- Geothermal energy is a clean and reliable renewable energy source that has the potential to generate electricity 24/7.
- The new US administration’s support for geothermal could streamline permitting, increase research funding, and provide tax credits.
- Geothermal energy currently plays a minor role in US electricity generation, but it has the potential to become a major source of clean power in the future.
The bubbling sulfur springs and powerful, majestic geysers of Yellowstone National Park are visible manifestations of the potential for geothermal energy in the United States.
Yet for various reasons — including logistics, economics, and permitting issues — geothermal has not come close to reaching its potential. That could be changing, though, with Donald Trump’s surprising embrace of the deep-seated renewable energy source.
In declaring an energy emergency on Monday, January 20, inauguration day for the 47th president, Trump’s executive orders largely favored oil, gas, and coal, and omitted solar, wind, and battery storage. Geothermal heat was included as one of the domestic energy sources that could help ensure a reliable, diversified, and affordable supply of energy.
“The embrace of advanced geothermal under this new administration I’d say is not a giant surprise,” said Alex Kania, a managing director at Marathon Capital, via The Sun Chronicle. “It’s reliable, it’s efficient, and frankly their ties to the more conventional forms of energy production, I think, is probably not lost on some people.”
Indeed, energy experts note that geothermal can generate electricity 24/7 — which is the largest drawback of solar and wind — and that many people in the geothermal field come from the oil and gas industry, where the same technology is used for drilling wells.
Geothermal works by harnessing steam from Earth’s natural heat and using it to spin a turbine that creates clean electricity. There are three main types of geothermal energy systems: direct use and direct heating systems; geothermal power plants; and geothermal heat pumps.
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the first types use hot water from springs or reservoirs near the Earth’s surface. Ancient civilizations used hot springs for bathing, cooking, and heating, and today they are the most familiar sign of geothermal energy.
Geothermal is also used to directly heat buildings and to provide heat for multiple buildings with district heating systems. An example of the latter is Reykjavik, Iceland, where 66 percent of the island nation’s power comes from the Earth’s heat.
Geothermal power plants are generally built near geothermal reservoirs, close to the Earth’s surface, where water or steam is injected at 300 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit to generate electricity.
Geothermal heat pumps are used to heat and cool buildings. The pumps transfer heat from the ground or water into buildings during winter and reverse the process in the summer.
New geothermal companies are adapting technologies from oil and gas to create steam from hot rock, that is turned into manmade reservoirs rather than naturally occurring hot pools. That would make geothermal possible in many more places, The Sun Chronicle notes, adding:
“The Energy Department estimates the next generation of geothermal projects could provide some 90 gigawatts in the U.S. by 2050 — enough to power 65 million homes or more.”
Still, the United States is a small player in the global game of geothermal energy. In 2022, 24 countries generated about 92 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity from geothermal. Indonesia was the leader at about 17 billion kWh, or 5 percent of its total power generation. The largest share of annual electricity generation from geothermal among countries with geothermal power plants was Kenya, at 45 percent of its total. Geothermal accounts for less than half a percent of America’s total electricity generation. The biggest geothermal states are California, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho and New Mexico.
The industry hopes the new U.S. administration’s support for geothermal will lead to streamlined permitting, more federal research and tax credits to promote innovation, states The Sun Chronicle.
A House subcommittee in 2014 heard that an inordinate amount of red tape hampers geothermal in the U.S. For example, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requires geothermal developers to submit over 175 “document sets” for each project, which could mean hundreds of thousands of pages.
The subcommittee also learned that geothermal power projects can take as many as seven years to develop, compared to three to five years for oil and gas projects, and just 18 months for solar or wind start-ups.
Cindy Taff, the CEO of Sage Geosystems in Houston, was quoted saying she hopes that Trump’s pro-geothermal stance will spur investment in large projects, including those that meet surging demand for electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence, and projects to make military facilities energy resilient.
By Andrew Topf for Oilprice.com
Energy News Beat