AltEnToday

In tomorrow’s energy landscape, it appears clear that a “portfolio” approach will be the ideal way to balance resource availability, fluctuating demand, and economic realities. Beyond solar (which is one of my key focuses), other clean and renewable energy options are available - and one of the most appealing sources for baseload power may be Geothermal.

Geothermal doesn’t suffer from the shortfalls of wind (well, the wind must blow) or solar (the sun must shine). The Earth’s internal heat may be an obvious source for energy. Geothermal also has the potential to supply more power than such passive energy siphoning techniques such as tidal (or wave-energy).

The SJ Mercury News had an interesting article in their May 27th issue titled Geothermal sites the new hotspots for Oregon power. I did a little further digging in to the standards that Oregon has set up to mandate some of these changes - and there’s some substantial working groups attempting to solve these issues. Take a look at the PDF doc of tasks laid out before each group to try to find the right renwable energy portfolio solution. Some of the highlights include:

• Workforce development in Oregon for Solar technicians at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR
• The Federal assistance program to develop Geothermal power plants was abandoned in 2007, leaving Oregon unable to publicly-fund new projects & site research
• There’s a failure in the leasing structure of potential geothermal spots - leases must be renewed every 2 years, and if they’re on federal land in the state of Oregon - this can mean that a working geothermal / geological team could be shifted off the leased land, even if they make a discovery!

Also courtesy of the article in the Merc was the reference to a company called Raser Technologies - which is involved in developing Geothermal sites in the Oregon / Idaho / Utah areas (and likely beyond). They have an interesting video worth watching featuring Dr. Joseph Moore, a research professor at the University of Utah that provides a good description of geothermal and how it might impact our future. The real question is, can we get Geothermal energy at an affordable and predictable level so that it can provide a portion of our baseload energy? I’ll keep searching for the answer to that!