Tim writes:

Subject: Geothermal

Reading the article about Germany's geothermal power production I would like to add some comments since I am currently researching on the topic. I do not think that there is a serious debate about the renewable character of geothermal in Germany. Since all power plants are binary plants the brine is completely reinjected and only a heat loss occurs. In the US you have power plants that are working for five decades and started without reinjection....Debatewise I see more threat coming from the earthquake occurrence in Basel and recently in Landau where ground-stimulation has been conducted. I would like to step in for you guys in the western US where development is accelerating quickly (OK, we see some delays thanks to the credit crunch) but first and foremost: You have the resource. Comparing your 3000MW of geothermal power with Germany's 6MW shows how far we are behind in terms of capacity installed (and we will most likely never get to these levels). All we can learn is that political and societal will can bring even comparably unfavourable resources to life and foster technological progress. Maybe there comes the day when German companies, specialized on deep moderate heat resources develop geothermal resources in unfavourable areas like the eastern US...