This BP well disaster may be far more difficult to cap then many people realize. Because the weight of the ocean is helping to pump the oil out of the ground, in the end potentially hundreds of millions of barrels of oil may be released before the oil stops coming out of the ground. The dispersants applied do not make the oil go away, they just help disperse it underwater, and this could kill sea life on a scale never before seen by modern man.

A lot of people hold BP solely responsible for the oil spill, but in many ways society is responsible for this disaster as well. Virtually all of us buy gasoline, and we want it to cost as little as possible. We are in essence paying the oil companies to go out there and make that happen. Getting things done with the least amount of effort and at the lowest cost possible increases profit for the oil industry, and most people do not care how this is done.

It is our dependence on low cost energy from oil that got us into this mess. Most people feel it is the responsibility of the government to find alternatives for our dependence on oil. A quote comes to mind, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". If people do not actively and personally support alternatives to oil, very little will change. This is because so many people are paying the oil companies to do what they're doing right now, and they make a lot of money keeping things just the way they are.

If you want change for a better future you have to actively support those changes. Atlantic Geothermal LLC from Erving, Massachusetts, wants to make geothermal power viable on a large scale using its CLEM (Closed Loop Energy Mine) design. However, the government can be slow to act on innovative concepts like this without a lot of popular support. So far DOE is only providing geothermal research and development funding for fractured rock concepts. This concept, when compared to the CLEM concept on an evolutionary scale, is about as effective at producing electricity as hunter/gathers were at producing food. The geothermal EGS model that has been funded is the most simplistic idea possible for geothermal power because that is what takes the least amount of effort to develop. Excepting minor changes, the existing model is based on knowledge over a hundred years old. The latest technological innovations had not even been imagined back then, and we feel that any serious exploration of Geothermal Energy as a viable alternative cannot proceed without them.

If sufficient funding and a determined research and development effort is put into developing commercially viable large-scale geothermal electric power plants, that sector could produce more power than all the fossil fuels combined, and at a much lower cost to society in terms of both dollars and consequences. This is clean green power, just like wind and solar, but with significant advantages. Geothermal is base load power, meaning it runs 24/7, not just when the wind blows or when the sun it out. Hydro electric is base load as well, however most rivers in developed nations have already been developed, so there is little room for expansion.

If we want the geothermal resource to be sustainable over the very long term and not be used up in 20 - 30 years (or less), the system has to be designed for an optimal recharge rate. The primitive (existing EGS) concept of designing for an optimal depletion rate dedicated to using up the resource over a relatively short time, is preventing the geothermal industry from reaching its full potential. The amount of energy consumed to pump water back into the depletion model is very wasteful and limits the size of power plant that is economical to build.

New England has excellent geology to exploit, if the government ever decides that designing for an optimal recharge rate is a better way to go.  If the recharge rate is the best criteria for designing geothermal power plants, then geology and thermal diffusivity of the rock is more important then finding hot rocks close to the surface. Some of the best rock for thermal diffusivity is quartzite granite with a large crystal matrix. Guess what New England has? New England is built on this kind of rock, and a lot of it.  

Atlantic Geothermal LLC's CLEM concept has been endorsed by Mass. Congressman John Olver, and the New Hampshire House Science, Technology, and Energy Committee. Massachusetts State Representatives Stan Rosenberg and Steven Kulick sponsored this project for the Massachusetts Energy Committee, who liked the idea in its early stages of development. The Vermont Natural Resources & Energy Committee also liked the Atlantic Geothermal CLEM concept and is expected to vote on their endorsement when they reconvene in January next year.   

For more information about Geothermal Electric Generation or the CLEM Design, visit www.AtlanticGeothermal.com or call 413.587.0021.