USA: "If geothermal power is so cheap and so clean, why aren’t we using more of it in the US?"

Geothermal Energy Costs – Breaking Down its True Price (understandsolar.com)

The U.S. DOE collected information on future energy plants set to begin generating power between 2018-2022. They found that the estimated Total System  levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for a geothermal plant is $44/MWh, (p. 7) the lowest LCOE of any other energy source.

To give you an idea of how low that $44/MWh is, consider how it stacked up against traditional sources: natural gas ranked between $54 and $100/MWh (depending on the type of production facility), while nuclear came in at $96/MWh. Coal is missing from this list because there are no “clean” coal facilities to be built by 2022 that adhere to impending production facility guidelines.

Interestingly, geothermal even beat out other renewables! Solar came in at $73.7/MWh, onshore wind at $55.8/MWh, and hydroelectric at about $64/MWh. (As a note, these numbers do not include any US Government Tax Credit offerings.)

So, if geothermal power is so cheap and so clean, why aren’t we using more of it in the US?

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