Two Bills Promoting Geothermal Energy Reintroduced in the Senate

Leslie Blodgett, GEA
February 18, 2013 | 2 Comments

This week two bills promoting geothermal energy development in the U.S. were reintroduced in the Senate. Both bills were approved by the Energy Committee in the last Congress but never saw action on the Senate floor.

Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) reintroduced a bill to authorize noncompetitive leasing for geothermal developers on lands adjacent to a proven geothermal resource. S. 363, the "Geothermal Production Expansion Act, could allow a geothermal project to expand onto adjacent land if necessary and would add to a project’s royalties and rents.

Wyden said in a statement, “The reason for this legislation is to allow the rapid expansion of already identified geothermal resources without the additional delays of competitive leasing and without opening up those adjacent properties to speculative bidders who have no interest in actually developing the resource, only in extracting as much money as they can from the existing geothermal developer.” Wyden added, “The bill is not a giveaway at taxpayer expense. The bill limits the amount of adjacent Federal land that can be leased to 640 acres.”

Sen. John Tester (D-Mont.) reintroduced a bill to establish a geothermal loan program. S. 362, the "Geothermal Exploration and Technology Act," is similar to the bill last Congress to “promote the mapping and development of United States geothermal resources by establishing a direct loan program for high risk geothermal exploration wells, to amend the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 to improve geothermal energy technology and demonstrate the use of geothermal energy in large scale thermal applications, and for other purposes.”

This article was originally published in GEA's Geothermal Energy Weekly and was republished with permission.

Lead image: Congress via Shutterstock

2 Comments

Kent Doering
February 20, 2013

Geothermal is an excellent source of energy. Where I reside, Germany, has two good deep "dry hot rock" fields- the North German, and the South German "molasse" field. Small scale experiments are being conducted in driving horitzontal drills -(much like horizontal drilling for fracking)- down into the Mollasse field. The pipes will be sealed, at one end, and a 2nd interior pipe pumps "condenses cooling tower water- down into the bore- to generate a 200° c steam coming out of the bore holes. These will be in circular pad drill order around a shut down nuclear power plant. However, that is not sufficiently heat expanded steam.
This is where controversial Stirling heat recapture and hho generation come into play. Large, Alpha Stirling Motors in the Rankine cycle exhaust lines - between the Rankine Cycle and the cooling- condensation tower. "Artificial helium", that is, alpha rdioactive deuterium gas which has precisely the same excellent heat modulator and non-reactive characteristics will be partially used as the heat modulator- the other gas modulator being- co² recaptured from coal plants.
These Alpha Stirlings will feed power into a battery of special titanium plated, high grade stainless steel "hho- dry cells" - producing 300 liters of highly inflammable hho browns gas per input kilowatt hour. i.e. 10 megawatts of "heat recapture" Alpha Stirling power generated on the Rankine cycle exhaust system- will directly generate 3000 cubic meters of highly inflammable hho and hour- going into a big Siemens gas turbine, and the hot exhausts will heat the 200° geothermal steam to the 300° plus expanded steam needed to drive the existing nuclear power plant steam turbines.
New geothermal plants are being planned, and consideratins are being discussed for also converting several large brown coal power plants operating with stripped mined coal to the same hybrid- geothermal- heat recapture hho combined cycle mode. 40% of 2025 baseline power needs.

terry hallinan
February 20, 2013

"The reason for this legislation is to allow the rapid expansion of already identified geothermal resources without the additional delays of competitive leasing and without opening up those adjacent properties to speculative bidders who have no interest in actually developing the resource..."

Spoilsport. :-)

Maybe some here are not familiar with the enormous technical development of directional drilling technology during the Teapot Dome scandal. Leaseholds adjacent to the Navy's reserve were utilized to tap into the Navy's holding.

A few months ago a geothermal leasehold was bought in Colorado by a land owner in the area to prevent development after years of study suggesting an excellent resource. A use or lose could help with that but is more than a little tricky in devising an equitable policy.

Good to know any politicians can think beyond the unreliables - wind and solar.

Best, Terry

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Leslie Blodgett

Leslie keeps up on the geothermal industry to contribute to the Geothermal Energy Association's weekly newsletter, reports, events, and initiatives. Previously she edited for the American Geophysical Union's peer-reviewed journals.