美国国家公共电台 NPR The Forgotten Renewable: Geothermal Energy Production Heats Up

The Forgotten Renewable: Geothermal Energy Production Heats Up

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

We're going to hear now about a different natural resource - geothermal reservoirs. They are all across the American West, and they could be used to power millions of homes. But extracting energy from them is not easy. From member station KVCR in San Bernardino, Benjamin Purper reports.

BENJAMIN PURPER: Three and a half hours east of Los Angeles lies the Salton Sea. It was created when a canal broke in 1985 and the Colorado River flooded the desert. The windy oasis² became a tourist attraction for a while, but now it's drawing people in for other reasons.

JIM TURNER: So what you're looking at is - this is the playa that we...

PURPER: Jim Turner works for a company looking for buried treasure. He's the chief operating officer of Controlled Thermal¹ Resources, the company that came all the way to the Salton Sea from Australia. The reason?

TURNER: We're standing³ on top of what's probably the most robust⁴ geothermal resource in the United States.

PURPER: Geothermal energy - it means using the Earth's natural heat to create electricity. It's renewable, and it generates clean energy around the clock, unlike wind and solar.

COLLIN WILLIAMS: The fundamental way in which geothermal energy works is taking advantage of hot water where it's accessible near the Earth's surface.

PURPER: Collin Williams is a geothermal expert for the U.S. Geological Survey. He says you can extract geothermal energy by taking that hot water and turning it into steam, which powers a turbine and produces electricity. Right now, you can only do that in reservoirs that have a lot of hot, wet rock, like the Salton Sea.

But Williams says there's a new technology in development called enhanced geothermal systems. It takes dry rock and cracks it just enough for hot water to pass through. That would essentially⁵ create new reservoirs, enough to someday take the country's geothermal energy production from 3,000 megawatts to almost 500,000.

WILLIAMS: To put that in perspective, the entire electric power-generating capacity in the United States is about a million megawatts.

PURPER: So if there's that much clean energy just waiting in the ground, what's taking so long?

ALLYSON ANDERSON BOOK: You never really hear people call it geothermal. They call it the forgotten renewable.

PURPER: Allyson Anderson Book directs the American Geosciences Institute. She says technical and social challenges have made it difficult for geothermal to catch up with the likes of wind and solar energy. Enhanced geothermal systems isn't really viable⁶ yet. And even the more traditional plants take a lot of time and money to get built.

ANDERSON BOOK: There's a lot of different factors that play in. And so they're looking - so the Department of Energy right now is spending a lot of time and energy in something called the FORGE project.

PURPER: FORGE would create a test site dedicated⁷ to making enhanced geothermal systems a reality. The idea is if engineers can make this process easy, geothermal energy production would skyrocket. But back at the Salton Sea, Controlled Thermal Resources isn't waiting on new technology. It's hoping to exploit what's already here right now.

ROD COLWELL: So this video here, as that's receding⁸, as that drone is moving away, that's exposing some of the best geothermal resource, not in the U.S., but on the planet - right there.

PURPER: In his office, CEO Rod Colwell shows me an aerial video of the playa I visited earlier where his first geothermal plant will be. It's still in the permitting stages, and it's going to cost a lot of money to get built - around a billion dollars. But if it's successful, Colwell plans to build more plants, enough to reach 1,000 megawatts, which could power about 800,000 homes. And with California looking to phase out its use of fossil fuels, that's no small number.

COLWELL: Particularly, in California, we will not be able to import any carbon-fired energy after 2025. So it's important that geothermal is that integral value in the mix.

PURPER: Geothermal's got a long way to go, but Colwell and others are betting that new technology and the demand for clean energy will someday bring this forgotten renewable to the forefront of clean power. For NPR News, I'm Benjamin Purper at the Salton Sea in California.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE SESHEN'S "OBLIVION")

1 thermal   

adj.热的，由热造成的；保暖的

参考例句：

• They will build another thermal power station.他们要另外建一座热能发电站。
• Volcanic activity has created thermal springs and boiling mud pools.火山活动产生了温泉和沸腾的泥浆池。

2 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。

3 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

4 robust   

adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的

参考例句：

• She is too tall and robust.她个子太高，身体太壮。
• China wants to keep growth robust to reduce poverty and avoid job losses,AP commented.美联社评论道，中国希望保持经济强势增长，以减少贫困和失业状况。

5 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

6 viable   

adj.可行的，切实可行的，能活下去的

参考例句：

• The scheme is economically viable.这个计划从经济效益来看是可行的。
• The economy of the country is not viable.这个国家经济是难以维持的。

7 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

8 receding   

v.逐渐远离( recede的现在分词 )；向后倾斜；自原处后退或避开别人的注视；尤指问题

参考例句：

• Desperately he struck out after the receding lights of the yacht. 游艇的灯光渐去渐远，他拼命划水追赶。 来自辞典例句
• Sounds produced by vehicles receding from us seem lower-pitched than usual. 渐渐远离我们的运载工具发出的声似乎比平常的音调低。 来自辞典例句