US DoE awards USD 29m for underground geothermal research

The US Department of Energy (DoE) is awarding USD 29 million (EUR 26m) in funding to two university teams in Nevada and Utah to prepare candidate sites for underground research on enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).

The financing is being provided under the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE) programme to teams at Sandia National Laboratories and the University of Utah. They will use the funds to fully instrument, characterise and permit candidate sites for underground EGS laboratories in Fallon, Nevada and Milford, Utah, respectively.

In the third phase of the FORGE programme, the two sites will compete to become the headquarters for the future underground field lab.

Enhanced geothermal systems use heat from the earth to produce renewable electricity in areas without naturally occurring geothermal resources. Investing in this technology could eventually result in over 100 GW of economically viable power generating capacity in the continental US, the DoE said.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.898)

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