Stacey Young: Good morning. This Zoom call, including all audio and images of participants and presentation materials, is being recorded. It can be saved, edited, distributed, used, internally posted on DOE's website, or otherwise made publicly available. If you continue to access this call and provide such audio or image content, you can send to such use by, or the half of DOE and the government for government purposes, and acknowledge that you will not inspect or approve or be compensated for such peace. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Good morning, and thank you for joining us at the Enhanced Geothermal Energy Earthshot Summit. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: My name is Devinn Lambert, and I'm the deputy director in the Office of the Under Secretary for Science and Innovation in the U.S. Department of Energy, and I will be your emcee today. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Christopher Davis, the U.S. Department of Energy chief of staff who will formally kick off the summit. Christopher Davis: Thank you, Devinn, and what a pleasure. Good morning, everyone. It's great to see so many people joining to learn more about deals Enhanced Geothermal Earthshot, part of the Energy Earthshot portfolio. Christopher Davis: Ah, Energy Earthshots are the Department's all-hands-on-deck effort to solve some of the biggest remaining challenges in research, development and demonstration to get key next-generation low-carbon energy technologies ready for commercialization within a decade. Christopher Davis: These are moonshot-level leaps forward to create the solutions we'll need to address climate change.
Christopher Davis: Six Energy Earthshots have been announced so far in clean hydrogen, long duration energy storage, carbon, negative ah floating offshore wind, industrial heat, and of course, today's topic enhanced geothermal systems. Each of them has an ambitious goal to move the technology towards commercialization, Christopher Davis: so which brings us to EGS. Only a small portion of the geothermal energy in the U.S.—the—the heat beneath our feet—is successful with current technology, but research and innovation to advance EGS which creates human-made reservoirs to access energy that was previously stranded underground, can unlock these resources and put new, clean, dispatchable electricity on the grid. Christopher Davis: The Enhanced Geothermal Shot is a call to action, to dramatically reduce the cost of EGS by 90% to $45 per megawatt hour by 2035. Christopher Davis: Making EGS affordable is a priority for the Secretary, because it will unlock good jobs across the country, especially in underserved Christopher Davis: rural and remote communities. Christopher Davis: It will supply a firm, flexible carbon-free power to the grid, to complement solar and wind, and in so many ways it will be vital to the transition to clean energy because of many of the associated skill sets existing with the oil and gas industry. Right now
Christopher Davis: this is such a big deal for our energy future, and I want to say thank you for taking the time today to discuss EGS Shot, and to find ways to move the nation's energy economy forward. It's now my pleasure to introduce Ali Zaidi, Christopher Davis: assistant to the president and national climate adviser. Christopher Davis: Ali has provided council and leadership on climate, policy development, legislation, executive action from day one of this administration, and long before that. So turning it over to you Ali. Ali Zaidi: Thank you, Christopher Davis, and, thanks to the entire EERE team that has us together. This could not be more important.
Ali Zaidi: We need all the tools in the toolkit to be able to achieve the ambitious climate goals that the president has set out to achieve a net-zero economy by no later than 2050, to reduce our emissions in half Ali Zaidi: 50% to 52% relative to 2005 levels by the end of this decade, Ali Zaidi: and to move our grid to cleaner energy sources, zero-carbon emissions from the grid by 2035. To do that we must harness all of the resources we have available to us, including as opposed to the heat beneath our feet. We know that geothermal not only has the potential to provide tremendous sources of clean energy, but to do it Ali Zaidi: in a firm and dispatchable way, adding not only clean electrons to the grid, but flexibility and resilience, as we diversify the sources of energy that we tap into. Ali Zaidi: This is also a tremendous opportunity, Ali Zaidi: for our energy workers, many of whom have the skills that we can harness as we scale up the geothermal sector, so we're very grateful for the Department's Earthshots. Broadly we are excited for this innovation to take place, and we recognize the potential that all of you have to working together and helping us Ali Zaidi: tap into another source of tremendous energy security, energy innovation, and economic prosperity for the nation. Very grateful. Thank you. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you, Ali.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: With pride, I introduce Under Secretary for Science and Innovation Dr. Geraldine Richmond. Under Secretary Richmond oversees the Office of Science, the nation's largest federal sponsor of basic research in the physical sciences. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: The Department's applied research and development areas, including renewable energy, carbon management and energy system, integrity Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: and the 14 U.S. Department of Energy national—national laboratories and facilities. She's an accomplished scientist with awards, including the National Medal of Science, and is also a tireless advocate, advocate, and change-maker in the diversity of the scientific workforce. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: She's a native of Kansas, received her undergraduate degree in chemistry from Kansas State University, and her Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Under Secretary Richmond also oversees the Energy Earthshot Initiative, and I will now pass the microphone to her for her remarks on the Energy Earthshots, and Enhanced Geothermal Shot. Thank you, Dr. Richmond.
