geothermal energy

As speculated about in June, the US Department of Interior has indeed announced plans to free up 197 million acres of federal land in 11 western states plus Alaska for geothermal energy development. The initiative, says the agency

could increase electric generation capacity from geothermal resources ten times over.

Some 118 million acres would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The remaining 79 million acres would be under the National Forest System.

All of it will be available for geothermal leasing for the first time ever -- just as soon as the 12 US governors sign off on the plan and the BLM issues its "Record of Decision."

Google likes to tout Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) as "the sleeping giant" of clean power. The United States Geological Survey (USGS), it seems, would wholeheartedly agree.

This week, USGS scientists released the agency’s first assessment in more than 30 years of the electric power generation potential of the nation’s geothermal resource.

What'd they find?

If developed, geothermal could generate 556,890 MW of electricity in the United States. That’s more than 200 times the installed geothermal capacity in the nation today, which stands at 2,500 MW.

The Economist touches on something big in its cover story on clean energy this week: "geothermal could be hot."

From the piece:

"The recoverable heat in rock under the United States is the equivalent of 2,000 years-worth of the country’s current energy consumption."

Yes! The MIT researchers that crunched those numbers have been beating this drum for a while. (And so have we.)

And now for a related and interesting progress report.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service have just initiated a public comment period on their draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for geothermal leasing all over the American West, including Alaska.

When Warren Buffet, the most famous investor and richest person on Earth, makes an investment move, people take notice.

Or at least they should.

So get this: Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway has been investing big in geothermal energy.

He’s doing it through CalEnergy, a utility operating ten geothermal plants in Southern California.