Renewable Energy for the Mountain State

Geothermal Energy:  Research, Potential, Information

♦ West Virginia News

• SMU Geothermal Mapping Project Reveals Large, Green Energy Source in Coal Country
  Short news release,   Full news release
  09/29/2010, Dallas, TX, Southern Methodist University News & Communications
     New research produced by Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory, funded by a grant from Google.org, suggests that the temperature of the Earth beneath the state of West Virginia is significantly higher than previously estimated and capable of supporting commercial baseload geothermal energy production.
  
  
  
  
  
• West Virginia Is a Geothermal Hot Spot
  10/4/2010, Eli Kintisch, Science Now
     Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of earth, some as warm as 200°C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region.
  
  
• West Virginia—Country Roads to Geothermal Power
  10/4/2010, The Official google.org Blog
     The SMU Geothermal Laboratory, led by Principal Investigator Dr. David Blackwell, has discovered unexpectedly high temperatures beneath West Virginia capable of supporting geothermal energy production. As a result, they have increased estimates of West Virginia's total heat content by 78% and geothermal generation potential by 75%.
  
  
• WVU engineering professor receives $1.2 million for geothermal energy research
  11/18/2009, Morgantown, WV, West Virginia University
     A team of researchers, led by West Virginia University’s Brian Anderson, has received $1.2 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for a three-year research project aimed at expanding the use of the energy beneath our feet – geothermal energy, that is, stored in the hot rocks beneath the surface of the earth.
  
  

♦ National News

• U.S. Has Large Geothermal Resources, But Recent Growth Is Slower Than Wind or Solar
  11/18/2011, "Today in Energy", U.S. Energy Information Administration
  
  
• A New Geothermal Map of the United States
  10/25/2011, The Official google.org. Blog: News and Notes from Google's Philantrhopic Arm.
  
  
• DOE's Energy Empowers – the Nation's Clean Energy Stories
  
  
• DOE's Geothermal Technologies Program News

♦ General Resources

Scientific Papers:

• Elevated Crustal Temperatures in West Virginia: Potential for Geothermal Power
  David Blackwell, Zachary Frone, and Maria Richards, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences Geothermal Laboratory, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
  
  
• 2008 Geothermal Technologies Market Report ( PDF, 1.4 MB, 46 pages)
  
  
• The Future of Geothermal Energy: Impact of Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) on the United States in the 21st Century ( PDF, 14.06 MB, 372 pages)
  2006, Massachusettes Institute of Technology, Idaho National Laboratory, D.O.E. Contract DE-AC07-05ID14517
  
  

Associations:

• Geothermal Energy Association
  
• Geothermal Exchange Organization - GeoExchange
  
• Geothermal Resources Council
  
• International Geothermal Association
  
  

National Laboratories:

• Berkley Lab Earth Sciences Division: Geothermal Energy Exploration and Development
  
• Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory: Geothermal Energy Research
  
• Los Alamos National Laboratory: Geothermal Reservoir Modeling
  
• Sandia National Laboratories: Geothermal
  
• U.S. Department of Energy, Geothermal Technologies Program
  
• U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Geothermal Technologies
  
• U.S. Deptarment of Energy, Idaho National Laboratory, Geothermal Energy
  
  

State Programs:

• The California Energy Commission - Geothermal Energy in California
  
• Oregon Institute of Technology - Geothermal Information and Technology Transfer
  

University Research and Education:

• Cornell University - Energy Studies in the College of Engineering: Geothermal
  
• Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology - Geothermal Energy
  
• Southern Methodist University - Researching Clean Energy Beneath Our Feet
  
• Southern Methodist University - Subsurface Temperatures Can Produce Electricity
  
• Stanford University's Geothermal Program
  
• University of Utah's Energy and Geoscience Institute - Geotheraml
  

West Virginia Law - Geothermal:

• West Virginia University Libraries - Energy and Sustainable Development Law Research Guide
  

♦ Maps

	West Virginia Geothermal Interactive Map, West Virginia Geological & Economic Survey NEW!
Click on one of the maps above for larger view.	The first image is an index map of heat flow (mW/m2), well locations, springs, and structural features. The second image is a set of maps showing temperature-at-depth for West Virginia. Red points represents locations of actual drilled temperature, the triangle is the deepest well in the dataset. Source: Elevated Crustal Temperatures in West Virginia: Potential for Geothermal Power David Blackwell, Zachary Frone, and Maria Richards, Huffington Department of Earth Sciences Geothermal Laboratory, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas
	Resource potential and geothermal map of the United States, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)

♦ Data

• "A Googol of Heat Beneath Our Feet" U.S. Geothermal Resource (3-10 km depth)
  

• State Geothermal Data A project organized by the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) with funding from the Department of Energy (DOE) that brings data from all 50 states into the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS).
  
• Geothermal Data Exchange (GDEx) GDEx handles data generated by geothermal projects and other geothermal-related data not handled by other data sites.
  
• Open Energy Info A website/wiki sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in support of the Open Government Initiative to make energy data transparent, participatory, and collaborative.
  

♦ West Virginia Projects

	The NGDS is a distributed network of databases from 46 states including West Virginia that are collectively building a system for acquisition, management and maintenance of geothermal and related data. WVGES is involved in this American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) project that is led by the Arizona State Geological Survey.
West Virginia University	WVU engineering professor receives $1.2 million for geothermal energy research

Page last revised: May 31, 2012

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