In summer of 1971, my best friend, Greg Victoroff, and I backpacked in Iceland for two weeks.
The Land of Fire and Ice is mostly powered by clean, cheap geothermal energy and has been for well over 100 years.
In fact, energy is so cheap, Alcoa built an aluminum smelter there 20 years ago.
In 1859, Colonel Drake drilled the very first oil well in Titusville, Pa. Since then, the oil and gas industries have perfected drilling and fracking to an artform.
Now, the planet is laced over with a global network of heavy, schedule 80 steel piping and pumps originally for oil and gas that could be used for high heat and pressure geothermal.
Hot rocks are everywhere.
Any miner will tell you, it is hot in mines.
So, why?
Why, do we not harness this carbon-free energy with geothermal?
No money in it.
So, there you have it, a world of greedy hypocrites, while the answer is literally under our feet.
Peter Lavelle
Port Angeles