Here’s my latest op-ed on behalf of Independent Women’s Forum, featured in The Daily Caller:
The United States can lead on clean energy development, but only if it grapples with reality. To spur a true clean energy revolution, our nation must tap into geothermal.
Compared to other renewables, geothermal is actually sustainable and has proven, tested reliability. Despite being heavily underutilized, it has great potential. There are three types of geothermal energy systems available: direct use and district heating systems, geothermal power plants and geothermal heat pumps.
Geothermal power plants, for instance, use hot water taken from the Earth’s crust to generate steam to power a turbine for electricity generation.
The Department of Energy notes “the rate of energy extraction can be balanced with a reservoir’s natural heat recharge rate.” It emits no greenhouse gases and few carbon emissions. Moreover, baseload power for electricity production is administered 24/7, 365 days a year, regardless of weather, to power homes. Contrast that with solar and wind, which are weather dependent. In turn, geothermal plants can generate over 8,000 hours of electricity a year compared to solar plants, which produce only 2,000 hours.