There is a vast volcano building under Yellowstone Nat. Park, approx. half the size of the park and extending five miles deep. I just saw it last night on Nova. Maybe we can siphon off some of that heat to power the country and save North America from becoming an ash covered wasteland.

Yes, whats with this research BS?

Drilling a hole or two ... yep the technology already exists,
Dynamite the rock at the bottom of the hole ... yep the technology already exists,
Put in an insulated water injector pipe ... yep the technology already exists,
Put in a pump for water return ... yep the technology already exists,
Put in a hot water power generating station ... yep the technology already exists,

Just build it.

The key figure here is 10,000 meters. That is more than six miles or nearly double that of most oil and gas wells. This requires the use of special alloys or composite ceramic materials. Very few wells have been drilled to that depth and just a little seismic activity could destroy years of work in just a few seconds. Holes that deep get more expensive on a per foot basis the deeper you go.
The USA already has over a half million oil and gas wells which are drilled at depths that have adequate temperatures for power production if we accept a lower conversion efficiency.

The South Australian cooper basin at 4-5KLM deep should be producing about now. As the area is remote from the grid , contracts with mining co's were critical to startup.
I paste a snip from NZ:

Geothermal investigations at Ngawha began in the 1960s, including the first well. Sixteen other wells were drilled between 1977 and 1983 to depths ranging from 600 to 2300 m. The investigations identified a large but relatively low enthalpy resource with the wells producing fluid at 225-230°C with high levels of dissolved minerals including boron and mercury. Thirteen of the wells were tested, of which six were good producers with a mean fluid enthalpy of about 975 kJ/kg. Gas ratios suggest that a deeper reservoir at 300-320°C is contributing to the system and one well proved these temperatures exist.

The current development at Ngawha is a joint venture between local Maori interests and Top Energy which commissioned two 4.5 MW binary units in 1998. Resource consents were granted for only a 12 year period on the condition that development should not cause any detectable changes to the surface features because of their high cultural value. Further expansion of the Ngawha project is just underway with Top Energy bringing the project up to a total of 25 MW. The expansion will include additional Ormat binary cycle units.

Europeans and USSR have been using this since near the turn of he 20th century .
Some for house and city heating only other for power gen.
Easy to look it up and so much about, that I wont bother with links.

We need to understand the motivatiothat Oil and Coal AND Nuclear extraction co's have in keeping the status quo before we can understand the subject.

The commercialization of plasma torch drills could make this a lot easier.

http://www.geodynamics.com.au/IRM/content/about_progresstodate.html

Organic rankine cycle....

DOE statistics 2007.
7% of power generation in USA from renewable energy.
4% of USA renewable electricity generation from geothermal.
Other sources quote 5% of USA energy consumption.
and 8.5% of USA energy consumption.
Some are finding ways of making electricity.
Its not rocket science to see how the turbines, steam engine whatever simply need be appropriately designed.
in much the same way as any pump, turbine or propeller is matched to both rpm and flow/volume.
super critical steam is not required.

Chena Hot Springs in Alaska has a state-of-the-art 400 kilowatt geothermal system that uses 165 degree water to boil the refrigerants, which in turn powers a turbine (and I'm quoting the article) at 1000 MPH. This is a closed loop system, where approx. 90 percent of the components are off the shelf items manufactured by Carrier.
The resort electrifies and heats the entire facility, plus maintaining an ice museum year 'round. Google it to get more details.

More drivel from non-engineer "true believers", whonever botherd to taker those tough math and science or engineering courses. These are peopel who really, really, believe that "free energy" is really free,and chaeap to harness. And abundant.

And the only reason we don't already use is on a massive scale, Must Be a "CONSPIRACY".

Geothermal is used very sparingly for a few obvious reasons:

a) One, the geothermal resources rapidly cool down and it is difficult to find large enough geologic heat reservoirs to use.
The article posted about the difficulty of finding sufficient amounts of heat in the reservoirs.

b) The working fluid, usually hot water or wet steam, is very contaminated with corrosives, and saturated with toxics. Toxic poison gases such as SOx or H2S "rotten eggs", is not uncommon, at all.

c) The thermal efficiency of such facilities is very marginal. The concept of enthalpy and "useful heat" is beyond their ken.

d) Producing wet steam that doesn't produce much electricity and tears apart the turbines with erosive water droplets that are also corrosive, never dawns of these "true believers", who are literally scientific "know-nothings".

e) The idea of upgrading the low level heated fluid, to a more useful higher heat and dry steam form, adds complexity but might serve as a model for more widespread utilization. But then it really isn't a "fossil fuel free" site anymore is it?

f) finding places that have all these attributes is tough enough, but finding one that is near demand is even tougher. Other wise, obtaining approval for long transmission lines is problematical, and line-losses rapidly mount.

Are there isolated instances of using geothermal? Almost all are tour-de-force inplementations. Overseas, the use of geothermal is much more widepread for local space heating and is a much better use of the low level heat, despite the inflexibility.

Could we harness more geothermal sources? Definitely Yes. Will we? yes.

Is it easy, or will it ever amount to a major source? Succinctly NO.

Return to the real world people. The reason that the oddball sources of energy are not widely used, such as solar, wind or geothermal, is that they are all inefficient, expensive to construct, or to operate. These sources produce very expensive energy, and usually intermittently.

Solar and Wind can be easily seen as intermittent, but some geothermal sites need a "rest" of several months to several years, to "regenerate" the heat reservoir. That is long term intermittentcy.

@anon troll
Wow, are you ever behind the times on geothermal technology. Go back to school (you could even try the 5th grade this time) and study up on Enhanced Geothermal Systems and binary power plant systems.

I appreciate the comments, but does everything we do have to be on such a grand scale? That's where we went wrong on nuclear power plants. We don't need humungus facilities when you can install a self contained nuclear unit that is about the size of a large hot water tank. You bury it in the ground and the estimated life is 40 years.
Furthermore, this geothermal breakthrough technology that Chena Hot Springs has IS free energy, in that it utilizes hot water that is heated by the earths core. Even the water is fed to the system via gravity, thus eliminating a circulation pump. Will it provide electricity for the entire state of Alaska? Of course not, but it will provide heat and electricity for the entire facility, plus provide electricity for the, soon to be, EVs that they plan to use in their business. By the way, this system has been in operation since 2005 without a hitch in the system.

I agree that wind and solar is a catch as catch can, and not suited for a constant energy source.
Also, for your information, a geothermal system has been in operation, and supplying electricity in California since 1958.
Well, enough "drivel" for today.