Geraldine Richmond: Thanks, Devinn, and good morning, everybody. What an exciting day it is! I—I really want to thank Christopher Davis and also Secretary Granholm for their leadership, and all these 82, and the president for their unwavering support for the Energy Earthshots Initiative. Geraldine Richmond: It is so critical to our success. Geraldine Richmond: So let me just briefly take us back about 2 years to President Biden's leaders summit on climate. Geraldine Richmond: There it was recognized the need to innovate new additional solutions to climate crisis, solutions which should not yet exist. Geraldine Richmond: What was needed was our generation's moonshot.
Geraldine Richmond: That's how the DOE's Energy Earthshots Initiative was born. Geraldine Richmond: We've set ambitious goals to remove barriers to research development and demonstration for promising low-carbon technologies by 2035 Geraldine Richmond: as Christopher noted. We've got six Energy Earthshots so far launched, aiming to create major impacts across the energy economy. And this one we're as excited about as we were the last ones. Geraldine Richmond: We're aiming for the moonshot-level leaps forward to address climate change and EGS was selected for its potential to provide firm flexible zero-carbon power to the grid Geraldine Richmond: complementing renewables like wind and solar, which are variable. Geraldine Richmond: Now investments in EGS could unlock affordable clean energy for the equivalent over 65 million American homes. Imagine that, 65 million. Geraldine Richmond: The geothermal industry has the potential to become a powerhouse of U.S. economic growth,
Geraldine Richmond: finding good jobs in underserved, rural, and remote communities, Geraldine Richmond: as Ali Zaidi noted, using the skilled workers in other fields, including oil and gas industries, which we have in abundance. Geraldine Richmond: This kind of an EGS industry could also power clean energy career opportunities all across the country, Geraldine Richmond: science, technology, engineering and math helping to build a STEM workforce that looks like America. Geraldine Richmond: It's a win-win-win Geraldine Richmond: all together.
Geraldine Richmond: But EGS isn't yet commercially deployable at scale in the U.S., which is why we felt an all-hands-on-deck approach of—for this Energy Earthshot would be appropriate. Geraldine Richmond: But to achieve the Enhanced Geothermal Shot goal of reducing the cost of EGS by 90% to 45 per kilo— dollars per kilowatt hour by 2035. As Christopher noted, Geraldine Richmond: it's going to take all of us going to take a team, Geraldine Richmond: a team of innovation and collaboration.
