Geothermal power plant coming to southern NM

[jpak]

http://www.lcsun-news.com/ci_10277640

Gov. Bill Richardson says New Mexico is getting its first major commercial geothermal power plant.

Richardson says Provo, Utah-based Raser Technologies will build the plant near Animas. It will produce 10 megawatts of renewable energy, which is enough to power about 8,000 homes.

Eventually the plant will produce up to 25 megawatts of power, enough to supply nearly 15,000 homes with energy.

<not much more>

[madokie]

1. I sure like the idea of geo-thermal

My question to those who would know. Why is geo-thermal not used on a much larger scale than it is today? What is the down side?

[kristopher]

2. 1) High initial costs 2) siting options limited by geography

However, that is in the context of of cheap coal and portable fossil fuels.

The renewable grid goes to the locations of the energy resources (hydro, wind geothermal) and transports the energy as electricity, the fossil grid transports the energy as fossil fuels to the vicinity of the end user and converts it to electricity there. This is, of course, speaking in very general terms with many exceptions on both sides.

[madokie]

3. On the higher initial cost is it so high as to make them not a good investment

I mean the fuel is free for the taking isn't it? So shouldn't that be figured in somewhere when the decisions are made as to build them or not? I haven't given much thought to the fact that our electrical energy is not only coming to us by way of wires but also, in coal power plants case, by rail. Our local power plants get their fuel from Wyoming so would it be cheaper or wiser to build a grid so as to put the power plants closer to the source of the fuel and ship us electricity directly rather than indirectly by train? Which method of getting electricity to my outlets incures the higher cost in the long run? As you can see there is many questions and seemingly very few hard answers.

[izquierdista]

4. Not necessarily higher

A steam turbine is a steam turbine is a steam turbine. And you are right, hooking up a pipe from a well up to a steam turbine should be less expensive than fueling, firing and maintaining boilers.

Geothermal sources tend to be in mountainous areas with lots of fault lines. Nevada with its 300 mountain ranges is probably the state with the most geothermal potential (map at http://geoheat.oit.edu/dusys.htm).

What really makes sense is to use whatever type of energy is available locally and NOT think about using the grid to ship it across the country. Solar in Arizona, geothermal in Nevada, wind in North Dakota, kudzu for biomass in Georgia, every part of the country has some local possibility to develop.

[madokie]

5. I like the idea of using whats locally available as much as possible

using a grid to supply a base load only. The wind doesn't always blow, sun doesn't always shine etc so we have to have something that is always working for those times. Plus by all of us connected to a grid it looks to me like we could utilize our local plants more efficiently in giving them a place to sell the excess they may be producing at any given time. I think for it to work we have to have some big assed plants somewhere producing huge amounts of electricity on a 24/7 bases.

heres a different map that pretty much shows the same as the one you have except it shows we have a fair chance of geothermal here in northeast OK.



http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/renewable_energy_basics/offmen-how-geothermal-energy-works.html