Several geothermal power plants at The Geysers (Photo courtesy of the US Department of Energy)
A new kind of commercial-scale
power plant is tapping the earth’s heat
and converting it to electricity. Lester
Graham reports:
Transcript
A new kind of commercial-scale
power plant is tapping the earth’s heat
and converting it to electricity. Lester
Graham reports:
A company called Raser Technologies just started up a new electric generating plant
using geothermal. No emissions, no pollution – just power.
Brent Cook is the CEO of Raser.
“This first phase of the plant that we just brought on-line will power approximately
nine-thousand homes in the city of Anaheim, California.”
Cook says this technology will work a lot of places out West where the earth’s crust
is a little thinner. You don’t have as far to drill down into the earth.
A National Renewable Energy Lab report estimates geothermal could meet about a
third of the nation’s electrical demand.
And, this new technology developed by UTC Power could work other places. For
example, it could convert waste heat from factories into electricity.
For The Environment Report, this is Lester Graham.