Full Title: Pathways to Commercial Liftoff: Next-Generation Geothermal Power
Author(s): Doug Blankenship, Dr. Charles Gertler, Dr. Mohamed Kamaludeen, Dr. Michael O’Connor, and Sean Porse
Publisher(s): U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date: March 3, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Geothermal power technology has shown compelling advances that can enable it to become a key contributor to secure, domestic, decarbonized power generation for the U.S. as a source of clean firm power.
Next-gen geothermal vastly expands the total resource available for geothermal power generation and creates a unique value proposition as a clean firm technology with the potential for flexible generation/energy storage, a minimal footprint, and broad geographic availability.
Next-gen geothermal approaches leverage technologies developed by oil & gas to engineer human made reservoirs from ubiquitous hot rock, rather than hunting for naturally-occuring reservoirs in unique locations. In a world where the US grid will need 700-900 GW of additional clean firm capacity by 2050, next-gen geothermal could provide 90 GW by 2050, and up to 300 GW depending on the development of storage capabilities and other emerging technologies.