Geraldine Richmond: That team within and beyond the Department of Energy will be absolutely essential. Geraldine Richmond: That is the promise of the Enhanced Earthshot, the Enhanced Geothermal Shot. Geraldine Richmond: We all need to work together to unlock the potential. Geraldine Richmond: So thank you for being with us today Geraldine Richmond: to dive into this discussion, and a huge thanks to Devinn and and the whole Enhanced Geothermal Earthshot team in S4 land. You all have a wonderful and productive summit for checking in. Geraldine Richmond: And now back to you, Devinn. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you to Secretary Richmond.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Moving on to uh, Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: the Director of the Geothermal Technologies Office Lauren Boyd. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: She's going to give us an introduction to enhanced geothermal systems. In her role, Lauren manages efforts to improve lower—improve performance, lower cost, and accelerate deployment of all geothermal technologies. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Lauren is very familiar with enhanced geothermal systems. She has over 15 years' experience managing the enhanced geothermal system
program in this office. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: With that I invite her to take our virtual stage to provide us a 101 on enhanced geothermal system. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren Boyd: Absolutely. What an honor to be here. Um, hello, everyone! I hope that you're having a great morning. Um, thank you so much, Devinn, for the introduction. Lauren Boyd: I am, as Devinn said, the acting director of the Geothermal Technologies Office. But I have been with it, with the geothermal program, for coming up on 15 years, and I have been hoping and eagerly awaiting a day like today, where there would be so much interest in this compelling technology space, and where we can connect with our growing community to advance geothermal together. Lauren Boyd: So I just want to say, before I start, thank you to everyone who signed on today and learn more about enhanced geothermal systems. Thank you to all of our distinguished speakers for being here to discuss ways that we can overcome barriers that are limiting EGS development while respecting our communities and the environment. Lauren Boyd: And and thank you in general for the opportunity to talk to you today a few times because you'll be seeing me a couple of times throughout the agenda today.
Lauren Boyd: So by the end of my talk I'm hoping that I'll be able to impart a few things. So first, what's geothermal and EGS? Why it has the potential to play an integral role in the global energy transition. And why you should care about it if you don't already, Lauren Boyd: so let's dive in. Lauren Boyd: What is geothermal? Essentially geothermal is heat from the earth. Lauren Boyd: This heat has been radiating from the Earth's core for millions of years, and it's going to continue to do so for billions more. It's virtually inexhaustible heat. So, as you go deeper into the earth, what we call the subsurface, and you'll hear me say that a few times today, there's more and more heat and geothermal energy is just using that heat in useful ways. So whether we have a little bit of heat or a lot of heat, Lauren Boyd: you can use it for a vast array of things at the low end of the temperature spectrum. You'll see on the bottom of a thermometer here on my slide. We can provide heating and cooling for homes and for buildings with slightly higher temperatures. We can heat entire communities, warm greenhouses to extend growing seasons. We can farm salmon and tilapia [inaudible] dry milk for baby formula, Lauren Boyd: and then at the highest temperatures, we're talking 200 to about 800 degrees Fahrenheit, so that's temperatures you might bake your cookies at up to the temperatures of the surface of Venus. We can generate clean, dispatchable, and electric power, and this is where EGS comes in.
Lauren Boyd: So why should you care? Lauren Boyd: It's the Department of Energy. We care because the U.S. has nominal heat resources. So take a look at this map. You can see the resource potential at 4.5 miles per feet, with dark blue representing the most potential. And, as you can see, there is plenty of what we think of as stranded heat stored beneath us everywhere. In fact, it's around five car lots, which is more than the global energy demand. So the whole point of this Earthshot is to innovate our way into accessing as much of that resource as we can. Lauren Boyd: So what does all that heat really mean, and how much of it can we actually do something useful with? So our analysis shows that if we can improve technologies necessary for developing EGS, we could generate 90 gigawatts of clean, dispatchable power to power your home and millions of your close friends homes which is around 12% of U.S. power generation in 2015. Lauren Boyd: It also means opportunities for some of those other uses that I mentioned. So that's because when we improve the technologies or invent new technologies to advance EGS, it benefits all the other forms of geothermal as well. In fact, EGS technology improvements may be able to support vast geothermal heat pump and direct use market potential that you can see on the right-hand side of the slide, Lauren Boyd: all of which provide opportunities in urban environments, rural and remote communities across the U.S. And opportunities for massive, massive emissions reductions. Lauren Boyd: So with that in mind, let's zoom in on the power sector. Lauren Boyd: There's a lot of terms surrounding geothermal. And so we want to start out with conventional geothermal. You've likely seen this at Yellowstone National Park, or maybe in Iceland. Maybe you visited a hot spring.
