Geothermal heating and cooling using a geothermal pump in residential or commercial buildings is picking up steam. The geothermal industry has been able to make geothermal pumps to scale in recent years that makes it a viable option in your renewable energy portfolio. Geothermal systems are able to heat or cool and optionally supply a building with hot water.
They work by tapping into the naturally occurring geothermal energy beneath the earth's surface. The Recovery Act stimulus package injected roughly $338 million into geothermal power. Many states like Oregon are tapping into geothermal technology to keep roads free of ice and snow during winter. A brew pub, greenhouses, and college classrooms all use heat from volcanic rocks in Klamath Falls, Ore., a timber and ranching town. The Oregon Residential Energy Tax Credit program provides for closed-loop geothermal space or water heating systems when installed by a tax credit certified geothermal technician.
The Oregon Institute of Technology Geo-Heat Center is leading the way to have Oregon on top of the growing geothermal industry. Klamath Falls serves as a model for a green energy source that is gaining steam.
This geothermal resource map shows that there is a lot of untapped energy available in the United States. Companies that can team up with the DOE have the best chance of gaining a foot hold in a soon to be lucrative industry.
Other states like Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Idaho, and Wyoming have vast geothermal resources. The key here is water. The DOE is working on new technology that will be able to capture geothermal energy from under the earth's surface from hot rock. So geothermal sources with little water below the surface will be able to use geothermal power.
It's called "Enhanced Geothermal Systems," or EGS. A new geothermal technology that injects water into hot rock beds. EGS reservoirs are made by drilling wells into hot rock and fracturing the rock sufficiently to enable a fluid (water) to flow between the wells. The fluid flows along permeable pathways, picking up in situ heat, and exits the reservoir via production wells. At the surface, the fluid passes through a power plant where electricity is generated.
If everything goes as planned this could be the next frontier in the renewable energy industry.
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