Another $31 million in government money is being handed out by the Biden administration toward geothermal energy projects.
The U.S. Department of Energy announced the funding is part of “Building on President Biden and Vice President Harris’s Investing in America agenda.” The funds are reported to be an effort to advance geothermal energy throughout the country.
One project is in New Mexico and another is in Texas.
“The projects will improve the construction of enhanced geothermal systems and demonstrate how reservoir thermal energy storage can reduce energy needs for industry – supporting DOE’s Enhanced Geothermal Shot™ goal to reduce the costs of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) by 90% by 2035 and DOE’s Industrial Heat Shot™ goal to develop cost-competitive industrial heat decarbonization technologies with at least 85% lower emissions by 2035,” stated the DOE press release.
“These projects help achieve President Biden’s emissions reduction goals, strengthen U.S. competitiveness in this sector, and expand the types of clean and cost-effective energy solutions for American homes, businesses, and industry,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm.
The selected projects are:
- Clemson University (Clemson, SC, $4,880,182): This project will develop an AI-enabled, photoacoustic imaging tool for high-temperature and high-pressure well logging to assess geothermal well integrity without active cooling.
- Innovative Downhole Solutions Inc.(Houston, TX, $2,509,545): This project will develop a durable ultrasonic measurement tool capable of operating for 24 hours in high-temperature geothermal environments to assess wellbore construction materials and practices.
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(Berkeley, CA, $2,016,000 ): This project will develop a tool for geothermal borehole integrity evaluation, designed to assess wellbore integrity in extreme conditions without the need for downhole electronics.
- Los Alamos National Laboratory (Los Alamos, NM, $3,674,955): This project will develop a high-resolution acoustics-based tool to provide high-fidelity data for evaluating EGS components under extreme conditions.
- Schlumberger Technology Corporation (Houston, TX, $10,000,000): This project will develop a wireline tractor-conveyed system for long-term integrity modeling of cement and casing.
- Project Development Solutions, Inc. (Bakersfield, CA, $7,899,807): This project will pilot a reservoir thermal energy storage (RTES) demonstration project at Kern Front Oil Field in Bakersfield, pairing subsurface geothermal reservoirs with a steam system and process heat off-taker.
These projects are funded by DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
Source: DOE press release