Lauren Boyd: Conventional resources are commonly found in the western U.S. in Alaska and Hawaii, where there is heat, water, and pathways for that hot water to flow, or permeability which is what we call it, where they're all co-located. But those areas are limited. Lauren Boyd: So the U.S. has around 93 power plants, and they generate about 3.7 gigawatts of electricity. You can see on the map here that generation is currently limited to the West for the U.S., particularly California and Nevada. Lauren Boyd: EGS, on the other hand, are basically human-made versions of natural geothermal reservoirs. We create these human-made reservoirs by carefully injecting fluid into the hot rocks thus increasing the size, and the connections between fluid pathways, so we can take that heat and bring it to the surface, because the heat is where our power comes from. Lauren Boyd: So I want to point out here that the Department of Energy currently defines EGS in this way, where injected fluid flows through tiny pathways to pick up heat, and we can do this on the margins of existing geothermal fields or in completely unexplored regions. We can do it at shallow depths, where we can strive to reach great depths below 4 miles, Lauren Boyd: and the promise of EGS is that it lets us use our nation's ubiquitous and otherwise stranded heat resources to develop firm dispatchable carbon-free power, and enable 50-state heating and cooling solutions.
Lauren Boyd: So geothermal's unique attributes underscore why EGS can play such an important role in our energy transition. I keep using the terms firm, resilient, flexible, and dispatchable to describe geothermal, meaning that our power plants can provide power when it's needed, and ramp down when not, Lauren Boyd: in addition to providing this always on around the clock based on the power. Lauren Boyd: So this is very, very valuable to utilities, especially in California, who need generation sources that can balance daily and season loads, Lauren Boyd: and from an over abundance basically of intermittent renewables. So our high capacity factor and this operational flexibility really means that we can develop about two to four times more electricity than a wind or solar plant at the same capacity. And a great example of this is the California Public Utility Commission's recent mandate that requires utilities to acquire a gigawatt of renewable resources that have a high capacity factor like geothermal because this baseload resource is really critical for long-term grade stability Lauren Boyd: and lowering costs.
Lauren Boyd: On the right-hand side of the slide you can also see that geothermal is remarkably efficient. It's a space-saving, compact source of power with a physical footprint that's far smaller than energy sources, mostly because all of our work is really taking place beneath our feet. Lauren Boyd: Another important attribute that you've heard a little bit about this morning is that geothermal is inherently local. As Secretary Granholm said at the Earthshot launch, you can't import a [inaudible] so drilling wells and operating geothermal plants locally can create high-paying jobs that directly leverage the very unique skill sets of the highly skilled oil and gas workforce in our construction industries. Lauren Boyd: If we're able to deploy EGS commercially at scale, we could see around 300,000 jobs, the majority of which would be related to the exploration, drilling and construction of the plants and long-term jobs that would be filled by local workers generally in operations and finance positions. Lauren Boyd: So some of you might be aware of the fact that EGS is not a new concept. It was developed in an earlier iteration called Atraq in the 1970s, with a seminal EGS project that was located in the desert of Mexico, called Fenton Hill,
Lauren Boyd: but only 18 projects have existed globally. So, EGS really hasn't seen the concerted and dedicated efforts, nor the funding to advance the sector through field-based hypothesis testing Lauren Boyd: and learn by doing as well as broad collaboration basically to resolve our remaining technical barriers. Lauren Boyd: However, over the last decade, a confluence of learnings, philosophical shifts and technological advances associated with the shale revolution and improvements in high-performance computing plus successes within our DOE's Geothermal Technologies Office research portfolio place EGS on the cusp of becoming a commercial reality at scale in the United States. We are proud to say that the collaborative work taking place at our flagship EGS field laboratory, called Lauren Boyd: FORGE in Utah, which was created to provide the geothermal community with the opportunity to study, test, and retest how to effectively create large-scale, sustainable reservoirs is really making a difference. We envisioned FORGE as a place where we could resolve some technical gaps in EGS science Lauren Boyd: that the geothermal industry wasn't really financially able to address. So we took on the risk you need to address these technical challenges, and from what we can see in here it's changing the landscape for a burgeoning EGS commercial industry, who are using the findings we formed to deploy EGS in a number of states. Lauren Boyd: All the more reason to continue this momentum and concerted effort to advance EGS through research. At the same time our office is sponsoring multiple field demonstration projects to help prove out critical technologies in these early stages of development, where financing as hard to come by.
