Even without a handy hot spot, the ground can be tapped to reduce our need for fossil fuels. All of the United States’ soil is suitable for a technology known as geothermal heat pumps, which transfer heat from the ground to homes in the winter and reverse direction to provide cooling in the summer. Heat pumps have the potential to provide nearly all U.S. households with heat and hot water. In fact, the amount of thermal energy in the ground available for heating—more than a million megawatts—dwarfs the amount available for electricity generation. Yet, according to the NREL, we use less than 1 percent of that. The reason: a lack of research investment.
The tide seems to be turning in favor of geothermal energy in the U.S.
Geothermal energy research has been a victim of poor funding for years. Consequently, much of our technology dates back to the 1970s, when the oil crisis spurred an interest in geothermal energy. At that time, the U.S. Geological Survey sifted through its vast collection of data to determine the extent of the resource, while big oil and power companies invested in power plants such as the one at The Geysers. When oil prices dipped in the 1990s, the tide went out on all types of renewable energy. At the Department of Energy (DOE), geothermal funding plunged from $100 million in the 1980s to a little more than $20 million in recent years. Competing with oil and gas exploration for geological expertise, and with only minimal backing from the government, U.S. geothermal projects largely became the realm of small companies in the West.
Elsewhere around the globe, aggressive public policy has pushed geothermal success. For example, Iceland’s energy policy has emphasized geothermal power since the 1970s. As a result, 85 percent of Icelandic houses are heated geothermally, and five geothermal plants now provide almost a quarter of the country’s electricity.
With climate concerns, oil prices, and energy security now on everyone’s mind, the tide seems to be turning again in favor of geothermal energy in this country. The 2007 Energy Act authorized the DOE to spend $95 million for geothermal research (although Congress has appropriated only a fraction of that so far). Unfortunately, the Energy Act failed to extend tax credits for renewable energy producers, which are crucial, MIT’s Tester says, given the initial costs of finding geothermal resources and setting up plants.
But the private sector is beginning to push geothermal energy in the United States, too. Last year renewable energy developers paid millions of dollars in land leases for geothermal development in the Northwest. The huge untapped geothermal potential in the United States is also grabbing international attention. Last September the Nordic financial group Glitnir announced that it plans to invest $1 billion in the U.S. geothermal market over the next five years. Even the big oil companies are starting to pay attention. Nix says that representatives from ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron have attended recent EGS workshops.
Furthermore, construction companies are noticing that there is money to be made with heat pumps. (Although installing one entails a higher initial cost than a natural gas furnace, a pump will pay for itself in 10 years.) The California Energy Commission estimates the cost of a pump to be about $7,500 for an average-size home. Currently roughly 1 million pumps are installed in the United States, and 50,000 to 60,000 pumps are being added every year.
In total, more than 3,400 megawatts of geothermal power is currently under development in the United States, according to the Geothermal Energy Association. With the right backing, the heat beneath us could help keep the planet from warming up.
