think can help them in the future, it’s a waste of money. Bell Labs kicked out better basic science than most fed programs do.
Overall, I don’t think we need the feds nearly as much as most people believe.
December 12, 2009, 11:08 pmNot My Leg says:
Built by? Yes. But surely you aren’t suggesting that private research funding led to the development of nuclear power.
December 12, 2009, 11:08 pmsecond history says:
Agreed, For 137 years the government has prohibited exploration and development on 2.2 million acres in most viable area for geothermal development. This area has geysers, hot springs, and mud pots. Overall, this area has the largest concentration of geyser systems in the world, yet it is off limits to energy development. The government should either lead in geothermal development of this area or get out of the way.
December 12, 2009, 11:33 pmfirst history says:
I am strongly in favor of nuclear development, only if the government doesn’t subsidize it through insurance caps and waste disposal.
December 12, 2009, 11:36 pmJohn Moore says:
Irrelevant. That research is now done.
December 13, 2009, 12:53 amDavid Sucher says:
I know that somme of the commenters here may be interested in facts; others clearly prefer wallowing in schadenfreude. (Btw that is not snark but fact.) Bsed on the lack of comment from Mr. Adler, I am not sure in which camp he pitches his tent.
For the former, reality-based readers, I offer:
“In Iceland, there are five major geothermal power plants which produce about 24% (2008) of the country’s electricity. In addition, geothermal heating meets the heating and hot water requirements for around 87% of the nation’s buildings.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland
I believe that at least one of Iceland’s geothermal providers is capitalist:
http://www.or.is/English/About/
As a resident of Seattle, and having lived with a public utility for the past 40 years, I can say that some public organizations work just fine. Ownership type does not determine or economic efficiency nor wishful-thinking (on either side) determine the feasibility of an energy source.
But clearly, and in big bold letters, GEOTHERMAL CAN WORK. I have been to the power plant. I was warmed by the heat and bathed in the hot water. The ‘trick’ is to figure out why, where, how it works and then go copy.
December 13, 2009, 6:00 amDavid Sucher says:
This post is based on unfair, (even unethical?), cherry-picking of quotes designed to further, I assume, a certain outcome. Anyone who reads farther down the article in NYT will learn that
“In fact, AltaRock immediately ran into snags with its drilling, repeatedly snapping off bits in shallow formations called caprock. The project’s safety was also under review at the Energy Department after federal officials said the company had not been entirely forthcoming about the earthquakes produced in Basel in making the case for the Geysers project.
“The results of that review have not yet been announced, but the type of geothermal energy explored in Basel and at the Geysers requires fracturing the bedrock then circulating water through the cracks to produce steam. By its nature, fracturing creates earthquakes, though most of them are small.” (italics added)
Maybe some of the problem with Alta Rock’s might have something to do with the technique of “fracturing the bedrock then circulating water through the cracks?” Or maybe the drillers were not experienced?
I have no idea but it seems a bit odd and premature to form any ideas about geothermal, much less dismiss it, based on this article.
December 13, 2009, 6:29 amDuracomm says:
David Sucher,
Iceland sits on top of a major volcanic hot spot that provides abundant heatflow, that is why geothermal works in Iceland.
Your link provided some information on that.
The fact that geothermal has been installed in Iceland shows that in areas where alternative energy works it will be installed because it provides an economic advantage over traditional forms of energy.
No government mandates or subsidies required.
Some additional information on the unique geology of Iceland.
Volcanism of Iceland
December 13, 2009, 8:51 amDavid Sucher says:
I highly recommend reading the NYT link.
One of the interesting facts in the article is that “In addition to a $6 million grant from the Energy Department, AltaRock had attracted some $30 million in venture capital from high-profile investors like Google, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.” (italics added)
I believe that “venture capital” is money from private investors. There is a 5:1 ratio of private to public money.
The project appears to have been done without without decisive government subsidy, beyond subsidies available to all capitalist enterprises in the USA, nor is there mention of government mandate.
December 13, 2009, 9:28 amBrett Bellmore says:
Works for me, if the government doesn’t ANTI-subsidize it through the tort system and endless regulatory changes.
December 13, 2009, 10:45 amHarry Eagar says:
David Sucher says geothermal works in Iceland. It produces 24% of the electricity, but he does not reveal the population of Iceland. About 250,000.
Whoop-te-do.
Geothermal produces about 30% of the electricity in Hawaii County, Hawaii. Population about 150,000.
That’s about as good as it’s going to get, too.
December 13, 2009, 12:43 pmJohn Moore says:
“Reality based” David Sucher writes:
…
I’ve been to Iceland also. It’s a very unusual place, with geothermal energy literally popping out of the ground (it is not unusual for a geyser to appear in someone’s basement, for example. So yeah, GEOTHERMAL CAN WORK, it the few extremely unusual places with special geological characteristics – and which also have very high oil costs (i.e. remote volcanic islands).
December 13, 2009, 12:59 pmBill Woods says:
In the US, the government doesn’t subsidize waste disposal; nuclear plants pay the government for the service (1 $/MW·h, IIRC). You may or may not consider Price-Anderson a subsidy, but so far the government hasn’t had to pay dime #1 in claims.
