Go to my July 8, 2010 article “Ghosts Haunt Brown?” at Calwatchdog. There you will find the buried story of how Gov. Brown at the end of his first terms as Governor wanted a legacy and floated something like $250 million in bonds to build two geothermal power plants with the state as developer. After building the first plant, called Bottle Rock, the plant lost water pressure and could not generate enough power to make the plant economically feasible. Brown was stuck with a “ghost plant,” an albatross, a white elephant or whatever you want to call it. But he had to have it buried. So the Metro Water District of Southern California quietly picked up the payments on the bonds and is still making those payments today. Then a few years ago some developers got the idea to restart Bottle Rock power plant by infusing it with the waste water from the City of Santa Rosa. So Bottle Rock is operating today but needs imported water. Moral of story: it is very risky for government to get into the geothermal or renewable energy business. But that is what Community Choice Aggregators like CleanPowerSF, Marin Clean Energy, and others precisely want to do. If PG&E fails at a geothermal power project its stockholders take most of the loss. If a Community Choice Aggregator fails at power plant development its customers take the hit. That is why I wrote this article. Thanks for commenting.

Thanks Wayne. I didn’t know about the treated effluent pipeline. Certainly the business ins and outs of the geothermal business are at least as complicated as solar and wind, with which there are additional tax code incentives/disincentives that muddy the water. I do know that the use of geothermal power goes back to the advent of electricity, the early 20 th century. I also know that while geothermal development is costly, so is conventional gas and petroleum drilling, its just that these energy forms give a faster payback. Geothermal wells can be designed in closed loops (as in Germany), they can incorporate molten sodium metal as the heat exchanger, its just that cheapest design is often a hot rock open system: either tapping into natural supplies of hot water/steam, which are eventually depleted, or pumping cool water down, hot water/steam up. In other words, geothermal development in the USA is presently doomed by our short-term financial fixation. Iceland, as I’m sure you know, runs entirely on geothermal. The west has some of the most abundant geothermal resources on earth, considered the equal or better of those in Iceland, but IMHO we are culturally unable to wrap our minds around it. It isn’t ‘big’ engineering like nuclear, or fast payback like oil and gas……

Those who falsely believe fracking uses up groundwater should also understand that geothermal power depletes water resources when the well runs dry.

Geothermal power development is very risky with about two thirds of drilling explorations resulting in dry holes.

Read below from Wikipedia:

In 1960, Pacific Gas and Electric began operation of their 11-megawatt plant at the Geysers.[8] The original turbine lasted for more than 30 years and produced 11 MW net power.[9]

By 1999 the steam to power extraction had begun to deplete the Geysers steam field and production began to drop.[2] However, since October 16, 1997, the Geysers steam field has been recharged by injection of treated sewage effluent, producing approximately 77 megawatts of capacity in 2004.[10] The effluent is piped up to 50 miles (80 km) from its source at the Lake County Sanitation waste water treatment plants and added to the Geysers steam field via geothermal injection.[10] In 2004, 85% of the effluent produced by four waste-water treatment plants serving 10 Lake County communities was diverted to the Geysers steam field.[10] Injecting treated water into the Geysers field increases the amount of power that can be generated.[10]

The injection of wastewater to the Geysers protects local waterways and Clear Lake by diverting effluent which used to be put into surface waters,[10] and has produced electricity without releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.[2]
Power plants at the Geysers are of the dry steam power plant type, where the steam directly powers the generator.[4]

In general, the Geysers has1517 MW[13] of active installed capacity with an average production factor of 63% (955 MW).[14]

In 2013, Calpine Corporation operated 19 plants in 2004[15] but only 15 in 2013[16] of nearly two dozen active plants in the Geysers. Two other plants are owned jointly by the Northern California Power Agency and the City of Santa Clara’s municipal Electric Utility (now called Silicon Valley Power). The Bottle Rock Power plant owned by the U.S. Renewables Group was reopened in 2007.[17] In July 2009, AltaRock Energy planned to drill more than 2 miles (3.2 km) down to create an “enhanced geothermal” project which was abandoned when federal agencies asked for review.[2] Another plant was under development by Ram Power Corporation, formerly Western Geopower, in 2010, but after Ram Power lost both its CEO and CFO in 2013, it was seeking a buyer for its Geysers property.[18]

Everyone: it is called GEOTHERMAL POWER. It exists. It can be installed almost anywhere on the surface of the earth, and no, it does not require fracking or always cause earthquakes. It is demonstrably cleaner and greener and more reliable than solar or wind.