Old Crock, whats your deal, you forget this entire thread, too much pot smoke out there on the left coast or are fucking with me. I got to scratch my head and wonder if your an idiot are you just have to get the last word in. So this again proves Old Crock goes off half cocked and for fun I will respond once again by this time I will simply qoute the same article with no cherry picking of the article. Old Crock, boy are you dumb, next time you post something Old Crock you should not be so lazy and read the whole article, or maybe you should use the scroll bar, on the right of the window, its used to scroll to writing and words that dont fit on your computer screen.
So to help I will post the entire first page of Old Crocks article, first old crocks original cheery picked paragraph.
It would seem, according to this article in the Scientific American, that Geothermal is shaping up to be our cheapest source of energy. Clean, cheap, and 24/7.
Can Geothermal Power Compete with Coal on Price?: Scientific American
Although the environmental benefits of burning less fossil fuel by using renewable sources of energy—such as geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind—are clear, there's been a serious roadblock in their adoption: cost per kilowatt-hour.
That barrier may be opening, however—at least for one of these sources. Two recent reports, among others, suggest that geothermal may actually be cheaper than every other source, including coal. Geothermal power plants work by pumping hot water from deep beneath Earth's surface, which can either be used to turn steam turbines directly or to heat a second, more volatile liquid such as isobutane (which then turns a steam turbine).
Now the whole 1st page of old crocks article.
Although the environmental benefits of burning less fossil fuel by using renewable sources of energy—such as geothermal, hydropower, solar and wind—are clear, there's been a serious roadblock in their adoption: cost per kilowatt-hour.
That barrier may be opening, however—at least for one of these sources. Two recent reports, among others, suggest that geothermal may actually be cheaper than every other source, including coal. Geothermal power plants work by pumping hot water from deep beneath Earth's surface, which can either be used to turn steam turbines directly or to heat a second, more volatile liquid such as isobutane (which then turns a steam turbine).
Combine a new U.S. president pushing a stimulus package that includes $28 billion in direct subsidies for renewable energy with another $13 billion for research and development, and the picture for renewable energy—geothermal power among the options—is brightening. The newest report, from international investment bank Credit Suisse, says geothermal power costs 3.6 cents per kilowatt-hour, versus 5.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for coal.
That does not mean companies are rushing to build geothermal plants: There are a number of assumptions in the geothermal figure. First, there are the tax incentives, which save about 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour. Those won't necessarily last forever, however—although the stimulus bill extended them through 2013.
Second, the Credit Suisse analysis relied on what is called the "levelized [sic] cost of energy," or the total cost to produce a given unit of energy. Embedded within this figure is an assumption that the money to build a new geothermal plant is available at reasonable interest rates—on the order of 8 percent.
In today's economic climate, that just isn't the case. "In general, there is financing out there for geothermal, but it's difficult to get and it's expensive," Geothermal Energy Association director Karl Gawell told ScientificAmerican.com recently. "You have to have a really premium project to get even credit card interest rates."
That means very high up-front costs. As a result, companies are more likely to spend money on things with lower front-end costs, like natural gas–powered plants, which are cheap to build but relatively expensive to operate because of the cost of the fuel needed to run them.
"Natural gas is popular for this reason," says Kevin Kitz, an engineer at Boise, Idaho–based U.S. Geothermal, Inc, which owns and operates three geothermal sites. "It has a low capital cost, and even if you project cost of natural gas to be high in future, if you use a high [interest rate in your model] that doesn't matter very much."
Natural gas, which came in at 5.2 cents per kilowatt-hour in the analysis, is also popular because it can be deployed anywhere, whereas only 13 U.S. states have identified geothermal resources. Although this limits the scalability of geothermal power, a 2008 survey by the U.S. Geological Survey estimates that the U.S. possesses 40,000 megawatts of geothermal energy that could be exploited using today's technology. (For comparison, the average coal-fired power plant in the U.S. has a capacity of more than 500 MW.)
Old Crock's article explains that the Credit Suisse report is flawed, that geothermal is more expensive than stated, so thanks old crock.
OLD CROCK PROVES GEOTHERMAL IS TOO EXPENSIVE.
There is something wrong with devoloping geothermal, one it is expensive, two exenspensive equals disproportunate use of earths natural resources to develop, extremely polluting.
Quick note on pollution, while I searched for informaiton on this most articles and a lot of reports are very specific in refering to "emissions" as in air emissions. Very few speak of the solid toxic waste that is produced. A second point is almost all the reports speak of emmissions at the plant, the well head is not included as part of a plant but remember each plant is unique so this is not true of every plant. A third point is that the majority of the reports does not mention normal maintenance when the plant is not operating, each plant must be shutdown and have systems inspected, repaired, and cleaned, scheduled maitenance. Fourth no mention is made of un-scheduled maintence, no mention of emmisions at the well head, no mention of emmissions when pipes burst and systems fail.
There is a reason not to develop geothermal energy, Geothermal is a mature technology developed and refined over a hundred years, the first geothermal power plant was built 100 hears ago.
There is not much if anything else to know, you sink a well with the same rig used for oil, pump deadly toxic brine to the earth, flash the steam in a heat exchanger and drive a turbine.
Geothermal brine destroys all it touches and that makes geothermal use 1000's of tons of steel pipes, the energy used to smelt steel is not renewable hence a geothermal plant needs fossil fuel to supply new pipes on a daily basis, the work never ends, constantly replacing miles of pipes.
Geothermal is not renewable, its expensive, polluting, and a tired old form of energy.