December 13, 2009, 2:35 pmuberVU - social comments says:
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Shane says:
Comparisons by population aren’t very useful in this context, though. Up here in Alaska our per-capita energy usage is quite high compared to say, San Francisco. Iceland has a lot of energy-intensive industry (e.g. aluminum smelting) because of its very low energy prices. Wikipedia says Iceland produced about 80 petajoules of energy from geothermal sources in 2004. Converting the DoE’s stat of 3,970,555 GWh of US electrical production in 2004 makes 14,294 petajoules. Iceland, with a population of about 1/1000 of America’s, produces enough geothermal power to meet 1/180 of our energy needs.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epates.html
Back on topic – geothermal will always be a niche industry with unique geological requirements. Hawaii and Iceland should be able to produce geothermal energy, and so should much of the Pacific Rim. And that’s fine. Nobody is advocating geothermal power generation where there isn’t significant geothermal activity. But we should always be exploring our options.
I think too many libertarians/conservatives have a knee jerk reaction against green energy sources because of the dirty hippies who like green energy. But there are plenty of reasons to invest in renewable energy (most of which happen to be green anyway), not the least of which is that fossil fuels are finite, and that extraction’s diminishing returns mean that fossil fuel costs will trend upwards for the forseeable future.
December 13, 2009, 4:17 pmSammy Finkelman says:
In other words: Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
December 13, 2009, 4:41 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Seriously, the project may have been abandoned because of fear it would cause earthquakes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/energy-environment/24geotherm.html
The one in Switzerkand apparently did trigger an earthquake on December 6, 2006.
We used to think that that kind of thing couldn’t happen, but it is logical – although I would think if so, maybe it might prevent a larger earthquake further in the future.
Here is some discussion:
http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/25/when-geothermal-energy-induces-earthquakes-readers-react/?scp=1&sq=earthquake%20geothermal%20iceland&st=cse
This is currennt news:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/science/earth/12quake.html?scp=1&sq=earthquake%20geothermal&st=cse
From here it seems like maybe it was more than the drilling was simply not successful.
December 13, 2009, 5:04 pmRicardo says:
Again, this is possible but I don’t see how anyone can assert this as fact. Earthquakes are random and extremely unpredictable. As I see it, all anyone can say is that there is an unknown probability that the project increased the risk of an earthquake. Without more data, I don’t see how it is possible to know for sure.
The article was sensationalist. It quoted a resident who lives near the Geysers expressing relief that the project was abandoned because of all the earthquakes he experiences. It fails to note that the Geysers sits almost directly on top of the Hayward Fault Zone. In the Bay Area, minor earthquakes are so routine they often fail to even make the news. Look at this seismic map of the Bay Area. See that place in the north-west where all the little dots are? That’s the Geysers. All those red lines are faults. It has always been very seismically active.
Moreover, as I pointed out above, it is not just geothermal that is believed by some to increase the risk of earthquakes. It is also dams (one in Maharashtra, India is blamed for an earthquake there in the 1960s), skyscrapers (like Taipei 101) and deep oilrigs. Do people wish to stop construction on all of the above or only on geothermal?
December 13, 2009, 8:40 pmFub says:
Heh. Far be it from me to call it a nicely subtle t-word, but definitely a chuckle.
December 13, 2009, 8:48 pmJohn Moore says:
Definite thread win!
December 13, 2009, 10:34 pmDavid Sucher says:
John Moore. I agree with your comment: Geothermal works in Iceland. It may not work other places.
December 13, 2009, 11:25 pmEAM says:
I live in the Imperial Valley, CA, and you’re all benefiting from my geothermal-powered words of wisdom right now. We have 15 active, profitable power plants operating in the Valley, and more are being constructed. Each plant plant has an average 50MW output. Incidentally, some of these power plants also extract minerals from the water they pump, notably silica and zinc.
The most productive field in the Salton Trough is in Mexico, however. The 600MW Cerro Prieto field (three power plants). There is very strong evidence that this facility also produces earthquakes, based on correlating seismic activity with large increases in water injection. Magnitude 5 shakes are not uncommon – I can feel them up here. I believe it was a 5.4 shake 6 months ago that knocked out the power and damaged a school in southern Mexicali, but in most cases no damage is reported.
The tectonics in this area are just too complex to say definitively that the wells are causing earthquakes. A safer bet would be that wells are one factor in the causation of shakes. And who’s to say it isn’t beneficial by relieving stresses that otherwise would result in larger earthquakes?
December 14, 2009, 1:50 pmGeothermal pipe supplies says:
This is definitely a disappointing set back, but hopefully not the end of the initiative.
December 31, 2009, 6:52 pmDismissing the potential of geothermal energy as “science fiction” is pretty cynical. The Internet we’re reading and commenting to was just a dream not that many years ago – and a US government project as well (ARPA Net I think).
Geothermal Heat Pumps says:
Government should help people for installing Geothermal Heat Pumps!
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