(UPDATE*) AP joins the local press: In central Oregon, a geothermal test in hot dry rock is coming
For several years geothermal energy prospectors and would-be renewable energy tycoons have been nosing around the Newberry Crater volcanic area in Central Oregon, south of the small city of Bend. The AP‘s Jeff Barnard has a hefty update out this week with explanation, stats on energy potential, quotes from officers of a company about to start pumping water in hopes it’ll crack the hot rocks, flash to steam and come back up turbine-ready, concerns about induced earthquakes, and a smattering of national context and history of the ever-promising geothermal energy sector. Included is recognition that recently abundant natural gas and soft electricity demand are conspiring to make business rougher for renewable energy of all sorts.
By the way before going on, the story capitalizes things that may not necessarily need it. The nation’s recent economic slump is the Great Recession, and the technology of preparing hot dry rocks for exploitation is Enhanced Geothermal Systems. These are mere style oddities, not sins, to put big letters on the words’ fronts. But, if I write a story is it ever with an Inverted Pyramid, or a Buried Lede, or a Feature Style? Not that I can recall as written quite that way. Just because trade sites like to write about Enhanced Geothermal Systems is no reason reporters ought to put it that way.
The effort has been in the press before, chiefly via the local paper, the Bend Bulletin, plus a few national outlets. The Bulletin puts its archives behind a modest paywall. But it’s a good system – just 75 cents on PayPal for all day & all you can eat. That’s pretty simple and pretty fast and so cheap it’s painless. Methinks newspapers really need to establish a nationwide syndicate that, for a modest prepaid sum (fifty bucks comes to mind), provides a cookie for instant access to member newspaper stories for just a tiny marginal cost – a nickel or a dime – per hit. It could add up. It’s not an original idea of course. Too bad it has not caught on that I’ve noticed.
Earlier Stories:
- Bend Bulletin (Aug 21, 2011) Dylan J. Darling: New geothermal firm in the hunt / Newberry Volcano lures third operator ... ; One thinks Barnard’s AP story might have mentioned that the company he profiled, AltaRock, is not the lone ranger at Newberry Volcano. Darling by the way is the “public lands” reporter at the Bulletin, recently arrived there from enviro writing for the Redding Record-Searchlight in the far north of California’s Sacramento Valley.
- Bend Bulletin (Mar 20, 2011) Kate Ramsayer: Geothermal project advances / Experiment to use 142 million gallons of groundwater ; Which also means that the test Barnard describes was also supposed to have happened last year. And yes Ramsayer, as a few earth science reporters may already have noticed, has since left the Bulletin and landed in DC at the American Geophysical Union’s press office. The Bulletin has kept pretty close tabs on this venture – put in AltaRock at the paper’s home page search engine and you’ll see a list of stories. An even earlier story of Kate’s is tracked in a previous post.
- NYTimes/E & E Greenwire – Phil Taylor: Geothermal Advocates Tout Plants’ Smaller Environmental Footprint ;
- IEEE Spectrum (April 2011) Peter Fairley: Earthquakes Hinder Green Energy Plans ;
*UPDATE:
- EARTHFIX (Oregon Public Broadcasting/ Dec. 23, 2011) Vince Patton : Geothermal Energy Challenge: Getting Hot Water From a Dry Hole ; A solid summary of issues and technology, with superb maps and other illus, from this public media project and posted on the OPB site. The TV and radio effort gets support from many other Pacific Northwest public outlets plus the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Brought to our attention, thank you, by Morgan Holm, a VP at OPB who tells us he’s a regular tracker follower and thank you very much for that, too.
Grist for the Mill: AltaRock Energy Inc.,
- Charlie Petit
.
