Concord Monitor editorial
A hot proposal comes before Bow

By Monitor staff
July 1, 2010
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Could Atlantic Geothermal's plan to build what could be a massive, pollution-free power plant in Bow be the next best thing to cold fusion, the limitless energy source that has not, and may never, pan out? Heat left over from the formation of the Earth, supplemented by heat from the slow decay of radioactive elements, keeps the rock far below ground hot. Humans have made use of that heat for thousands of years. Cavemen soaked their sore feet in warm springs, and Romans heated their home with hot water that bubbled up from below.
Geothermal energy has been used on a grander scale to heat communities and to make steam to spin turbines to produce electricity for generations. And small, shallow geothermal systems used to heat homes, schools and other buildings have become increasingly common in New England. But, alas, the region has no hot springs or geysers. It does have areas underlain by Concord granite, a bedrock that the fledgling geothermal company says is particularly suitable for conducting heat upward from miles below ground. Deep wells drilled into that granite allow water to be pumped in, heated enough to be used to economically generate electricity and returned to below in a closed loop system.
Such a power plant could run indefinitely, its fuel supply, heat in rock at 300 to 400 degrees, constantly replenished from below at no cost. David Reynolds, Atlantic's president says the plant he hopes to build could eventually produce electricity for as little as 5 cents per kilowatt hour. The cheap energy would lure businesses to the area, creating hundreds of jobs, and the power plant would pay some $30 million in property taxes.
Is this a pie-in-the-ground idea? Maybe not. In 2007, a team of 18 scientists assembled by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology issued a report that concluded that tapping just 2 percent of the energy available in "hot rocks" could supply more than 2,500 times as much energy as the nation currently uses. And it would be virtually pollution free. Drilling technology, while constantly improving, may not be advanced enough to make hot rock energy mining successful yet. Reynolds believes it can be done, and the payoff for success is enormous. Others are skeptical.
We hope Reynolds is right, more for the sake of the planet than for the property taxes and economic prosperity success would mean. The Concord granite formation can be found under Concord and in other places in the state, and the plant does not necessarily have to be in Bow. Reynolds said he queried Concord first, via the internet, but heard from Bow selectman Harry Judd, an energy attorney, first. Judd sped the process along to help Atlantic meet deadlines to secure federal grants to pay for testing.
Reynolds isn't the only one eager to tap the heat near the heart of the Earth. Research on hot rock energy mining is going on all over the globe and the charitable division of Google.org has invested millions in efforts to tap the Earth's heat for cheap energy.
As of last year, no plant like the one Reynolds wants to build was operating in the United States, according to the magazine Scientific American. The difficulties, however, appear to be technical, not theoretical. Scientists know a limitless supply of cheap clean energy is underfoot. The brilliant inventor Nikola Tesla proposed tapping the heat in the Earth's bedrock as early as 1901. The question is, does Atlantic Geothermal or any other company yet have the tools to tap that energy. We certainly hope so, because bathing coastlines in crude and burning coal certainly isn't the answer.