WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of the Obama Administration’s continued commitment to the President’s Climate Action Plan, the Energy Department announced $29 million in funding under the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) program. The funds have been awarded to teams at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Utah to fully instrument, characterize, and permit candidate sites for an underground laboratory to conduct research on enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). The Sandia team will work on a site in Fallon, Nevada, while the University of Utah team will focus on a site in Milford, Utah.
“Enhanced Geothermal Systems can help us tap into a vast energy resource with the potential to generate enough clean energy to power millions of homes,” said Franklin Orr, Under Secretary for Science and Energy. “In supporting this technology, the FORGE program is advancing American leadership in clean energy innovation and could ultimately help us meet our climate and sustainability goals.”
The Energy Department, with support from the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), awarded funding to these two teams after a competitive first phase of research to evaluate potential EGS underground research sites. The candidate sites in Nevada and Utah will use this new funding to prepare for the competitive third phase of the FORGE effort, which will designate one site as headquarters for the future underground field lab.
EGS have the potential to unlock access to domestic, geographically diverse, and carbon-free sources of clean energy by using heat from the earth to generate renewable electricity in areas without naturally occurring geothermal resources.
“Nevada will be the perfect location for the Department of Energy’s new FORGE laboratory,” said Senator Harry Reid. “The nation’s lab for advancing geothermal energy belongs in Nevada and will further establish Nevada as a leader in renewable energy. Enhanced Geothermal Systems are the next frontier in clean energy and are an enormous opportunity for the Silver State’s economic growth. I thank President Obama and Secretary Moniz for their ongoing commitment to expanding the scale and benefits of geothermal energy all across the country."
EGS involve accessing resources deep beneath Earth's surface where hot rocks ideal for geothermal wells exist but lack naturally occurring liquid needed to generate steam. Pumping fluids into these hot rocks creates pathways that carry heat to Earth’s surface through wells where fluids become steam to drive turbines and generate electricity. Investing in EGS technologies today could eventually lead to more than 100 gigawatts (GW) of economically viable electric generating capacity in the continental United States, representing a significant increase over current geothermal capacity of 3.5 GW.
For further information, please visit Energy.gov.
