I don't know if it's "no footprint" at all. For what I know, which is not much, but just what a person living here might know, there's a footprint that can be somehow managed. But I'm not an engineer
We have a whole fleet of geothermal plants (15ish), making about 20% of our power. However the largest plant is only 160MW.
The impact in comparison to our other renewables seems fairly minimal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_New_Zealan...
As a layman, I assume waste heat would still be an issue? Even so I would also assume it's still way less damaging to the environment than everything else.
Whaste heat from nuclear or fusion does contribute to earth heating, though insignificant compared to any source pf c02.
But my intuition tells me geothermal wouldn't...
Mm. Actually, water vapor is a potent greenhouse gas; and that's how to covert heat to energy. So mabie it would indeed be significant.
They deserve big props for this innovation and effort, as historically Utah has frequently been been treated as an industrial dumping grounds. The long-term ecological damage and visual eyesores due to strip mining, chemical dumping and other pollution is significant.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/02/f7/geotherma...
Global warming isn't happening due to industrial waste heat - it's happening due to CO2 emissions being a massive leverage for messing with how the planet absorbs and emits heat.
It is mostly an issue in places like Europe that do not have a history of strong earthquakes and therefore lack seismic resistance civil engineering. There are a few places like that in the US (e.g. New England) where a minor M5 earthquake can cause damage but those don't overlap with areas with high geothermal potential.
He said ‘BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL’
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1141801993510...