Green Tech Update - August 22, 2024
Oil executive turned geothermal energy leader in Idaho, subsurface imaging in Nevada, and a neighborhood geothermal network in Framingham, Massachusetts
Geothermal energy is a type of renewable energy that comes from heated water which exists beneath the Earth's surface. While it’s often referred to as geothermal heat, the process can also provide emissions-free and renewable cooling and electricity. The main barrier to leveraging this resource is cost. However, the oil industry has both a workforce and subsurface knowledge that can help with the transition.
In May, NPR’s Kirk Siegler interviewed Tina Riley, a geologist and former oil executive who switched careers and moved to Idaho to manage geothermal energy. Boise has the oldest geothermal energy network in the country, dating back over a hundred years when some affluent families used it to heat their homes. In the 1970s a geothermal project expanded to serve many residents because of high prices from oil shortages. Idaho has the “only state capitol building in the country to be heated by geothermal,” reports Siegler. The warm water is pumped at stations outside of town and sent into the city through pipes, then returned to replenish the same underground supply.
Because the energy comes from underground, "it's a much smoother transition to geothermal than to maybe some other technologies,” says Amanda Kolker, head of the geothermal program at the federal National Renewable Energy Lab. She says one of the biggest challenges with finding new areas for geothermal projects is, “you're trying to understand what's going on underground. It's invisible, you can't see it, and your best data points are deep wells and we don't have lots of those."
On Tuesday, the Department of Energy (DOE) published an article about a possible answer to the question: “If the resource is hidden, how do you know where to drill?” The DOE reported that a research team from Sandia National Laboratories has been testing a new approach in Nevada’s Steptoe Valley.
The team is using “new and established geophysical imaging techniques” to better assess the area that the oil industry had previously already discovered. Geophysical imaging is used to “visualize the subsurface.” The DOE says the benefit to this approach is that it is both “non-invasive” and “cost-effective.”
The team’s research results, shared in a scrolling essay with user-friendly images and explanations were published in this StoryMap: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/fdba3f1084b7469b87d4f6822c60311c
E&E News by Politico reported in March that “geothermal energy produced from heat beneath the Earth’s surface could increase twentyfold in the U.S. by 2050,” according to a new DOE report titled Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal Power. Currently, geothermal energy only provides 0.4 percent of electricity in the United States. Innovations in drilling technology and resource exploration are expected to help grow the industry. DOE reported that most of the growth is likely to happen in the western states “where subsurface heat is easier to access.”
The geographic limitation noted by the DOE is for power plant-level geothermal energy. Neighborhood networks and individual home systems that use geothermal energy are already emerging in the Northeast. For example, Massachusetts launched a pilot program in 2023 in Framingham, in which some low-income residents’ homes are being retrofitted to connect to a neighborhood source of geothermal energy.
The article quotes Joe Nolan, chairman, president and CEO of Eversource, the utility company implementing the project, "Massachusetts is on the cutting edge of leading an unprecedented clean energy transition in New England, and our networked geothermal pilot exemplifies the collaboration that is essential to achieving decarbonization goals."
Green Tech Update provides context about news in green technology innovations and public policy changes related to the environment and climate change.
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Notes:
Oil to geothermal:
DOE imaging:
DOE looking to increase scope:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/doe-eyes-20-times-more-geothermal-power/
https://www.energy.gov/eere/geothermal/hydrothermal-resources
https://liftoff.energy.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/LIFTOFF_DOE_NextGen_Geothermal_v14.pdf
Massachusetts:
In Laconia, NH there is a geothermal demonstration project dating from 2005 at the Prescott Farm:
https://prescottfarm.org/about-us/our-facilities/