Blue Mountain Faulkner 1 Geothermal Power Plant, Humboldt County, Nevada

摘要

Completed in 2009 and partially funded under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, the 50-MW Blue Mountain Faulkner 1 Geothermal Power Plant is harnessing large amounts of renewable energy by tapping into an underground geothermal reservoir in northern Nevada. This subterranean source of heat allows the binary plant to generate pollution-free baseload electricity. Hot rocks are hot business in the electric power sector these days. Currently, the U.S. has approximately 2,998.5 MW of geothermal energy capacity installed, which is 30.42% of the world's total. Proposed and planned U.S. geothermal plants now total approximately 7,800 MW - more than double the geothermal generating capacity that's already online. Currently identified geothermal resources in the U.S. could provide more than 20,000 MW of power to our nation, and it is estimated that undiscovered resources could provide five times that amount.