In Victoria Australia the first geothermal energy plant will go live in around three years. The new geothermal plant will provide enough energy to power 120,000 homes. Before the geothermal plant is built however a study will need to be conducted.

The study will have to find out whether or not the average underground temperature is 150° or more. This will dictate whether or not the geothermal plant will be built. Once this has been decided, then a 12 MW geothermal pilot plant will be built. After this has been demonstrated to be viable then the main geothermal power plant will be built.

Meanwhile in the UK 320,000 homes may get ground source heat pumps in order to provide energy. This type of geothermal energy can produce 30% of the energy of the United Kingdom by the year 2020.

Right now there are about 8,000 heat pumps installed in the UK. But that number is expected to increase dramatically by 2012. The British government has said that they will be giving businesses and homeowners incentives for using geothermal energy instead of gas or electricity.

While we’re on the subject of energy efficiency for homes, we must talk about geothermal energy to supply power for earth homes. This category of home includes underground homes, earth berm homes and earth sheltered homes.

Now just imagine these earth homes being powered by wind, solar or geothermal energy and what huge savings that will be. In fact your earth home could become a power generating station and you could sell your electricity back to the power company. How cool would that be? Both literally and figuratively, how cool would that be?

The first prototype is called a Flame Jet Drill and it works by using hydrogen heated to 3200 degrees F and drills through granite three times as fast as a traditional drill, with no breakage of drill bits. The superheated hydrogen does not melt the rock into magma as one would imagine but rather causes the granite to fragment and the outcome is a perfectly round hole.

The second prototype that Potter is working on is for deep water drilling for geothermal energy. The Hydrothermal drill superheats hydrogen to 7200 degrees F, which in turns heats a jet of water that serves to drill through granite and other hard rock.

Deep drilling for geothermal energy has long been a dream with many scientists with limited success. With Jared Potter’s prototypes soon to be commercialized the dream may turn into reality more quickly that previously imagined.

Nobody was injured and nothing toxic escaped. In fact the only thing currently spewing into the air and on the ground is hot water and steam. Now, compare this with a wildcat oil rig that blows its top and spews oil particles into the air for miles around and pools of black fossil fuels upon the ground.

Geodynamics drills approximately 3 miles down into the hot rocks of the Earth, bringing up steam which turns turbines to create electricity. This breach shows a couple of different problems.

First, deep drilling for hot water is not as easy as it sounds. Second, critics of this type of alternative energy source will pounce on this breach as a reason not to do it. And, third there is a true financial setback for the company that has to cap the breach and get it under control and back into production again.

But, going back to the oil rig analogy for a second, these are all problems that have been experienced when drilling for oil. The geothermal well will out live most oil wells as far as energy production and in case of problems, the only issue to deal with is a little escaping steam now and then.

Raser is using 250 Kw power units from UTC Power, Inc. to turn the hot water, deep underground into electricity. The power generated will be enough to eventually supply 200,000 homes and electricity from the site will be piped to Anaheim, California within weeks.

Geothermal sites such as this can be a windfall for small startup companies such as Raser since California has a mandate that 30-percent of the power generated in the state by 2020 must be renewable. Raser has been buying up land leases for the past five years that other geothermal companies have passed up.

This is because Raser specialized in low boil technology deemed unsuitable for other companies. The Geysers geothermal field northeast of San Francisco is the largest in the nation, supplying 900 MW of power.

The Fort Atkinson School District in Madison, WI has decided to embrace geothermal energy as a method to save money while teaching the kids about alternative energy. Four schools within the district will be renovated to incorporate alternative energy methods.

One middle school is already using a geothermal system that starts with wells deep below the football field and use pumps to both heat and cool the middle school. So, far the school has saved $40,000 with geothermal energy and that number is expected to balloon to $80,000 this year. Of course, this same school is also using solar panels to heat the swim team’s swimming pool so both energy from the earth and sun are used to cut expenses and as a teaching tool.

Also, in the Midwest, the Toledo Zoo is now drilling geothermal wells to help both heat and cool the center. The geothermal energy will mainly be used to keep the facility’s aquarium at the correct temperature and will reduce the zoo’s carbon footprint by 38-percent annually.

On August 26, this year the Toledo Zoo also installed a small residential wind turbine inside the facility. The turbine was also used as a sign of corporate responsibility, showing the public the need to go green and will power one of the new ticket booths for the zoo.

While an estimated two-thirds of the population is now saying “drill, baby, drill” with the mistaken notion that a few drops of crude oil seven years from now will save a few pennies at the pump, the actually drilling that should be taking place right now all over the nation is for geothermal energy. Zoos and schools are a start, but this much neglected renewable energy resource needs its own “Pickens Plan” to get the nation moving down in the right direction.

But, now a company called Raser Technologies will be building New Mexico’s first geothermal power plant to provide electricity from this renewable resource to power resident’s homes. And, not only this, but the homes will be in neighboring Arizona.

Raser has contracted with the Salt River Project (SRP) out of Phoenix, (which a few years back used to supply power to my own home) and will deliver up to 10 MW of clean geothermal electricity from Hidalgo County, New Mexico. This will be enough to supply 5,500 homes with renewable juice and help SRP reach its goal of having 15-percent of its energy be renewable by 2025.

The New Mexico geothermal project will use underground hot water and steam measured at an average temperature of 308 degrees F over 2,500 acres of land upon which sits a local greenhouse operation. This well-known source of geothermal energy is now being studied by UTC Power and Raser to compare output from summer months as well as winter.

When the new Sherman Hospital opens in 2009 the 645,000 square foot facility will be equipped with the largest geothermal lake heating and cooling system of its kind in the nation. The lake will be lined with clay, filled with rainwater and having its bottom filled with coils that will circulate its liquid with a heat-pump system.

The circulation solution will offer enough heating or cooling properties to regulate the temperature in most of the hospital rooms. This lake loop system will take advantage of a constant temperature of 55-degrees F at the bottom of the pond.

Besides just being a vessel for heating and cooling the lake will also be stocked with fish, which visitors and patients can feed. Geothermal may as hot of a marketplace as solar right, but you just can’t argue with saving a cool million, now can you?

The U of I Presby Hall will not only feature state of the art plumbing but environmentally friendly paint and lighting as well. The U of I green dorm is expected to be certified green this summer by the U.S. Green Building Council.

This green dorm project is being spearheaded by the McKinley Presbyterian Church and Foundation, which owns the land. The heating system will be expensive upfront costing $650,000 but with a $100,000 subsidy from the Illinois Clean Energy Foundation and energy savings of $40,000 per year, the University expects to recoup the costs in 10 to 15 years.

This may be the first residence hall of its kind in Illinois, but with any luck a green dorm may become the norm as educational facilities keeps pushing to reduce their carbon footprint (feetprint?) as one part educational opportunity and two parts environmental stewardship make this the right thing to do.