Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Praise Geo.

Subject:Re: April 26 Briefing - Renewable Gas, Hydropower, and Geothermal:
What is the role of these often overlooked renewable resources?
Date:Tue, 24 Apr 2012 19:39:36 -0400
From:Vane Lashua
To:ccooper@eesi.org

Ms. Cooper,
Your announcement arrived on the 18th, and I overlooked it. I could not have a ended the briefing anyway. I am a ending a conference (http://www.energy21symposium.org/ ) in Syracuse, NY, the evening of the 26th and all day the 27th.

Will the EESI program be streamed or recorded? I would very much appreciate a link.

Meanwhile ...

Often, as in the conference I am attending and below, the generic "renewables" is supposed to include bio-fuels, solar, wind, Geo and hydro! "Renewable" only works with library books.

What I'm most concerned about is that Geothermal power generation (Geo) is seldom recognized as the most cost-effective, least polluting, least resource-intensive AND most endurable alternative to nuclear, coal, gas, petroleum, wind and solar for base/regional power generation. Except for the negative environmental impacts of artificial reservoirs and its dependence on a continuous water resource, hydro is the only competitor to Geothermal.

That probably sounds like a baseless proposition if one were to base judgment on the truly baseless and dismissive assertion, "... the hot temperatures required for power generation are found primarily in the West", contained in your description of it and in most other summary assessments. Please don't take offense. The President, the Administration, Congress and most of the rest of us ignore or are innocently ignoring. Absurd coal, gas and oil commercials don't help: "America's Fuel: Clean Coal" or "Clean Gas" or "fulfilling the promise of energy independence" or "energy for the next 80 years".

Unfortunately there are no commercials for "unlimited power less than ten miles from everywhere on Earth" or "no GHGs, particulate free!" or "energy for the next billion years".

Once a Geo plant is established, everything except the wires are on-site. All generating equipment and processes are conventional and virtually identical with any other plant that boils water and turns a turbine.

"Fuel" is underfoot. Ownership can be private or public, self-supported authorities -- like water and sewage plants, toll roads, bridges or the Hoover Dam. Production of Geo is not based on direct or services-oriented income and profits from mining, drilling, refining, storage, transportation, re-storage, processing, burning, and trading commodities simply to boil water. The cost of the electricity produced through Geo is not based on markets.

Energy Independence? Every airport and every domestic military base could produce its own power and power its neighbors. Plants situated on public lands (even Interstate rights-of-way) could provide most of our needs. And don't let Halliburton, Exxon, BP or any of the others to tell you, "It's too deep" ... they drill to the required depths regularly. Can't the drilling cause earthquakes? Think about highway and subway tunnels, aqueducts and ... oil and gas wells all over the world.

There is no, one alternative for our energy needs, but for regional/base electrical power supply, there is none better than Geo.

Please pass along my comments, if you would, and see http://thnktnk.net/drill.html (for references) and/or http://thnktnk.net/RachelMaddow.html (policy).

Praise Geo,