UT turns attention to geothermal energy
Texas is the leading producer of wind energy in the United States. Could it take the lead in another renewable source?
The Cockrell School of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin aims to become a hub for geothermal energy, developing both expertise and new companies. It will launch the effort with a $1 million grant from the Department of Energy.
Geothermal energy taps the heat, hot water and steam from beneath the earth’s surface — think geysers — to drive turbines to generate electricity. Iceland, a nation with heavy volcanic activity , has been using geothermal energy for more than 100 years.
The Houston merchant power company Calpine owns the world’s biggest geothermal electrical operation in Northern California, with a generation capacity of more than 700 megwatts. The Canadian pipeline company Enbridge is a partner in geothermal energy project in Oregon which has a generating capacity of 22 megawatts.
Geothermal energy can provide a steady and non-polluting, carbon-free power source without the intermittency of wind and solar. While some places, such as Iceland, geothermal heat sources is close to the earth's surface and relatively easy to exploit. But in other places, its not so easy.
That’s where the University of Texas comes in. The Cockrell School of Engineering’s new Geothermal Entrepreneurship Organization is designed to bring together engineers, researchers and entrepreneurs to develop technologies and launch companies to advance geothermal energy. The group plans to use its expertise in oil and gas drilling to unlock another source of energy deep below the earth’s surface, in this case heat.
The University of Texas said it plans to develop drilling technologies that can economically reach depths of 30,000 feet and at temperatures exceeding 350 degrees Celsius to provide reliable geothermal production around the world.
In the United States, California accounts for more than 70 percent of electricity produced by geothermal energy, according to the Energy Department. It account for less than a halfpercent of grid-scale power produced in the United States.
Milestone reached
But you have to start somewhere. The first wind turbine in the United States was installed in 1975 as the nation sought alternatives to oil, following the supply shock of the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Wind energy grew slowly over the decades as technology improved and it became competitive with coal, natural gas and nuclear generation.
The nation recently reached a milestone of 100 gigawatts of installed wind energy capacity, with more than half of that installed in the past seven years, according to the Department of Energy. One gigawatt provides enough power for about 700,000 homes.
Texas has the most installed wind capacity of any state at nearly 27 gigawatts, according to the Energy Department. The next closest state is Iowa with nearly 9 gigawatts of wind energy capacity.
Wind energy producers are expected to add another 7.2 gigawatts of capacity this month and another 14.3 gigawatts next year. If that happens, the U.S. will have about 122 gigawatts of wind capacity by the end of 2020, according to the Energy Department. Forty-one states had at least one installed wind turbine as of the third quarter, according to the Energy Department.