That was the theme of the MIT report on Geothermal potential released earlier this year. 100,000MW of geothermal power would amount to 10% of 2006 levels of US energy production. An interesting question (and perhaps the most salient question) is: What would it take to get to these production levels?

Susan Petty, a consultant for Black Mountain Technology, started her talk at the GEA Geothermal Financing workshop last week by attempting to answer this question by quantifying what would be required to reach 100,000MW by 2050:

• $1B invested in R&D over the next 15 years (as referenced in the MIT report)
• Exploration yielding 390 square miles (1,010 sq km) of productive geothermal resource area per year
• 80 drill rigs operating continuously over the next 40 years, amounting to 10% of the total US rig population
• $2 Trillion dollars of development funding to build the plants and transmission infrastructure

In the year 2050 if all of those things happened, geothermal production areas in aggregate would cover 17,600 square miles (45,000 sq km,) roughly the same area as the states of Maryland and Connecticut combined. Given the current state of geothermal funding, the development costs, and exploration challenges, it is unlikely that 100,000MW of geothermal power will be in production in 2050 – but, there is no hope of success unless the industry aims for such lofty goals.

It’s certainly interesting to look backward from the goal like this, thanks Susan for taking the time to share this with the geothermal community.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 15th, 2007 at 8:38 am and is filed under Geothermal.