But there's also much untapped thermal energy we can get right from own urban environments.  Asphalt and concrete store HUGE amounts of thermal/heat energy.  If we converted our roads, freeways, driveways, parking lots, and rooftops to harness that thermal energy, there'd be more than enough for everyone!  'Specially in the summer months.

Check Rasor Technologies low temp waste heat tapping refrigerant powered turbine generators, internet control ready and able to run on easier to tap low temp geothermal, stored solar thermal, and industrial byproduct heat using no water.

When geothermal steam adbocates tell me it's a "closed loop" traveling through underground rock fractures, I'm skeptical.  Aquifers contaminasted or dissapearing down sinkholes might come next.  Water it's a really bad idea to waste it generating power when it's not necessary.  Wind, solar, and razor's turbine need no water.  Biodigestion of waste actually recycles water.

Besides which this whole idea of renewable energy being unavailable in coal country is ludricrous.  for one thing, coal is mined in West virginia and sold to China, everywhere is coal country.  An HVDC national supergrid would make renewable energy available everywhere. Leave our earthquake prone mother earth be.  No water/steam based geothermal.

twitter: @amazingdrx  blog

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As a first post here, I'm interested in knowing more about geothermal technology. Potter, the eleder in the article really sounds provocative in his quest for a technology before he leaves this earth. It seems that is wonderful, regardless of what we learn.

Meanwhile... I have listened to a presentation in the SW of PA as described (marketed) by the Alliance for Cooperative Innovation, also provocative. They are a coop trying to build momentum in our commonwealth through local municipal charter members (trying to address all those failed "3 ring binder" projects) by developing and implementing community revitalization through public-private partnership. They apparently have done (or are in the process of finishing) a geothermal energy (district loop) with their members in the city of Warren, PA, upstate from where I am (Monroeville).

What does anyone here think of the design of geothermal energy which uses stable ground and/or water temperatures near the earth's surface to control building temperatures above ground? They say that according to the U.S. EPA, geothermal heat pumps are the most energy-efficient, environmentally clearn and cost-effective systems for temperature control. A company called Georthermal Energy Systems, Inc uses a patient pending hybrid desirned low-temperature district system coupled with geothermal heat pumps to deliver energy efficient heating and cooling based on renewable energy and user-controlled thermal comfort. Apparently geothermal heat pump systems (open or closed loop) hold the potential to address global issues related to energy cost and polution.

Thanks for your thoughts. I've much to learn.