Warmly,
alison

Tyler, thank you for all your quality reporting on the subject and increasing awareness for geothermal energy.

I imagine it’s also because geothermal exploration and development is similar in many ways to mining and oil/gas exploration and development, both of which Canada excels at. Huge upfront costs, lots of upfront risk, but a big payoff once you strike gold, oil or heat — take your pick.

This last company paid $10.2 million for 12 of the 35 geothermal leases the U.S. government auctioned off earlier this month in Nevada.

Also, Polaris, another Canadian company, is developing a project in Central America.

Impressive showing, for not having any domestic development.

Now my reasoning does not apply to ‘anybody’ nor have I suggested any renewable energy companies are ‘crackpot’ other than the ones Google invested insignificant sums.

Since Tyler’s only demonstrated competence on energy matters is the ability to use a word processor to cut and paste a Google press release into his byline, I am not too worried about statements like ‘because your igorance is shocking.’

Second, my story in the Star about Google’s investment mentions clearly the current amount of conventional geothermal and the 4,000 MW in the pipeline and the lack of attention to the potential in B.C. and Alberta. But being from Ontario, excuse me for being selfish for wanting to see enhanced geothermal actually work. Conventional geothermal isn’t possible in my province, so yes, I’m putting great hope on EGS and the possibility one day of seeing a geothermal power plant in Ontario that displaces the use of coal or the need for a new nuclear plant.

Based on your reasoning, anybody with money should invest in the low-hanging fruit — waste energy recovery, anaerobic digesters on farms, conservation, etc… The problem with that is that there’d been no money invested in the less ripe fruit higher up in the tree. Google’s investment, and others investing in this space, should be welcomed because you’ll never find anybody in Canada’s ultraconservative banking community investing in this stuff. Why should Bill Gates, who could sit back from his Microsoft riches and do nothing, invest in new aids breakthroughs and Malaria prevention programs when he could be putting all his money into IT? Your reasoning is flawed, and your use of the term “investigative journalism” is misplaced. Not everything written by a reporter, or blogger for that matter, need be “investigative.”

So let me get this straight: You’re calling investments in plug-in hybrid vehicles, solar thermal and PV technology, efficient computer and data centres, and now enhanced geothermal all “crackpot”?

I’m hoping you’re just rubbing me the wrong way for entertainment value, because your igorance is shocking.

Second, I agree about the the money going to Southern Methodist University.

Third, I somewhat agree with:

“Greenwashing to me is trying to sell a product as green that isn’t green. It’s about lying to the public. It’s about feel-good but misleading advertising.”

The fact that it is not transparent to Tyler is troubling. What ever happened to investigative journalism?

So what is good energy related journalism.

I get many news articles daily about energy. I work in the R&D end of the electricity generating industry with my favorite being dairy farm biomass and biomass related to forest heath. Since I just finished working on a Canadian proposal for my company, I have restricted myself from commenting on related topics.

At the same time as Google’s press release, a geothermal industry association has a press release where I learned there is about 4000 MWe of legitimate geothermal under development. This is an amazing story and nobody is talking about that.

It is transparent, Google’s purpose is not produce clean energy, it is to impress the gullible. When you look at the technologies Google selects, the loonier the better. Loony is more interesting unless your goal is too accomplish something like ‘as momentum builds, lead to change in the marketplace’.

Google product is a search engine. Information management systems are one the fastest growing areas of new electricity demand. Google is lying to the public or to be fair they are not very good at updating their web pages.

So Tyler, find out how Google used green energy in 2007 as they claimed. Tell me which dairy farms in Brazil and Mexico they invested in. Tell my why the technologies they have selected are ‘breaktrhous’ and not crackpot.

Tell me why so many journalists plagiarized the Google press release and failed to talk about the great story of geothermal.

I have looked at all of Google’s investments in this area and, in my view, they’re all worthy of this kind of support. More precisely related to my blog post, I commend Google for this investment — particularly the money going to Southern Methodist University — because it benefits Canada.

Greenwashing to me is trying to sell a product as green that isn’t green. It’s about lying to the public. It’s about feel-good but misleading advertising. It’s not about companies investing in companies or granting money to projects that could, as momentum builds, lead to change in the marketplace.