USA, California:

Lawmakers Bet on Underground Energy (U-T San Diego)

Salton Sea

California lawmakers may decide this week whether San Diego County utility customers must underwrite a new fleet of geothermal power plants.

The proposed SB1139 legislation requires the state’s major investor-owned utilities, including San Diego Gas & Electric, to collectively contract 500 megawatts of electrical generating capacity from new geothermal power plants anywhere within California over the next decade, enough electricity to supply some 300,000 homes.

Sponsors say the legislation is designed to spur a geothermal renaissance in the Salton Sea area of the Imperial Valley, already home to the nation’s second-largest cluster of power plants that harness underground heat from deep within the earth’s crust to generate electricity.

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