DOE Awards $338M to Accelerate Domestic Geothermal Energy
29 October 2009
The US Department of Energy (DOE) will award up to $338 million in Recovery Act funding for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. These grants will support 123 projects in 39 states, with recipients including private industry, academic institutions, tribal entities, local governments, and DOE’s national laboratories.
The grants will be matched more than one-for-one with an additional $353 million in private and non-Federal cost-share funds.
These grants are directed towards identifying and developing new geothermal fields and reducing the upfront risk associated with geothermal development through innovative exploration and drilling projects and data development and collection. In addition, the grants will support the deployment and creative financing approaches for ground source heat pump demonstration projects across the country.
Collectively, these projects will represent a significant expansion of the US geothermal industry and will create or save thousands of jobs in drilling, exploration, construction, and operation of geothermal power facilities and manufacturing of ground source heat pump equipment.
The projects selected for negotiation of awards fall in six categories:
Innovative Exploration and Drilling Projects (up to $98.1 million): Twenty-four projects have been selected focusing on the development of new geothermal fields using innovative sensing, exploration, and well-drilling technologies.
Coproduced, Geopressured, and Low Temperature Projects (up to $20.7 million): Eleven projects have been selected for the development of new low-temperature geothermal fields, a vast but currently untapped set of geothermal resources. This includes geothermal heat found in the hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells around the United States, where up to ten barrels of hot water are produced for every barrel of oil.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems Demonstrations (up to $51.4 million): Three projects have been selected for the exploration, drilling and development of enhanced geothermal systems to validate power production from deep hot rock resources using innovative technologies and approaches.
Enhanced Geothermal Systems Components Research and Development/Analysis (up to $81.5 million): Forty-five projects have been selected to focus on research and development of new technologies to find and drill into deep hot rock formations, stimulate enhanced geothermal reservoirs, and convert the heat to power.
Geothermal Data Development, Collection and Maintenance (up to $24.6 million): Three projects have been selected for the population of a comprehensive nationwide geothermal resource database to help identify and assess new fields.
Ground Source Heat Pump Demonstrations (up to $61.9 million): Thirty-seven projects have been selected to demonstrate the deployment of ground source heat pumps for heating and cooling of a variety of buildings for a variety of customer types, including academic institutions, local governments, and commercial buildings.
Tax dollars spent well...I'd like to see a 1:1 tax dollar to grant winner match though.
Posted by: ejj | 29 October 2009 at 03:11 PM
Stimulus with long term environmental, technological and "energy independence" paybacks into the future.
Is a worthy aim to return taxpayers money to the social infrastructure, with the compounded investment expectations.
We have seen bank and auto industry bailout moneys returning to the pool in this way so win win and then some more.
The question is how to collect specific grant money when so many business methods will take advantage without any commitment to the intent? I guess that is why they call it grant monies.
The resources industry like many are well known for taking commissions, in the full knowledge that the only thing on offer is hype.
More
Posted by: arnold | 30 October 2009 at 05:11 AM
Interesting projects for future cleaner electricity and energy production.
Wind power should also get similar help to accellerate installations.
Much better than latest huge investiment in GM and Chrysler ICE vehicles.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 October 2009 at 07:03 AM
After a Ca. trip, this sounds especially promising: " This includes geothermal heat found in the hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells around the United States, where up to ten barrels of hot water are produced for every barrel of oil."
Posted by: kelly | 30 October 2009 at 06:45 PM