Montana - Geothermal energy state?

Geothermal energy projects, as well as the renewable energy projects in general, are lately getting lot more attention that they used to do, and many areas across the U.S. want to fully utilize their natural advantages by developing different renewable energy projects to not only satisfy ever-growing energy demand but also to work on ecologically acceptable fuels, especially now when climate change problem looks to be so big. One of these projects is geothermal energy project in Montana, to be more precise in Lake County, and if all goes well Montana will soon become one of the leading state in total U.S. geothermal energy sector.

Montana looks to be starting this project as soon as possible by using its natural advantages in form of hot springs to give enough power to homes around the lake county. Montana's based company Flathead Electric Co-Op is now working on a project that plans to use hot water from the ground to produce geothermal energy, and satisfy demands of many households in this territory.


This geothermal energy project could be a first of its kind in Montana and is only being made possible after Flathead Electric was granted almost half a million ($491,000) in federal funds to test the groundwater of hot springs in Lake County to see whether it was hot enough to be used as geothermal energy source.

This company plans to plan to drill about 2,000 feet into shallow wells to see if the water is hot enough to produce energy, and if it turns out to be positive we could soon see room being made for large geothermal energy project. Many energy experts believe that geothermal energy potential of this are is definitely worth to be fully explored as hot springs are usually great sources of geothermal energy.

If everything goes well this could be giant step for Montana to be looked like geothermal energy state. Currently when people think geothermal energy they usually think of states like Nevada, Oregon and California, and with little luck Montana could soon use geothermal energy as the viable and dependable energy source.

If all goes as planned, the geothermal energy project in Montana could begin with preliminary drilling as early as in spring 2010. It will be really interesting to see what drilling results will show in the end.

Most geothermal power plants in U.S. are located in the west, and currently geothermal energy is third largest renewable energy sector in the United States, behind hydroelectricity and biomass. Some studies have even reported that nine western states together have the geothermal potential to provide over 20 percent of national electricity needs, one of them being Montana too.

Monrtana Geothermal Energy Sites. Source and details: US Department of Environmental Quality.

Many of people also do not know that exploiting geothermal energy in United States isn't something new but something that almost have 50 years long history as first geothermal energy power plant was opened at The Geysers in California in 1960, and perhaps a bit surprisingly it still continues to operate successfully, despite being almost 50 years old.

This is really an evidence that geothermal energy is really dependable energy source that could provide lots of energy to homes across the western U.S. Currently there are 3,040.27 MW of installed geothermal capacity but energy experts this number to b lot bigger in years to come as many other projects like this one in Montana are already underway with lot more to come in years ahead.

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North America - 40,000 new wind turbines by 2015

North America, particularly U.S. desperately needs much stronger renewable energy sector, and the most promising look to be solar energy and wind energy. The latter one could looks to be soon experiencing new boom with the deployment of 40,000 new wind turbines across North America, and in the period of only 6 years, by the year 2015. Well, this is at least what report from Pike Research has to say to us. Energy experts at Pike Research believe that wind energy sector will be offering big economic opportunities in the next several years, especially since the government favors wind as the most feasible renewable energy source: notably 40,000 new wind turbines will arise across the North America but more than 45% of all wind turbines will be replaced with newer models that guarantee much better efficiency compared to old models.

Many analysts do not expect jumping start since country is till recovering from recession and the market probably won’t pick up the full pace until 2011, when it is expected that government and private sources of funding will be fully absorbed and purposed. The progress on wind energy in last year also wasn't negligible, as 8 gigawatts-worth of wind turbines have been installed in the U.S. (bringing its total to 25 gigawatts, enough to power approximately 8 million homes. When you look at the financial state of the country last year than this data really looks promising raising lot of hope for future wind energy projects across the country since market has only started warming up after one of the worst recessions in history.

Existing wind farm - San Gorgonio, California.

The Pike report comes out in just about appropriate time, namely four days after world’s largest wind farm was completed in Texas— the gigantic 627 turbine-strong Roscoe Wind Complex, capable to generate 781.5 megawatts (which should be enough power to almost 250,000 homes). Roscoe Wind Complex is located some 200 miles outside of Dallas, and the 100,000 acre complex makes Texas the undisputed leader in U.S. wind power, which is a bit ironic when you think how strong Texas oil lobbies are. This gigantic wind turbine was built by a German company, E.ON Climate and Renewables, that has slowly but surely spread throughout the Texas by owning and running several other large farms in west Texas, and planning even new wind energy projects.

Since I speak about new wind energy projects I have to also add that many more new wind energy projects are planned for the region. This area is also heavily populated so energy demand is really big, and the only problem that still needs to be sorted out is transmission lines. Once transmission problems are solved wind energy sector should experience even bigger growth.

There were lots of things happening with wind energy in U.S. these days and so the well-known Duke Energy company turned on two major wind-powered electricity plants in Pennsylvania and Wyoming. Duke Energy is one of the largest and most influential companies in the U.S., and many other companies have started following their example in its adoption of Smart Grid equipment and other efficiency initiatives that significantly improve wind energy efficiency. Duke Energy seems to be lately constantly increasing its reliance on wind energy and the things are looking really good for them as Duke’s two new wind plants in Pittsburgh and Cheyenne, Wyo. have respectable capacities of 70 megawatts and 42 megawatts. Duke Energy also recently signed a contract with Siemens Energy for wind-turbines for a new 200-megawatt plant near Casper, Wyoming, and they have couple of other wind energy projects ahead of them.

Big incentives have been given in the last couple of months to boost renewable energy sector in U.S. Last month alone the Treasury Department has given out more than $1 billion in cash awards to 27 clean energy companies, with the vast majority of them oriented on different wind projects. By the current looks of it idea of investing significant amount of money into wind energy sector looks to be rather good tip on stock market.

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