Geothermal power in the North Bay – Jon Udell

I was aware of The Geysers, a geothermal field about 35 miles north of my home in Santa Rosa, but I never gave it much thought until my first bike ride through the area. Then I learned a number of interesting things.

It’s the world’s largest geothermal field, producing more than 700 megawatts.

It accounts for 20% of California’s renewable energy.

The naturally-occurring steam was used up almost 30 years ago, and steam is now recharged by pumping in 11 million gallons of sewage effluent daily, through a 42-mile pipeline, from the Santa Rosa plain.

That daily recharge is implicated in the region’s frequent small earthquakes. (But nobody seems too worried about that, and maybe it’s a good thing? Many small better than one big?)

An article in today’s paper reports that AB-1359, signed last week by governor Gavin Newsom, paves the way for new geothermal development in the region that could add 600 megawatts of geothermal production.

How much electric power is that? I like to use WolframAlpha for quick and rough comparisons.

So, 2/3 of a nuke plant. 4/5 of a coal-fired power plant. These kinds of comparisons help me contextualize so many quantitative aspects of our lives. They’re the primary reason I visit WolframAlpha. I wish journalists would use it for that purpose.