A combination of hot rocks and water like those that created Yellowstone's geysers have been tapped by the city of Klamath Falls, Oregon to heat down town buildings, kettles at brewhouse, greenhouses, side walks and keep the lights on at a college campus.
Geothermal wells in this town of 20,000 mark one of the nation's most ambitious uses of a green energy resource with tiny carbon footprint, and could serve as a model for a still-fledgling industry that is gaining steam with $338 million in stimulus funds and more than 100 projects nationwide.
"We did not know it was green. It made sense," said City Manager Jeff Ball.
Geothermal energy accounts for 0.5 percent of the nation's energy production.Northern California is home to the world's largest geothermal power complex. The Geysers, 75 miles north of San Francisco, produces enough electricity for 75,000 homes.
With stimulus grants and venture capitalists investments, geothermal energy could turn from a Western curiosity to a game-changing energy resource.
Until now, geothermal energy has been limited by having to find the three essential ingredients occurring together in one place naturally: hot rock relatively close to the surface,water, and cracks in the rock that serve as a reservoir.
Those limitations go away if engineers can tame a technology known as EGS, for Enhanced Geothermal Systems.
A 2007 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report estimates that EGS, with support, could be producing 100 gigawatts of electricity - equivalent to 1,000 coal-fired or nuclear plants - by 2050, and has the potential to generate a large fraction of the nation's energy needs for centuries to come.
Federal funding for geothermal started during the 1970s Arab oil embargo, waned when oil prices subsided, and essentially stopped around the year 2000, Majer said.
With interest growing in energy with tiny carbon footprint, the Obama administration revived support for geothermal energy. Department of Energy, is funding 123 demonstration projects in 38 states with stimulus funds. Projects include home heat pumps, power plants, rock fracturing, exploration and underground mapping.
Source: Jeff Barnard, Associated Pre
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