A LAKE OF NEW ENERGY

Geothermal Energy: Hot Pocket; California's Salton Sea lake sits above superhot temperatures that could be used to generate electricity, which a local utility hopes to do.

Jack Willoughby and Michael Vallo, May 3, 2014 (Barron’s)

“Salton Sea, a lake formed in 1905 by a flooding Colorado River, may be the launch site for geothermal energy in the U.S. The shallow, salty lake sits atop the San Andreas fault, 226 feet below sea level. About a mile beneath Salton's southern tip, the earth burns at 680 degrees Fahrenheit…The Salton Sea Restoration & Renewable Energy Initiative…estimates it will boost U.S. geothermal capacity by 50%, or 1,700 megawatts, over 20 years…A local utility, Imperial Irrigation District, owns the land…Imperial hopes to use profits to restore Salton Sea, which is receding…The utility is seeking a partner…The tricky part will be to find viable locations for injection wells, which can be several miles deep…After that, the plants are essentially self-sufficient. Hot water is pumped to the surface, where it turns to steam, driving turbines connected to generators. The steam is then converted to water and pumped back into the ground…[A] 50-megawatt plant will cost $300 million. And California must approve building a $2.5 billion transmission line that would plug the facility into the grid…” click here for more

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