According to a recent study from researchers at five Texas universities, Texas is hot below ground and the state is full of people with oil and gas drilling expertise, making it ripe for a geothermal energy boom.
The University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Houston, along with the University Lands Office and the International Energy Agency, recently published a landmark study titled “The Future of Geothermal in Texas: The Coming Century of Growth & Prosperity in the Lone Star State.”
The study assesses the potential for geothermal — the earth’s interior heat that can be utilized as renewable energy — to scale up in Texas and worldwide in the future decades.
90% of geothermal startups have recently launched
There are currently at least 12 geothermal startups based in Texas, with many more sustaining a business presence, employing people, or preparing projects in the state. Almost 90% of these startups were established and debuted in the last 24 months, and oil and gas companies are investing in them.
What distinguishes Texas is that geothermal energy can be generated from existing oil and gas wells as either electricity or direct-use heat.
Because drilling-for-energy skills are transferable, all of the startups have oil and gas industry seniors on their teams.
According to the study’s authors, using existing oil and gas industry technologies, oil and gas knowledge and technology transfer is expected to deliver 20-43% cost savings to geothermal. Furthermore, 70% of oil and gas respondents said there are no geothermal-related technical challenges that the oil and gas industry cannot solve.
Various geothermal growth worldwide
The study concluded a variety of geothermal growth scenarios, both globally and in Texas, in the context of the oil and gas industry’s scale. They concluded that drilling 1.4 million wells worldwide between 2030 and 2050 could meet 77% of the world’s estimated electricity demand, and Texas could decarbonize its entire grid.
The outcomes of this study are big – but so is the oil and gas industry – and the role of the industry is what has been the missing link in prior assessments about geothermal and it is potential to scale,
To achieve the outcomes reported, we would need an Apollo-style mobilization of effort globally, but that is what climate change requires of us. We’ve done Apollo before – let’s do it again
Jamie Beard, the study’s principal investigator and editor stated on geothermal growth worldwide
The Texas research will serve as a template for a program backed by geothermal expansion nonprofit Project InnerSpace to create similar, state-specific geothermal roadmaps across the United States where the oil and gas industry is currently engaged.
In the first half of this year, projects will begin in Idaho, Oklahoma, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Utah.
