A new MIT-led study on high-temperature geothermal potential in the United States concludes that there’s a lot more we should be doing to tap this energy goldmine. What we’re talking about here are what MIT calls “enhanced geothermal systems” that capture heat miles under the Earth’s surface and turns that thermal energy into electricity. This should not be confused with low-temperature geothermal or “Earth systems” — another large, untapped energy source — that use ground-source heat pumps or so-called “geoexchange systems” to provide heating and air conditioning for homes and buildings.

News.com has a summary of the study in this story. One of the research panelists behind the study is the University of Calgary’s Michal Moore, who is a former commissioner with the California Energy Commission and a former chief economist with the U.S. government’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. I’ve got a call into Dr. Moore and I’m hoping he can tell me if there’s anything in this U.S.-focused study that could be extrapolated for Canada.

The study’s concluding recommendation is compelling: “Based on growing markets in the United States for clean, base-load capacity, the panel thinks that with a combined public/private investment of about $800 million to $1 billion over a 15-year period, EGS technology could be deployed commercially on a timescale that would produce more than 100,000 MWe or 100 GWe of new capacity by 2050. This amount is approximately equivalent to the total R&D investment made in the past 30 years to EGS internationally, which is still less than the cost of a single, new-generation clean-coal plant.”

The study’s panel urges U.S. authorities to begin making this investment ASAP, given the “enormous potential” and technical progress that has been achieved so far in the area. “Having EGS as an option will strengthen America’s energy security for the long term in a manner that complements other renewables, clean fossil, and next-generation nuclear.”

The beauty with high-temperature geothermal is it provides baseload power, like hydro-electric and nuclear, so unlike solar and wind there’s no intermittency issues. Also, the waste heat from electricity generation can be used for district heating and hot water. Another bonus is, like hydro-electric, once the facility is built it lasts for several decades without the need for any fuel. The only company in Canada I know of that’s serious about this business is Vancouver, B.C.-based Western Geopower.

It would be so nice if we could develop more of this geothermal in the United States and Canada. I had the opportunity two years ago to visit Iceland for a tour of its geothermal facilities. It was a eye-opening experience, particularly the opportunity to swim in the Blue Lagoon — basically a lagoon filled with the tolerably hot water that’s a byproduct of a facility’s operations (see picture accompanying this post — which I took).

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