www.allheadlinenews.com
August 20, 2009
New York, NY (AHN) - The Obama administration's geothermal energy program has been stalled as a project to drill a hot bedrock in northern California for heating water was put on hold on fears it may cause an earthquake.
Federal scientists privy to the project but who declined to be identified have revealed that AltaRock Energy has stopped drilling beyond 4,000 feet deep at the Geysers north of San Francisco pending results of a review of the project's safety by the Department of Energy and the Bureau of Land Management. The company reached that depth after almost two months of expensive drilling.
The drilling needs to reach 12,000 feet or 2.3 miles deep where rocks would be fractured. Water will then be circulated in the cracks to heat it and produce consistent and constant amounts of steam energy. Apparently, fracturing the bedrock may induce earthquake like what happened to a similar project in Basel, Switzerland. The minor temblor in Basel caused the geothermal drilling there to be stopped.
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