Issue: Because conventional sources of energy — gas, oil, coal — are becoming costlier, harder to get at and less socially and politically attractive, demand for alternative energy is on the rise.
Shift: Develop clean, reliable and affordable energy by harnessing the natural power of volcanoes.
There are two things you should know about molten rock: It’s hot, and it can power your home.
Geothermal energy, which has been around for more than a century, generates power by using the steam produced when water meets magma to turn turbines. In places where volcanoes riddle the countryside, geothermal may be the answer to our energy needs.
A few facts about geothermal energy:
- It’s clean: Geothermal plants emit around one-eighth the amount of carbon clean-coal technology does and don’t produce a hazardous byproduct (like nuclear power does).
- It’s reliable: Unlike solar and wind, geothermal energy isn’t subject to the whims of weather — rain or shine, windy or calm, you can count on molten rock being hot.
- It’s renewable: Unlike coal, natural gas and oil, there is no depletion of a finite resource taking place because the Earth’s mantle isn’t going to cool any time soon. (And if it does, we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands than where we’re going to get our next energy fix.)
Another upshot: It’s cheap. While initial construction costs are high, the investment is offset by the fact that the plants are easy to maintain and require no fuel, making geothermal energy cost competitive with coal technology on a per-kilowatt basis.
And it’s abundant. While not all of Canada is suited to the development of geothermal energy, parts of Canada sitting near the earthquake- and volcano-prone “Ring of Fire” — Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories and Yukon — could easily meet our country’s energy needs, according to a 322-page report recently published by the federal Geological Survey of Canada.
“Canada’s in-place geothermal power exceeds one million times Canada’s current electrical consumption,” the report says.
So why has geothermal energy only recently begun gaining traction in the mainstream?
John McIlveen, an analyst for Jacob Securities, explains:
Oil and gas, mining, utilities — they’re all circling geothermal. However, these companies are generally loaded with … engineers that don’t know anything about geothermal, and the last person to try something before it’s really proven is an engineer…. They realize the attraction of geothermal being the only base-load (steady-flow) renewable power. I think eventually you’ll see many of them entering this field, and so Enbridge being the first, I think, was a really good sign.
Aside from Enbridge Inc., which spent $23.8-million for a 20 percent stake in U.S. Geothermal’s Neal Hot Springs project in Oregon last year, there are several other Canadian players in the burgeoning geothermal game, including Magma Energy Corp, Canada’s largest geothermal company.
In the video below, Reuters reports on Israeli-owned Ormat Technologies Inc.’s geothermal power projects in Guatemala.