$98,000 for a car is steep, but this video does show a great experience. As the Tesla employee says, technology tends to enter the market on the high-end and then commoditize over time. The electric car may finally be here.

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This is going to be a short entry, but what if we’re going about this the wrong way? It’s no to suggest that renewably generated electricity is a bad thing, in fact it has many things in its favor. However, consider wind for just one moment. Wind generation has grown from just over 3 GWh in 1993 to over 28 GWh in the most recent rolling 2007 twelve month window; an increase of nearly an order of magnitude. To put this in perspective, the entire electrcity production during the 2007 rolling twelve month period is 4,085 GWh meaning wind accounts for less than 1% of net generation. (Source: DoE)

Make no mistake, renewable electricity is part of the answer. But the scale is not even close to being meaningful. In other words, what if we’re winning individual battles but losing the war?

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While at the GRC Annual Meeting last month, one of the interesting talks was about the state of geothermal power production in Mexico. The map below shows the major geothermal fields in the country:

There are primarily 3 active sites producing electricity using geothermal harvest:

• Cerro Prieto – 720 MWe
• Los Humeros – 42 MWe
• Los Azufres – 188 MWe

These areas are divided into the volcanic belt stretching across the middle of the country and the Cerro Prieto which is part of the Imperial Valley/Salton Sea production zones working in the US today. Currently, around 950 MWe are online producing some 6.6 GWh of electricity for Mexico, or about 3.1% of their annual electricity consumption. By 2010, it is expected that an addition 220 MWe will be available (100 MWe Cerro Prieto, 45 MWe Los Humeros, and 75 MWe in Cerritos Colorados.) It is estimated that Mexico has some 8,000 MWe of commercial quality, clearly more exploration and development is possible.

The major geothermal operator in Mexico is CFE. Images from the sites are available below.

Turbine at Cerro Prieto


Binary Plant at Los Azufres


Steam emissions at Los Humeros

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