Slow-Growing Geothermal Seeks Bigger Piece of US Renewable Energy Pie (Breaking Energy)
Many of the things that arguably make wind and solar less than perfect energy sources don’t seem to trouble geothermal energy. Bird kills, intermittent output, low capacity factors, lack of dispatchability – no issues there with geothermal. Yet while wind and solar have sprinted forward in the past decade in the United States, geothermal has by comparison stood still.
Wind passed geothermal in annual generation in 2005 and this year will yield more than ten times the electricity. And now solar has closed the gap. As recently as 2009, geothermal generated 15,009 gigawatt-hours of electricity compared to just 891 GWh from solar. But in the first half of 2014, solar had moved out in front, 8,535 to 8,108 GWh.
So what’s geothermal’s problem?
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