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The development of geothermal resources has been delayed in the United States for several reasons: the ready availability of low-cost fossil fuels, the general remoteness from load centers of geothermal areas, and more recently the illusion that nuclear power plants would provide all our needed power at a low cost and with no environmental hazards. Significant, also, is the fact that until a leasing act was passed in 1970 all Federal lands, amounting to nearly half of the land in the Western States, were withdrawn from geothermal exploration. A major change of values within a large segment of the population has forced the electric utilities to re-evaluate their present and planned power-plant siting criteria. This re-evaluation, along with the passage of the Federal leasing law in late 1970, combined with the demonstrated success of The Geysers field, has made geothermal resources much more economically attractive. Leasing of private and state lands is now underway in many parts of the West and plans are being made for the drilling of exploratory wells. At the same time, however, stringent zoning regulations are being proposed that would effectively ban drilling and development of geothermal wells in even the very remote regions of the states. If such regulations are adopted we will have to pay a much higher price for our electricity, both monetarily and environmentally, than if geothermal power is developed to its full potential. |
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