Editorial: A goal we can meet

Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007 | 6:58 a.m.

A Senate committee has rather quietly been examining a subject that could hold enormous potential for Nevada, the West and for the whole country.

The subject is geothermal energy.

Members of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee for years have been compiling information on this source of clean energy . Their latest insight came from the president of Iceland.

Olafur Ragnar Grimsson told the committee last week that his country, population 302,000, gets 54 percent of its energy from geothermal, also known as heat mining.

Hot rocks and hot water below the Earth's surface are used in this process to generate steam, which powers the turbines that create electricity.

Grimsson said that because of its geothermal production, Iceland went from being one of the poorest countries to one of the most affluent in just a generation. He urged the U.S. to take a look at how Iceland has "turned this into an extremely profitable business."

This was not the first time the committee has heard about the potential of geothermal. Although the United States is the world's leading producer of geothermal, that really isn't saying much. Fewer than 5 million homes could be powered with the amount currently being produced.

Last year the committee was addressed by Walter Snyder, director of the Intermountain West Geothermal Consortium, a group funded through the 2005 energy bill and which consists mostly of university experts, including some from Nevada's Desert Research Institute.

Snyder stressed the opportunity for the West, where geothermal potential is so vast that no one really knows its full extent. Geologists believe that Nevada, already a national leader in geothermal energy production, could become the world's leader.

Citing statistics compiled by a Western Governors' Association task force, Snyder said known but untapped Western sites could be developed within a reasonable time to produce 13,000 megawatts of geothermal energy - the equivalent of about 15 nuclear power plants or 30 coal-fired plants.

He said the West's potential "may actually be two or three times greater."

The purpose of Wednesday's Senate meeting was to hear opinions about the National Geothermal Initiative Act, introduced in June by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is one of 13 co-sponsors.

Funding in the bill would allow for research into the potential that geothermal energy represents. Just as important, the bill sets a goal: "To achieve 20 percent of total electrical energy production in the United States from geothermal resources by not later than 2030."

At the hearing, senators were enthused by Grimsson's presentation. We hope they stay enthused, despite having also heard at the hearing a predictable reaction from the fossil-fuel-loving Bush administration. "This particular goal may be technically unobtainable within the time frame specified," testified Alexander Karsner, assistant energy secretary for renewable energy.

That's bunk. In 1961 President John Kennedy set a goal of landing a man on the moon before the decade was out. We did it, with a year to spare. With the right leadership, we could one day be celebrating the same success with geothermal energy.