Geothermal energy

Washington Post:

Ferdinand Marcos, the despot who ruled here for 21 years, is remembered mainly for the staggering quantity of his wife's shoes. But there is another Marcos legacy, and it is drawing new attention at a time of high oil prices, global warming and urgent questions about the role of government in alternative energy development.

Reacting to the early 1970s oil shock, Marcos created a major government program to find, develop and generate electricity from hot rocks deep in the ground. Since then, the Philippine government has championed this form of energy.

Geothermal power now accounts for about 28 percent of the electricity generated in the Philippines. With 90 million people, about 40 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day, this country has become the world's largest consumer of electricity from geothermal sources. Billions of dollars have been saved here because of reduced need for imported oil and coal.

"Goes to show that things aren't always the way we might expect," said Roland N. Horne, a Stanford University expert on geothermal power who has visited this country more than 20 times. "The Philippines would be in hugely worse shape without geothermal as an indigenous energy source."

In installed geothermal power capacity, the country ranks No. 2 in the world, narrowly trailing the United States, which has far more geothermal potential, far more engineering talent and far greater demand for clean sustainable power.

But unlike in the Philippines, government policy in the United States has been inconsistent. In 2006, the Bush administration cut most geothermal spending -- federal programs that received as much as $100 million a year in the 1980s shrank to $5 million. Research projects were dismantled. Scientists in the field had to find other jobs.

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As oil and coal prices soared in the past year, and as popular demand increased for alternative energy sources, the Bush administration rediscovered geothermal. It has proposed spending $90 million over three years on research.

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At early stages of development, geothermal energy has historically been dependent in most countries on high-risk, long-term investment made by governments, not private companies.

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In a report released this week, the U.S. Geological Survey reassessed the potential for this kind of energy in the United States. It examined 13 Western states, from California to Colorado, Washington to New Mexico, that sit atop a hot geologic zone that is often called the Pacific Ring of Fire. It encircles the Pacific Ocean and includes the Philippines, as well as Indonesia, Japan and several other countries in East Asia.

In the American West, power production from already identified geothermal fields could increase more than 2 1/2 times, the report said.

But new geothermal technology -- which injects water into fractured rock to mine heat -- raises the possibility that small geothermal power plants could be built all over the West. If this technology continues to advance, the Geological Survey report said, there is enough accessible public and private land in the 13 Western states to supply about half the electricity now generated in the United States.

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The United States has the world's largest geothermal resource, the Geysers, 72 miles north of San Francisco. But it has not been nearly as well managed as Leyte, according to Horne and other experts.

From the 1960s to the early 1980s, the Geysers was a kind of Wild West show of multiple owners racing to tap steam before the others did. Lacking federal or state regulation, the Geysers spawned 15 years of lawsuits among the owners. Consolidation of ownership and tighter regulation have since resolved many of the problems, but not before the sustainable power-generating capacity of the field was reduced.

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There is more. curiously the story does not mention Iceland which gets most of its energy from geothermal sources. I suspect the own again off again nature of the development in the US has to do with cost benefit analysis. There are probably times when it is not economic to use it.

I don't think there is any political objections to the process by either side, but the story tries to imply that Obama favors it and McCain does not. That argument does not make any sense when you consider that McCain's energy program is an "all of the above" approach which makes much more sense than Obama's selective list of favorites.

It should be noted that President Bush's house in Crawford uses a geothermal heat pump for heating and cooling. He obviously knows the advantages of the system. I looked at that alternative when I was building my house and at the time it cost so much more that it would take over 20 years to payback the added investment. With the increasing cost of energy that payback period has probably shrunk.

The environmental objection to geothermal with probably focus on the use of water. The environmentalist always find a reason to oppose any form of energy.