Thursday, April 21, 2016

USA: Celebrate Geothermal Energy on Earth Day

Happy Earth Day 2016 (USGS)

The USGS is joining people across the world to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, 2016. To help build environmental awareness, the USGS has outlined some of the critical issues facing our planet as well as science projects underway to address these challenges. Starting with science provides a valuable foundation for managers, policymakers, and other decision makers to make the most informed decisions to protect our changing world.

Deep within the Earth’s crust lies an extremely important but underutilized renewable energy resource: geothermal energy. In 2008, the USGS released a national assessment of geothermal power resources, showing more than 550,000 Megawatts–electric power–generating potential. Since then, the USGS has continued to research and assess geothermal power potential all over the country.

“Interest in geothermal energy has rapidly grown. Recent permitting activity has seen dozens of applications for geothermal leases. All of this is based on the fundamental resource assessment efforts of the USGS – without that basic research, the benefits of this renewable energy resource would be achieved much more slowly and at much greater expense.” — William Glassley, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Davis

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