Geothermal Power Plants, 3rd Edition

Preface and Acknowledgments to the First Edition

It was the Fourth of July in the year 2004. Brilliant fireworks streamed across the evening sky. Had this been any of a thousand cities and towns in the United States, the event would not be unusual. But why would a tiny village in the Tuscany region of Italy be celebrating on America’s Independence Day?

One hundred years ago on that very day in the village of Larderello, geothermal energy was born as a source of electric power generation. Over the following century, geothermal energy has grown to be the most reliable, efficient, and environmentally-benign renewable source of electric power. Indeed, more than twenty countries across the world where geothermal energy is now used for power production ...