U.S. Geothermal built the first modern geothermal power plant in Idaho and has never really recovered from the gold-digging by Goldman-Sachs. Goldman has gained international acclaim for its financing methods so you might have missed the hurt it laid on a geothermal power start-up.
The juice racketeers in the old days got a call when nobody else would lend. Their no-neck collectors had methods for collecting the juice that beat the heck out of lawyers and courts, not to mention borrowers.
Goldman and cohorts have somewhat more refined methods today but no less effective for those trying to develop the most potent of all renewable energy resources. Even Al Gore recognizes that simple fact though few of his idolizers seem to.
Why is Ram Power, a geothermal power company, headquartered in Reno and incorporated in Canada? Why does US Geothermal Power, incorporated in the U.S., still raise money in Canada? Why is the premiere geothermal company in the U.S., Ormat, an Israeli company?
Bob Potter is why.
Article: EGS could take geothermal power mainstream
Mighty fine that, but why isn't conventional geothermal power mainstream now? B. C. McCabe and his Magma Power gave the U.S. a giant headstart way back in the 1950's when they brought in The Geysers, still the largest geothermal field in the world after decades of vampire management subsequent to Unocal's hostile takeover.
Bob Potter is why.
It's not that Bob Potter doesn't mean well.
Bob Potter – the brain behind geothermal drilling technology firm Potter Drilling – named as Green Entrepreneur of the Year by the San Francisco Business Times.
Bob Potter has been behind lots of stuff:
"Bob Potter’s scientific career began working on the first atomic bomb..."
That's when Bob Potter was into hurting enemies. And some hurt he did.
Bad Bob didn't do that alone but he did this almost single-handed:
Potter co-authored the patent on the creation of geothermal reservoirsin hot dry rock, which was tested in the mountains outside Los Alamos inthe 1970s and 1980s. All modern-day work on engineered geothermal systems are based on this original work.
And decades later we are still putting big bucks into EGS while low-hanging fruit is there for the picking. Some geothermal power doesn't even require drilling.
Maybe in another century or two or millenium or two we will have figured out how to create synthetic aquifers economically at great depths in granite. Maybe even sooner. But for now the only really promising avenue seems to be stimulating natural aquifers such as those at Desert Peak near Reno.
Potter Drilling's website is mainly singing the decades-old tune about creating reservoirs in hot dry rock:
With the fast expanding definition of EGS, like the DLC's amorphous middle class that encompasses everything from millionaires to homeless paupers, there may be some hope yet for even oil wells finding a use for all that hot water besides Steven Chu.
Thanks, Bob. BP couldn't have done it without you and some other like-minded environmentalists hanging out in San Francisco.
Best, Terry
P.S. A teensy-weensy bit of snark towards "Bad Bob" here but the focus on EGS has been extremely destructive to rapid development of geothermal power in this country.
The incrementalist approach ("we are rapidly destroying the planet so we will taper off a bit") to climate change ain't working so hot. Our fine Democratic administration ("we are not quite as bad as Republicans") is due a sound whupping by the voters for that too.
Sierra Clubbers are overjoyed their Manomet hoax has worked in Massachusetts. California is dutifully claiming run-of-river hydro is not green while doling out credits to marginal intermittent renewable energy. Meanwhile geothermal power, the best of them all, is mainly on the dole from Steven Chu and whatever is left to small private industry from the greed of predatory bankers.
Lord help us.