Lauren Boyd: Despite EGS's exciting attributes, we have a big resource. The opportunities to stabilize our grid and provide low-cost clean power are incredible. We can leverage for competencies of the oil and gas industry, create jobs. Why are there only 18 projects worldwide? Lauren Boyd: Well, it's because in order to reduce the cost of EGS and reach large-scale deployment we need to resolve some remaining challenges, specifically market challenges and technical challenges. You can see some of our non-technical barriers here, a lack of public awareness, regulatory hurdles that include disproportionately long permitting timelines compared to oil and gas, Lauren Boyd: inadequate market valuation of geothermal, considering the firm, flexible power that it can provide, and inadequate financing to help our developers get past the highly capital-intensive and high-risk initial stages of development. Our office is working to address all of these, and you'll hear them a little bit more about them later today. Lauren Boyd: From a technical perspective, there's more to do in that in order to scale up as well. And you can imagine, when we talk about engineering and the subsurface, we're talking about miles below our feet, so we can access that stranded heat, and that can be really challenging, because Lauren Boyd: EGS environments are particularly extreme, especially as we drill deeper. The rocks for EGS resources are found are obviously hot, but they're also very hard and very abrasive. And EGS heat is often also co-located with corrosive environments which can impact the ability of our tools and our electronics and most construction. Finally, there's a lot of unknowns at subsurface. We're limited in what we can collect as cost and technology limitations. But these are tractable challenges for engineers and scientists, and that's what this Earthshot is all about solving those challenges.
Lauren Boyd: So when the engineering and market challenges for EGS are overcome, the prize is almost unthinkably large and critically important to our country's energy systems and population. For all the reasons you can see here, and that's why those of us at DOE are so excited to be part of the solution, to help drive innovation and make this happen, together with all of you. Lauren Boyd: So for the rest of the day, I'll ask you to keep those attributes in mind, and think about geothermal as an enabler, but not the bad kind, so not only can it be an important source of clean, dispatchable power, but it enables us to deal with it by balancing supplies from very little sources. It enables agriculture and enabling zero-carbon heat for homes for communities, for making industrial processes across the country more efficient. It can enable the domestic production of critical materials, such as lithium that are very, very important for the future. Lauren Boyd: So I'll leave you there, and I will catch up with all of you later this afternoon, and thank you so much for your time. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you very much, Lauren.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: So if you've been monitoring our schedule closely, you can see on the website that we have a slight change Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: this morning. Representative Stewart planned to attend. However, he has been called into a closed hearing. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Enhanced geothermal systems is of particular interest to him, because his district includes Milford, Utah which is home for FORGE, DOE's flagship site for enhanced geothermal systems. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: But just like enhanced geothermal systems, the summit schedule is flexible and resilient, and we will try to see if we can align schedules with him and participate later in the day.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: So we're going to move forward with introducing Governor Polis. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: He's provided pre-recorded remarks. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: His 2023 Western Governors Association Chair Initiative, Governor Polis of Colorado launched the Heat Beneath Our Feet. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: The Heat Beneath Our Feet Initiative will examine opportunities for and barriers to the increased deployment of geothermal energy technologies, both electricity generation and eating and growing systems in the Western state.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: May we please share Governor Polis's remarks. Hi everyone. I'm Colorado Governor Jared Polis, and I'm thrilled to join you virtually, and in a very important gathering. I want to thank Under Secretary Geraldine Richmond and the Department of Energy for hosting today's important event.
