Geothermal Future with Safety, Health, Environment Director-John Farison

Geothermal industry goes full steam ahead
Calpine Safety Health Environment Director John Farison checks on the status of a generator at the Lakeview plant, which harnesses two steam turbines to produce 53 megawatts of electricity. Although the 47-year-old field is the country's largest geothermal producer, supplying almost 3 percent of California's electricity, it is virtually unknown.

 

Geyser energy has escaped... Why has California's No. 1 source of renewable energy remained under the radar amid the wave of green hoopla that has engulfed the state and nation?

"Windmills are dramatic. Everybody's seen them at Altamont. You can drive around and see solar everywhere," said John Farison, the director of safety health environment for Calpine, which owns 19 of the 22 plants at the Geysers. "This (geothermal) is focused in special spots."
Another energy maven had a different take.

"In the 1980s and 1990s, the Geysers and geothermal energy were very popular, but in the 1990s there was a depletion of (water at) the Geysers and the whole resource was in jeopardy," said Claudia Chandler of the California Energy Commission. Like the steam rising from the hot springs at the site, the Geysers vanished from the public eye for many years until a new source of water was secured.

 

Although not all geothermal plants produce energy the same way the Geysers do, all of them are clean. Energy can be extracted without burning a fossil fuel such as coal, gas or oil.

"Relative to a coal-burning plant, there's nothing but a trace of carbon dioxide in the steam used to produce geothermal energy," Farison said. Geothermal plants leave few marks on the land; and unlike wind and solar systems, they work day and night.

 

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