There's a lot of activity going on in the Geothermal Energy sector with regards to venture capital technology investment. A recent article in The Market Oracle catalogs these trends and analyzes them in some detail. They say:

Dr. Marc Bustin, Ph.D., FRSC, Casey Research Energy Team writes: The geothermal industry has been taking one step forward and two steps back over the last year. On the forward side are grants and interest-free loans aplenty, particularly from governments wanting to jump on the green-energy bandwagon. Pushing back is not only some tough geology with deep, dry-rock drilling projects, but also the public fear of earthquakes along with other environmental issues.

Overall, what we're seeing is a reality check for geothermal energy. It still leads the pack among the alternative energies as a sustainable source of base-load energy with no storage requirements. However, making the leap from tapping natural reservoirs to actually creating them, as EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) projects are trying to do, is proving harder than a lot of people have thought.

There is definitely a potential of earthquakes occurring in geothermal areas - case in point: the tremors at the Geox project in Landau, Germany. That was neither the first nor last time that these rumblings and geothermal projects have happened in the same neighborhood; after all, areas where hot rocks occur relatively near the surface also tend to be areas prone to earthquakes. The EGS process of fracturing rock layers via hydraulic pressure, necessary to inject and heat the water before pumping it back up, can also trigger seismic shifts in underground rocks.

This article points out the need for venture capitalists to consider alternative forms of Geothermal Electrical Generation besides EGS. Atlantic Geothermal's CLEM (Closed Loop Energy Mine) Technology successfully addresses the major issues connected to EGS, like earthquake risk and eventual depletion of the resource (which renders capital investments of hundreds of millions of dollars worthless once that happens).

We recommend our readers review these plans and support our efforts to get them more investment and attention from government funding agencies. Geothermal Power has the potential to revolutionize Green Energy Production if it's done correctly, and soon enough.