New Report Finds Huge Power Potential in Geothermal Resources

The thermal energy stored in the Earth's crust could be converted into electricity to provide a substantial portion of future U.S. power needs, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact, according to a new study, MIT press release, full report (14 MB pdf), sponsored by DOE and led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A 21-member expert panel released a report that examines the potential to tap into the heat in Earth's crust and convert it into electricity. The report found the potential to generate 100,000 megawatts of power from geothermal resources within 50 years. That's roughly one-tenth of the total generating capacity that exists in the United States today.

While today's geothermal power plants draw from underground reservoirs of hot, permeable rock containing significant amounts of water or steam, the MIT-led panel specifically examined enhanced geothermal system (EGS) technology, which involves creating such geothermal reservoirs in areas that lack either the water or the permeability, or both. Such technologies were previously tested by DOE in New Mexico and are currently being explored in Europe and Australia. See my previous post and the EGS technology description on the DOE Geothermal Program Web site.

Thanks in part to advances in drilling technologies for the oil and gas industries, the process of drilling deep into the crust to access hot, hard layers of rock and pumping water in to "stimulate" the reservoir—opening up cracks in the rock to allow water to permeate through—has already been proven. The report recommends more detailed and site-specific assessments of the U.S. geothermal resource, followed by several field trials at prime locations that would run for three to five years as a demonstration of the EGS technology.

EGS technology offers a huge expansion to the possible locations that can use geothermal energy and is a promising technology for the relatively long term. While conventional geothermal can continue to be a growing part of our renewabole energy potfolio now, EGS will take at least 15 years to fully develop and require a modest $1 billion investment over that time period, an investment that should be made. It is important that we make this investment because it is a low cost way to increase our energy indepence in a renewable way that can reduce the need for new fossil fuel and nuclear plants.

I am late on reporting on this potentially breakthrough technology, but is so important that it deserves a great deal of attention. Clean Break has a good blog on the subject and Atlantic Geothermal has a list of all the blogs that have been made on the subject.