Currently, geothermal energy contributes less than 1% to the nation’s power supply, according to the USGS. But, in a new report, the federal agency says there’s a massive amount of untapped geothermal energy in the Great Basin, which includes most of Nevada, half of Utah, and parts of Idaho, Wyoming, California and Oregon.
“There's a lot of heat there,” said Erick Burns, a research hydrologist with the USGS and lead author of the report. “The question is, how do you get at it? And then, how do you do this effectively, especially cost-effectively?”
The report, which was an update of a 2008 assessment, shows the Great Basin has the potential for 135 gigawatts of baseload geothermal energy.
“We pretty much know that there's heat down there, right?” Burns said. “So the real challenge is figuring out where you can create a really good set of connected, open pathways.”
Burns said that would require widespread development of enhanced geothermal systems, which use fracking techniques – similar to oil and gas drilling – to inject water into cracks of hot rock to create artificial reservoirs. Then operators extract that heat to generate electricity.
The federal government is testing this technology in our region. Last year, the Department of Energy poured $40 million into an enhanced geothermal project called FORGE in southwest Utah.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by CPB.
