Geothermal Project in California Is Shut Down Because of Increased Earthquake Activity

[steven johnson]

Earthquakes take the fun out of free energy.

The company in charge of a California project to extract vast amounts of renewable energy from deep, hot bedrock has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.

The project by the company, AltaRock Energy, was the Obama administration’s first major test of geothermal energy as a significant alternative to fossil fuels and the project was being financed with federal Department of Energy money at a site about 100 miles north of San Francisco called the Geysers.

But on Friday, the Energy Department said that AltaRock had given notice this week that “it will not be continuing work at the Geysers” as part of the agency’s geothermal development program.

The project’s apparent collapse comes a day after Swiss government officials permanently shut down a similar project in Basel, because of the damaging earthquakes it produced in 2006 and 2007. Taken together, the two setbacks could change the direction of the Obama administration’s geothermal program, which had raised hopes that the earth’s bedrock could be quickly tapped as a clean and almost limitless energy source.

Geothermal Project in California Is Shut Down

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Bummer

[FreakinDJ]

2. This has got be some kind of scam

California has some of the Largest Energy Producing Geo-Thermal Steam Fields in the World. I know - I helped build many of those power plants.

Yes very small earth quakes (2.0 - 3.2) are common. Lets face it, your playing around with an active Magma pocket. But much more daring Geo-Thermal Projects have been successfully performed. Layette Philippines - tapped an active volcano's steam for Geo-Thermal Power Generation.

The Technology is there and it has been working for decades

[Warpy]

3. Agreed, somebody with big coal or big oil threatened a lawsuit

Geothermal energy has been working in Iceland for decades. They use it for everything from generating power to heating homes and growing food in greenhouses.

There is no problem with the technology. The problem lies with old rich men and their platoons of rabid lawyers.

[FreakinDJ]

4. Finally read the whole article - it wasn't about the Earthquakes

They were using Stimulus money to try and develop New Deep Well Drilling Technology. Unfortunately for them it didn't work.

You have to remember Hard Rock Drilling Technology has created HUGE Fortunes and Empires

Howard Hughes Tool Company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_Tool_Company

BTW: here is a link of recent earth quake activity - Its always the same there at the geysers

http://quake.usgs.gov/recenteqs/Maps/123-39.htm

[bananas]

5. Yup, mostly venture capital money though

In addition to a $6 million grant from the Energy Department, AltaRock had attracted some $30 million in venture capital from high-profile investors like Google, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

“Some of these startup companies got out in front and convinced some venture capitalists that they were very close to commercial deployment,” said Daniel P. Schrag, a professor of geology and director of the Center for the Environment at Harvard University.

Geothermal enthusiasts asserted that drilling miles into hard rock, as required by the technique, could be done quickly and economically with small improvements in existing methods, Professor Schrag said. “What we’ve discovered is that it’s harder to make those improvements than some people believed,” he added.

[madokie]

6. You can bet your ass that it is a scam

sorry bastids anyway