DOE to give USD 18m for geothermal research

Aug 7, 2014 - The US Department of Energy (DOE) said yesterday it would provide up to USD 18 million (EUR 13.4m) in financing for 32 projects that aim to cut the costs related to geothermal energy.

The selected projects will be divided in three categories -- subsurface analysis and engineering techniques for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), play fairway analysis for finding new geothermal resources and low-temperature minerals extraction technologies.

The largest portion of the financing, some USD 10 million, will back 12 projects engaged with EGS research and development. Those schemes will use isotope studies, innovative rock mechanics experiments, and tracer studies to improve the measurement accuracy of critical underground reservoir properties over time. The list of entities that will get research financing includes the University of Wisconsin-Madison, The Pennsylvania State University and the California State University Long Beach.

Another 11 projects will share USD 4 million in financing in the play fairway analysis category, seeking to find prospective geothermal resources in areas with no obvious surface expression. This will be done through detecting and plotting underground heat, permeability, and fluid at various sites across the US. Basin-scale maps will be created as a result of the study. Some of the project winners are the Utah State University, Atlas Geosciences Inc and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Last but not least, the DOE will award USD 4 million to nine projects that will deal with mineral recovery from low- to moderate-temperature geothermal resources. Among the selected candidates here are the Southern Research Institute and SRI International.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.747)

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