Like the natural gas sector, which has experienced an incredible boom due to new drilling techniques that allow companies to cost-effectively access unconventional gas, the geothermal sector is going through a renaissance that may open up a vast new set of resources.
Traditional utility-scale geothermal, often called hydrothermal, utilizes hot water or direct steam beneath the earth to run a turbine and generate electricity. While there’s only about 11 GW of capacity built around the world (the PV industry built 17 GW in 2010 alone), the actual electricity generation from these baseload plants typically doubles the output from an equivalent wind or solar project.The U.S. Geological survey estimates that there are about 35 GW of hydrothermal resources left to harness in America with the potential to provide around 3% of the nation’s electricity. Last year, two researchers published a paper in the Journal of Energy Policy suggesting that the world could get about 4 percent of its electricity from traditional geothermal by 2030.
However, when looking at so-called “unconventional” resources, the potential is far greater. There are three main kinds of unconventional resources: Enhanced or Engineered Geothermal Systems (EGS); geothermal co-production; and geo-pressured systems. By collectively harnessing these resources, we could feasibly get hundreds of GW of projects online, which some geothermal supporters suggest may supply upwards of 20% of the world’s electricity.
http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/23/five-hot-rockin-geothermal-companies/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29
