EnergyBlogs.com

Pushing Frontiers of Geothermal

Posted At : July 18, 2008 12:14 PM | Posted By : Martin Rosenberg
Related Categories: General, Renewables, Technology, Energy Efficiency

Open letter to MIT professor, a leading expert on the promise of geothermal power.

Dear Jefferson Tester,

I read with interest the piece on your geothermal research in the June 21 issue of The Economist.

Intriguing was the statement that an investment of $1 billion a year for 15 years would lead to development of 100,000 megawatts of economically-priced geothermal power in the United States by 2050.

Would you be interested in elaborating on what needs to be done to reach that goal – by Congress, power companies, researchers?

Sincerely,

Martin Rosenberg

Editor

EnergyBiz

100,000 megawatts if a lot of power. When guys like Tester make pronouncements like this, is their anyone in the federal government, or in the utility sector listening and asking probing questions? Stay tuned.

379 Views

3 Comments

Add Comment

Author Bio

Send

Report This Post as Foul/Inappropriate

Add Comment

This simple arithmetic on this is:
15yrs x $1b = $15b
So, the cost per MW would be $15b/100,000MW = $150,000/MW or $150/KW
Isn't this a trifle unrealistic? If true, why are we even considering wind, or anything else for that matter?

# Posted By James Carson | 7/22/08 12:48 PM | Report This Comment as Foul/Inappropriate

Again, the downside of geothermal power is much the same as burning petroleum or coal; the inevitable release of mineral contamination as an undesirable byproduct of power generation. If the problem of environmental contamination from exploiting geothermal power could be solved, it would be like having your cake and eating it...repeatedly.

# Posted By William Norquay | 7/22/08 1:52 PM | Report This Comment as Foul/Inappropriate

I immediately went to my copy of "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (Dr. Jefferson W. Tester, et al, MIT 2006) hoping to find at least some of your answers.

100,000 MW of installed geothermal is mentioned as an upper limit in several charts and figures. I would say we can assume this figure to be correct. What is suspect, however, is the $1 billion per year for 15 years. My guess is the investment stated would be closer to $10 billion per year or, for a lower monetary amount, the timeframe would have to stretch out way beyond 15 years. And this would assume an average cost of $1.5 million/MW installed – dirt cheap by today's standards and somewhat unrealistic when one takes into account the associated drilling costs.

So, there is probably a typo somewhere in here. In any event, Dr Tester and the other members of the crew have all been very helpful to me in the past I am sure you will get a satisfactory answer from them.

# Posted By Alan Belcher | 7/22/08 3:03 PM | Report This Comment as Foul/Inappropriate

Add Comment