America Frees Up 200 Million Acres for Geothermal Development

As speculated about in June, the US Department of Interior has indeed announced plans to free up 197 million acres of federal land in 11 western states plus Alaska for geothermal energy development. The initiative, says the agency

could increase electric generation capacity from geothermal resources ten times over.

Some 118 million acres would be managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The remaining 79 million acres would be under the National Forest System.

All of it will be available for geothermal leasing for the first time ever -- just as soon as the 12 US governors sign off on the plan and the BLM issues its "Record of Decision."

That's expected in December.

So what can we expect energy wise in the long term? Under "a reasonable development scenario," 5,540 megawatts of new electric generation capacity could be in place by 2015 -- enough to power five million homes. By 2025, an additional 6,600 megawatts could be added for a total of 12,100 megawatts. That’s sufficient to power 12 million homes.

In total, some 270 western communities would benefit.

Under the plan, called the "Final Geothermal Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement," the national park system would be completely off limits.

Of course, the proposal, though it's been long coming, is a pretty remarkable step for the maturing industry if not a total breakthrough. Some 90 percent of US geothermal fields sufficient for power production are found on federal lands.

But it must be repeated: the megawatts in question are a small fraction of what’s possible.

Directly under the United States sits a massive amount of recoverable heat in rock that's equivalent to 130,000 times the nation's yearly consumption of energy.

That’s according to MIT, which has estimated that 100,000 megawatts of electricity could be installed by 2050, using what’s called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS), which is considered the cutting edge of technological change in the sector.

Similarly, the US Geological Survey has just released its first assessment in more than 30 years of the electric power generation potential of the nation’s geothermal resource. It found that if developed geothermal could generate 556,890 megawatts of electricity. A substantial 517,800 megawatts of that, some 93 percent, is estimated to be in untapped EGS.

All in all, yesterday's geothermal announcement goes onto the plus side of the column for the Interior Department. (See "Bush Administration Rushes to Gut Endangered Species Act in 32 Hours" for the agency's other, less savory news of the week.)

And it’s expected to unleash highly competitive lease sales. (August saw the largest geothermal sale ever, after leases in Nevada brought in a record-breaking $28.2 million.)

But a victory lap would be premature. This new plan should mark the official start of a serious, all-out government push to greatly expand the geothermal map in the United States, especially for EGS.

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