Geothermal is an important domestic clean energy resource. In recent months, there has been a flurry of legislative activity on geothermal energy permitting. Bills have been introduced in both the House and the Senate by Republican, Democrat, and bipartisan sponsors. The attention and efforts from both parties on this topic underscore the potential for enacting policy reforms that would accelerate the deployment of geothermal technologies. Here we discuss the value geothermal could bring to America’s energy mix and highlight some critical considerations for supporting its growth.
Value and deployment potential
Geothermal energy technologies harness the inexhaustible supply of heat that flows towards the Earth’s surface from our planet’s core, where the temperature is approximately the same as the sun’s surface. Geothermal’s distinctive advantage for large-scale clean electricity production is its round-the-clock availability. Harnessing domestic energy resources that provide carbon-free power throughout the day and night and on a year-round basis offers an attractive grid asset.
Geothermal is an established albeit limited power source. A March 2024 Department of Energy Geothermal Liftoff Report notes that 93 geothermal power plants across California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, New Mexico, and Hawaii totaled 3.7 gigawatts (GW) of generation capacity. California’s geothermal plants provide 6% of the state’s electricity, and Nevada’s provide 4%. Thus, while geothermal technology has been successfully deployed at grid scale in dozens of facilities, the total amount of power being generated remains modest. This existing infrastructure uses hydrothermal technology–commonly called “conventional geothermal” that requires uncommon geological conditions. A substantial runway exists to deploy more of this established technology. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated 9 GW of identified hydrothermal resources and predicted another 30 GW of undiscovered hydrothermal.
While we deploy more conventional geothermal power in the coming years, we must also leverage American ingenuity to unlock “next gen” geothermal technologies that would open up far more abundant supplies – a stunning 5,500 GW of potential spread across the U.S., which is four times the country’s current total installed generating capacity. Whereas conventional geothermal is limited due to its reliance on uncommon subsurface conditions, “next gen” technologies have no geologic constraint and could be deployed in most states.
Niskanen’s research has highlighted several challenges for geothermal projects seeking to lease public lands and obtain permits needed for project construction, further explaining why this energy resource is largely untapped. Challenges include: protracted federal environmental reviews, involvement of multiple federal and state agencies, complexities of different owners of surface and subsurface estates, and stakeholder opposition.
Permitting solutions
Our research also points to promising ways to overcome these permitting challenges. Across clean technologies like geothermal, early and iterative coordination among stakeholders is essential for surfacing permitting conflicts and in adapting projects to defuse issues. This approach emphasizes meaningful and productive interactions among project developers, federal agencies, state, local, and Tribal authorities, and local communities. This is particularly important at the project’s onset: rather than sequential permitting steps where different parties take turns in series and interaction is structurally limited. Niskanen’s research on transmission infrastructure with complex permitting needs is relevant in this context as it found that such an agile process is a critical complement to enhanced transparency in project review and timelines, promotion of accountability at each step, and identifying permitting steps where review could be more efficient without degrading environmental and community protections.
Community engagement is critical to permitting processes aiming for an agile approach. Geothermal is a lesser known energy technology and mostly blends in with its surroundings, which ultimately will be a strength for deployment. However, the lack of familiarity and acceptance contributes to community concerns about water use, contamination, and induced seismicity. Strong community engagement practices are a recognized mechanism to address community concerns, resolve disputes, and avoid project delays driven by these types of conflicts. Notably, the DOE’s Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) has included stakeholder engagement activities in its multi-year program plan and an outreach campaign with roundtables, interviews, website development, and partnerships with local nonprofit organizations. Permitting agencies like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) could potentially leverage the efforts and learnings of GTO’s community engagement to improve permitting processes and outcomes.
To be sure, establishing a carefully calibrated categorical exclusion (catex) – a determination that an action has no significant environmental impact and is typically exempted from National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review – for geothermal exploratory drilling would tighten up overall environmental review timelines. By comparison, an environmental assessment (EA) “determines whether or not a federal action has the potential to cause significant environmental effects,” and can result in a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) or can find that impacts will be significant, necessitating preparation of a full environmental impact statement. An analysis of the geothermal environmental review database found that the existing EA approach for geothermal exploration takes 337 days on average, whereas a catex takes 88 days. A National Renewable Energy Laboratory review of 20 geothermal exploratory drilling EAs found that all 20 resulted in a FONSI, albeit with mitigation measures imposed, which supports the potential to create a catex in this context. The BLM recently announced it is adopting two existing catexes from the U.S. Forest Service and the Navy for geothermal exploration.
A centralized BLM permitting office that boosts government capacity is another critical improvement for policy and regulatory reforms that would speed permitting and support an agile process. A well-staffed and resourced office with deep technical and permitting knowledge and experience specific to geothermal development could ensure that leasing and permitting actions are performed promptly, that inter-agency coordination is strengthened, and that state and federal processes complement and support one another rather than create conflicts or require redundant work. A dedicated geothermal office at BLM could also help avoid or mitigate “split estate” issues where surface lands have a different owner than the subsurface estate. It could, over time, identify ways to consolidate permitting steps and aid field offices and other stakeholders in implementing best practices.
Researchers have previously proposed a centralized BLM permitting office for geothermal, and noted that similar dedicated state offices have reduced permitting timelines. There are other routes for adding government capacity. For example, in 2022 the BLM established new Renewable Energy Coordination Offices (RECOs) under the Energy Act of 2020, intended to “implement improved coordination among agencies, help avoid and resolve potential conflicts and bottlenecks, identify best practices, accelerate information sharing, and promote efficient and timely reviews to support smart agency decision-making.” The success of the RECOs in aiding geothermal permitting will hinge on office resourcing, prioritization within the Department of Interior and the Executive Branch more broadly, and the level of specialized geothermal expertise they assemble. Senators Lee, Heinrich, Risch, and Cortez Masto have proposed legislation to create a geothermal ombudsman and strike team charged with coordination, dispute resolution, and implementation of best practices.
Finally, researchers and policy experts have also discussed financial and commercial hurdles for geothermal deployment. As an energy resource encompassing limited existing deployment of conventional geothermal in addition to new technologies that are so far undeployed, project economics, contractual opportunities, and obtaining financing are significant challenges that are only partially driven by permitting obstacles themselves. Successfully utilizing geothermal’s potential will also require policy solutions in these areas.
Conclusion
Conventional geothermal technologies can be ramped up significantly in the near term to add round-the-clock clean generation to the grid while simultaneously beginning deployment of the next-gen geothermal that, in the long term, could provide a large portion of America’s energy needs. Permitting processes can be significantly improved by boosting government capacity and community engagement, enhancing transparency and accountability, and making targeted environmental review steps more efficient. We look forward to seeing how geothermal policy advances during this Congress and applaud the members working to harness this exciting technology.