DoE opens up $90m cash reservoir for geothermal

If you fancy wrapping your fingers around the environmental cash teats and milking the green cash cow that is the Department of Energy, you’ll need to warm your hands with a spot of geothermal energy.

The DoE has got $90 million stored in its udders, ready to distribute over four years for R&D into speeding up the commercialisation of geothermal. $10 million of it is ready to go right away, the rest still has to be nailed down and recipients will need to cough up 20 percent of their projects costs themselves.

The DoE wants the funding to work out “issues related to EGS reservoir creation, operation, and management”.

Here’s what the funding – up to 26 awards to be had – will be spent on. First up:

Projects will address aspects of engineered reservoir creation, management, and utilization at high temperatures up to 300°C and depths as great as 10,000 meters.

Second up:

The projects under this topic area will allow testing and validation of stimulation techniques for improving productivity of wells or increasing inter-well connectivity at existing geothermal fields. Use of available or experimental technologies from geothermal, petroleum or other relevant industries will be considered.