This story hits really close to home. My daughter is one of the petroleum engineers on the new HOT ROCK geothermal energy project mentioned in this New York Times article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/business/energy-environment/24geotherm.html
Here is my daughter's comment on the very biased and unscientific New York Times article.
Comment below by Laura Nofziger- petroleum engineer for ALtaRock Energy:
"See link above to the NY Times article on AltaRock's project in
northern
CA....fear mongering at its worse.
This is the type of article you
get when you send a standard reporter to do the work of a
scientific reporter. He doesn't interview any rock mechanics experts
or seismologists for the article....just the local public.
He also
doesn't mention how the Geysers area is already critically stressed and had
a bunch of seismic activity before the steam plants were installed.
Plus, he focuses on Basel...the only EGS project to be shut down because
of seismic activity.
What about the successful projects in England,
France
and the current work in Australia??? We're also talking about
seismic
events on the order of 3.0 and smaller. The vast majority of the
events
are below 1.0.....you can't even feel these things. They
cause
absolutely no damage and no interruption to human life.
Unbelievably sensationalist article...I hate the media."
Laura
What really disturbs me is the lack of good reporting by one of America's largest and best known newspapers-- "the newspaper of record" - so they say. Hot Rock geothermal is just about the cleanest and most environmentally friendly power source available.
Or is the actual agenda of the newspaper to prevent any and all additional energy sources, regardless of the technology and regardless of how green it might be? This along with preventing solar power development in the Mohave Desert -- the perfect place for solar energy - shows the REAL agenda of the environmental lobby. Namely, to prevent any and all development of new clean energy sources.
I hope I am mistaken, but I have the feeling I just might be correct.
http://www.altarockenergy.com/ AltaRock geothermal home page
and their media press release RESPONSE to the New York Times article.
http://www.altarockenergy.com/nyt.html
Joe Lalumia
Rockwall, Texas
