Environmental Law

International Geothermal Effort Launched

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

Even as interest in domestic geothermal energy production appears to be increasing, a far-flung new international effort has begun to promote new means of exploiting the planet's own heat sources.

The U.S. Department of Energy the other day announced it had entered into a pact with Iceland and Australia that appeared to be primarily intended to promote development of what's called "enhanced geothermal" technology. Basically, that can amount to creating an artificial reservoir underground in an area where there may be lots of heat but little water.

The possibilities have attracted the attention of Google.org, the philanthropic arm of the search engine company, which recently announced it was putting more than $10 million into research efforts concerning the technology. Another innovative effort to tap into the earth-bound heat for energy was recently announced in New Mexico, according to Clean Edge News.        

According to the energy department, the new multi-national effort, known as the International Partnership for Geothermal Technology, will promote collaboration on policy and technical aspects of enhanced systems, such as deep drilling and geothermal energy conversion. The potential, suggested Katharine Fredriksen, the department's acting assistant secretary for policy and international affairs, is pretty extraordinary:

“Enhanced geothermal systems have the potential to be the world’s only ever-present form of baseload renewable energy. This international collaborative will bind the U.S., Australia and Iceland to work together to accelerate the development of geothermal energy, bringing this clean, domestic and natural energy to the market in the near-term to confront the serious challenges of climate change and energy security.”

The American energy department is busy working on projects in California and Nevada, while Iceland has a project that involves drilling 4.5 kilometers (nearly 3 miles) down to reach super-hot "hydrous fluid," according to a description of the effort.

Australia, meanwhile, is involved in its own research program called Geoscience Australia intended to gather detailed information about that huge country's geothermal resources, and to encourage investment in them. Already, more than a dozen companies have formed their own industry trade group, the Australian Geothermal Energy Association.

According to the energy department statement, the U.S. agency will work with its counterparts, Australia's Ministry of Resources, Energy and Tourism, and Iceland's Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism (Web site unavail.) to identify and promote research and other projects intended to develop and deploy the new technologies.

Representatives of the three countries also held a workshop that brought together a variety of experts to discuss the issue. The energy department said the international effort could be expanded in the future to include membership from other countries.

--Dennis Pfaff of Thelen

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on September 08, 2008 (boomark / email).