Why is Geothermal Energy So Unpopular in the U.S.?

March 11, 2015- Geothermal energy offers a flexible, 100 percent renewable and clean energy source, yet the U.S. has been slow to implement it. Geothermal energy can provide energy to an entire country or on a smaller scale, it can heat/cool a small house. Of America’s total energy sources, less than 1 percent comes from geothermal energy, but in places like Iceland, it’s as high as 65 percent.

The reasons are both political and economic. First, geothermal systems are hard to retrofit. For the U.S., which is a relatively “built” nation, more geothermal energy sources would have to be retrofitted to an existing structure. Building owners don’t want to front the cost of introducing an entirely new system.

On a national scale, nobody wants to pay for a large-scale geothermal energy project either. Iceland is a country where a greater percentage of tax dollars is used for the public municipality sector, and it has a strong geothermal system. In the U.S., few public dollars are invested in the geothermal industry.

Renewable energy sources help minimize America’s fossil-fuel usage, but wind and solar energy alone aren’t enough to solve the energy crisis. Geothermal energy, along with other untapped renewable sources, is key to ending fossil-fuel dependency and introducing an off-the-grid energy system.

Read the full theaggie.org post here.

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