Congratulations, Ed /Poughkeepsie Journal

Ed Brancati, District Director, Office of Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney

Dear Ed,
Congratulations and best wishes for continuing your exceptional devotion to public service from an old Goldens Bridge neighbor! I hope you and your family are well. I want you to know about a special devotion of mine that I've shared with, among many others, Congressman Maloney and others on your staff -- Enhanced Geothermal Systems.

I've begun recruiting support and exploring how to proceed with a "marketing effort" (can you tell?) for a project I've come to believe not only is possible but should be at the top of our national economic, energy and environmental priorities. Its product and results can't and won't happen overnight. The sooner we begin, though, we can accelerate a sensible and economically sound transformation in our method of generation of base-load electricity and replacement of our suicidal burning of commodities. EGS, along with conventional geothermal, is an obvious, working alternative with literally unlimited, pollution-free potential. The MIT report mentioned below was sponsored by the DOE in 2006, its results recently confirmed by another study.

Here's a brief description from a Poughkeepsie Journal article promoting my presentation at the first of this year's environmental evenings at the Beacon Sloop Club (Friday, January 18 at 7 pm)

"Vane Lashua, a member of the Geothermal Energy Association, will speak on direct electricity generation from deep geothermal energy. A team from MIT [in collaboration with a number of government, business and academic institutions] has estimated that such systems could supply more than 2,000 times the total annual energy use of the United States. Existing geothermal and enhanced geothermal systems generate no greenhouse gases, use only the heat of the earth from directly beneath the facilities to generate electricity, use conventional turbine generation above ground and feed the existing electrical grid. Technical and economic challenges still exist for this emerging technology. Lashua will discuss the need for a national effort similar to the Apollo program to refine and develop new techniques to reach the unlimited and pollution-free resource within 10 miles of everywhere on Earth — straight down."
http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20130113/NEWS04/301130023

I look forward to seeing you in the office and discussing how best to move ahead.

Sincerely,
Vane