Many companies who order surveys are often disappointed, as quite often, the land they were interested in, cannot support a geothermal energy plant. To extract the heat we have to find certain hot spots within the earths crust, these are very common around volcanoes and fault lines, but who wants to build their power geothermal energy plant next to a volcano?
The questions that are usually asked during a survey are; is the rock soft enough to drill through, do the rocks deep down contain sufficient heat, will this heat be sustainable for a significant amount of time, is the environment fit for a power plant. If the answer to these basic questions is yes, a more in depth survey should go ahead.
Another big disadvantage of geothermal energy extraction, is that in many cases, a site that has happily been extracting steam and turning it into power for many years, may suddenly stop producing steam. This can happen and last for around 10 years in some cases
Developers of such sites must be careful and aware that in some cases, harmful gases can escape from deep within the earth, through the holes drilled by the constructors
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