Opinion: Geothermal electricity holds great promise, but where should we build? Mapping tools can show us the way

Renewable energy extends far beyond the stereotypical image of wind turbines and solar panels. Notably, the Western United States is witnessing a surge in a powerful and often-overlooked renewable resource that leverages established technologies from the oil and gas industry.

This resource is geothermal energy. It capitalizes on the Earth’s internal heat, employing the same drilling and hydraulic fracturing techniques used in conventional fossil fuel extraction. However, instead of targeting oil and gas reserves, geothermal energy taps into a constant subterranean heat source.

The core process is ingenious. Cold water is injected down a wellbore, where it absorbs thermal energy before being propelled back to the surface at significantly elevated temperatures. This heated water then drives a turbine, generating electricity with no carbon emissions.

Like any energy source, a big question facing the geothermal industry is: Where does it make the most sense to build?

The ideal location will have suitable geology, along with infrastructure to connect to the power grid. Or, instead of connecting to the power grid, geothermal can also be co-located with a large energy user, like a military base or a data center, which will use all of the power it produces directly.

Finding the perfect combination of geology, infrastructure and energy users is a complicated task. But now, a nonprofit called Project Innerspace has developed a new mapping tool to simplify the process.

The tool, called Geothermal Exploration Opportunities Mapping, or GeoMap , offers amazing insight into the untapped U.S. potential for geothermal electricity production. With help from Google, the developers of GeoMap have combined more than 150 datasets with below-ground and surface-level information that will help siting decisions.

In addition to the areas with the best geothermal potential, GeoMap has dozens of surface-level layers, including the location of older coal plants that could be re-powered with geothermal after they retire and the location of major energy users. There’s even a layer that includes policy factors, including tax incentives for geothermal electricity production.

Unlike wind and solar power, geothermal electricity does not depend on variable weather patterns. If tools like GeoMap can accelerate the process of finding the best locations for geothermal electricity, then it will accelerate the process of making the power grid more decentralized and more stable.

To see what this looks like in practice, consider Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho and Joint Base San Antonio in Texas.

Last year, the U.S. Air Force announced the two bases would build geothermal electricity plants to produce “continuous clean energy for direct consumption at the installations.” The Air Force is partnering with Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, a geothermal technology firm based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Having a direct source of power will help the bases defend against cyberattacks from geopolitical adversaries like China. “We need to ruggedize our installations with redundant energy systems and make use of clean energy sources that reduce our fuel demands,” said Dr. Ravi Chaudhary, assistant secretary of the Air Force for Energy, Installations and Environment.

“Geothermal sources strengthen our energy grids and give us the ability to isolate threats before they impact our operations,” Chaudhary said.

Another example is a recently announced deal between Google and Nevada utility company NV Energy.

Under the terms of the deal , NV Energy will dramatically expand its output of geothermal electricity from 3.5 megawatts to 115 megawatts — a more than 30-fold increase — to power two Google data centers in Nevada. To carry out the expansion, NV Energy has chosen another geothermal tech firm, Fervo Energy, which had already worked on a pilot project with Google in Nevada and the 400-megawatt Cape Station project in Beaver County, Utah.

Nationwide, over the next three decades, U.S. officials project that geothermal electric capacity could grow by 60,000 megawatts. For scale, that is the equivalent of building two large-scale nuclear plants per year for 30 years.

In addition to supporting our energy needs, just think about the job creation potential, especially for workers in the oil and gas sector, who already know all there is to know about drilling and fracking.

Most good ideas make sense for more than one reason. In the case of geothermal energy, it makes sense for reasons of national security, energy independence and job creation, not just environmental stewardship.

Geothermal also offers an important lesson about what the nation’s energy future will look like. It won’t involve scrapping all the energy sources we currently have and starting over from scratch, as some would have you believe. Instead, the energy technologies of the future will mostly come from new applications of the technologies we have today. And in the case of geothermal, now we have a map — quite literally — to show us the way.

Steve Handy is a former Utah Legislator and current Utah Director for The Western Way, an organization focused on fiscal, conservative and market-driven solutions to environmental and conservation challenges.