Mission to Mars? That could be considered a rallying effort but it is not what our country needs right now. Absolutely, we need to work out life in space because humans are surpassing earth's ability to support us. However, instead of devoting our hopes and dreams and huge federal money to send a few people millions of miles to Mars, we need to start making a trip of just 25 or so miles the other direction for the rest of us earth-bound bodies. Geothermal is nearly limitless, doesn't saddle us with tons of radioactive waste to be monitored for tens to thousands of years, doesn't chop migrating birds, doesn't take acres of collection panels or mirrors with intricate control mechanisms, doesn't choke the last remaining rivers (most viable hydroelectric has already been exploited, anyway).
Global warming is only one horrible symptom waiting to make our lives miserable. But at least it is a problem we can thwart if we choose to. The mantra about geothermal energy is that you have to do it where the crust is thinner and the hot magma is closer to the surface. I have suggested we develop ways to drill wells deep enough to tap realistically usable heat and have been told in most places it cannot be done.
In fact there is technology, called jet spallation drilling (Jeffrey Tester, MIT), which is faster and more effective than standard drilling methods and is capable of reaching the depths we need. We just need to commit to it instead of funding multi-million mile space trips or ill-conceived wars.
As we demonstrate the technology to tap geothermal anywhere energy is needed, we start providing the means to wean ourselves off of oil. This is a near term solution, folks, and it will lead not only to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. It will also engender peace and higher standards of living throughout the world.
Once we are off oil and show any country can do it (and help them to do it), the market for oil deflates, decimating the flow of money into the Middle East, removing a major source for both terrorists and hostile governments that have so far easily been affording arms, nuclear and intercontinental missile technology, nuclear fuel, etc. Thus we move the whole world toward peace as well as less global warming gas emissions.
As countries adopt this and other cheap, renewable, green sources of energy, mechanizing of repetitive jobs, powering computers and robots, desalinizing sea water, and using many other energy intensive life enhancements will help to raise the world's standard of living.
Geothermal will be a disruptive technology -- the oil industry is heavily entrenched, very powerful, and highly capitalized. It will take a lot of new investment to convert our transportation and other high energy uses to electricity, and it will decimate the value of current technology and infrastructure. The benefits far outweigh the costs and it is time we committed to this incredibly ignored source of energy.
US policy priorities should be reevaluated when traveling millions of miles to Mars is more important than a short trip 25 miles into earth's crust. Space travel is essentially accomplished and this particular trip is of direct consequence to a very small group of people, whereas proving that geothermal energy can be harvested anywhere on earth's surface would demonstrate a global solution to our energy problems and as side benefits show how to halt greenhouse gas emissions and to reverse global warming.
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