The Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy agency (EERE) has announced a roadmap workshop for enhanced geothermal. It is inviting a select — small — group of subject matter experts to take part in this roadmap workshop in order to help develop a plan for how the country can proceed in developing its dry rock geothermal resources and enhancing existing geothermal resources.
This post looks at the message promoted by the gas industry that natural gas is the necessary complement to renewables such as solar and wind, because the latter are variable and thus need a backup power source that can quickly be brought on line. There are other and perhaps even better ways of addressing variability that also need looking at.
Seriously folks you read it right… fracking (an actual technical term for hydraulic fracturing) hot dry rock reservoirs has the potential to open up vast hot dry rock “heat” reservoirs for use as a reliable geothermal energy source. According to a 400 page MIT study The Future of Geothermal Energy sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) and published in 2007 the economically recoverable potential for “Heat Mining” in the US could grow to a cumulative installed generating capacity of 100GW in less than fifty years.
