Not to knock Iceland, but if Mr. Lacey wanted to learn about geothermal development, he should have come to California. We have tapped into far more geothermal energy than has Iceland. In fact, close to 50% of the geothermally developed energy on the entire planet is inside California's borders.

One community northeast of Fairbanks, AK, Chena Hot Springs. is the only community in the US that gets all of it's electricity from a geothermal source. Geothermal works in lower than minus 80 degrees below zero (F). It has a resource life expectancy of only four billion years or so. The other sub-surface energy sources, oil, coal, and gas have a few hundred years of life expectancy left, and the destruction left behind will take hundreds, if not thousands of years to re-exist. Sincerely, Ray Wallace

@ Anonymous

A single power plant in California (the Geysers) has a rating of about 725 MW. This is a steam-dominated reservoir, which are extremely rare in the context of global geothermal development. The total installed geothermal capacity in California is about 1,800 MWe. Iceland's installed capacity is about 500 MWe (as of 2009, once the 90 MW Hellisheiði expansion comes on line) - not too bad for a country with only 300,000 people. Not to mention the fact that much more energy is used for space heating, greenhouses, industrial uses, etc.

Iceland is a great place to learn about geothermal - trust me, I've been here doing just that for the last year!