Geothermal Codification Impacts on Geothermal Development and Investments

Conference · Wed Feb 13 04:00:00 EST 2013

OSTI ID:1497817

Segneri, Brittany ^[1]; Jenne, Dale S ^[2]; Young, Katherine R ^[2]; Thorsteinsson, Hildigunnur ^[3]; Hass, Eric ^[3]

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1. New West Technologies, LLC
2. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
3. U.S. Department of Energy, Geothermal Technologies Office

The United States leads the world in geothermal energy production with 3187 MW online in 2012. Across the globe, advancing geothermal exploration technologies serves an important role in lowering geothermal development costs and decreasing exploration risk. However, the aggregation, analysis, and reporting of new geothermal resources lack standard reporting guidelines in most geothermal producing countries with the notable exception of Australia and Canada. In order for the United States to remain the global leader in geothermal energy development, the industry must continue to grow its investment potential. Providing prospective investors with geothermal resource estimates under clearly defined industry guidelines and standards would enhance industry credibility and ultimately encourage greater investor confidence in geothermal development. In 2009, an intergovernmental collaboration of experts developed the United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC), a universally applicable system for classifying and evaluating fossil energy and mineral resources. The U.S. geothermal industry can leverage the Canadian and Australian codes efforts and the UNFC to develop its own reporting standard for geothermal resources. This paper will review lessons learned from Australia and Canada's Geothermal Codification, analyze the impact of each effort on the nation's geothermal industry and investment climate, and begin to evaluate the utility of the UNFC in geothermal applications.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1497817
• Report Number(s): NREL/CP-6A20-73437
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY
energy production
geothermal
resource estimates