Geothermal Energy: Venture Capital Risk Considerations

摘要

One of the forms of energy availability that is touted as environmentally friendly is the production of hot water from the Earth as a renewable energy resource. The basic argument is that such water can be used to drive steam turbines, thereby producing electricity, and that the water can be injected thereafter back into the Earth to be reheated and then further pumped back into the water/steam reactor as depicted schematically in Figure 1. Thus, the argument is that one has a constant supply of renewable energy, with only ongoing costs of maintenance to pay. As such the basic scheme seems to alleviate much of the concern for environmental degradation by CO_2 production from coal-fired, nuclear-driven, and even wind-power driven electricity generation mechanisms.