John Seelmeyer, 6/13/2011
Early developers of geothermal resources in Nevada headed for obvious locations — the sorts of places where steam rose from cracks in the ground — to build electric generation plants.
As those sites are developed, however, the geothermal industry now looks farther afield for prospects — a search that is substantially more expensive and risk-filled. The stakes are big.
The Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology estimates that geothermal production revenues could total $1 billion a year in Nevada in the next couple of decades, and geothermal resources could meet 35 percent or more of the state’s needs for electricity.