Here in Colorado we know that geothermal energy saves people. Money is an important part of our work to power. The clean energy transition that brings good-paying jobs over 95% of the geothermal energy potential in the United States is in the West. It's for this reason that, as chair of the Western Governors Association, I was proud to launch the bipartisan Heat Beneath Our Feet Initiative to explore the immense opportunities for geothermal energy across the United States. The Heat Beneath Our Feet Initiative is taking a bold and bipartisan approach to advance the development and deployment of geothermal energy. Jump-started adoption of geothermal energy technologies can create new opportunities that boost local economies, provides low-cost, reliable power, heating and cooling to communities and assist in meeting our renewable energy goals and energy security goals. In true Western form, businesses have embraced the entrepreneurial spirit and are growing the geothermal sector in a robust economic generator. Colorado is joined by other Western states working to ensure that these companies have our support for geothermal innovation and collaboration. Beyond the Heat Beneath Our Feet Initiative, we're making bold strides in advancing geothermal energy. Last year Colorado was one of two states to receive a significant investment from Department of Energy's geothermal office. Occidental Petroleum and its partners from industry, national laboratories, academia will drill twin high-temperature, geothermal wells, using existing and novel drilling technologies that will open up more areas for geothermal.
Deeper and hotter depths than existing geothermal at a faster rate in the Denver Julesburg Basin. These kinds of technologies combined with the strong strides we're taking at the state level to boost geothermal energy adoption will help more Coloradans get to the more than 4,000 megawatts of geothermal EGS capacity the Enhanced Geothermal Shot analysis indicates possible by 2050. Together, these efforts will not only help Colorado lock in 100% renewable energy by 2040, but also to protect Coloradans and our businesses from the severe price swings and sky-high cost of natural gas. Last year I proudly signed legislation to create a geothermal energy grant program, providing up to 12 million to support programs that use geothermal energy for electricity generation and space and water heating and cooling in homes, businesses and communities in our state. We're continuing to build on this important work as we pursue incentives and regulations to support the development of geothermal heating and cooling, as well as geothermal electricity generation in Colorado. Our old energy tax credit package and partnership with the legislature includes 35 million to support the growth of geothermal electric, while also providing tax credits to support the adoption of heat pump technology helping to decarbonize our building, heating and cooling sector. These are just some of the many important steps that we're taking to advance geothermal energy right here in Colorado.
I'm especially proud that Colorado Mesa University will soon be the first university in the country to achieve 100% geothermal power heating and cooling. Geothermals save CMU millions of dollars every year on their energy costs which has led to a 2% reduction in tuition, with the hope of delivering even more student savings to students in the years to come. I'm so proud of the work we've done to advance geothermal technology in our state. There's a lot of exciting work ahead. Each state is embracing and elevating geothermal energy in their own way. But together we're exploring the potential, and how we can help one another use this undertapped resource to protect and enhance our way of life and prosperity. Colorado is pleased to be partnered with all of you, and our efforts to make geothermal a household energy name in our state and across the nation. Thank you, everyone, and enjoy the rest of the summit. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you, Governor Polis. It is very exciting to hear that geothermal has reduced the cost of tuition in Colorado, and we hope that it can become a household name in all of our households.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: I'm very excited to introduce now the executive director of the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Committee Council, Christine Harada. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Executive Director Harada assists permanent council member agencies in managing a portfolio of nearly 100 billion in large-scale infrastructure projects, Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: most of which are renewable energy, coastal restoration and electricity transmission projects. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: She brings more than 25 years of leadership experience in the public and private sector. Her titles include vice president for government affairs for a renewable energy tech company,
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: president of a virtual venture capital firm, and partner at a strategic advisory and venture development firm. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you, Executive Director Harada, for joining us this morning. Christine Harada: Thank you so very much for having me. It is actually a pleasure for me to be here. One of the other titles that I used to have way back in the day was aerospace engineer, and so I'm very happy to be surrounded by this audience of engineers and scientists, um, albeit, of course, a very different context. Now, um, to talk about permitting as the previous speaker had indicated. You know there is a number of challenges to be overcome with geothermal in order to ensure that it becomes available, Christine Harada: affordable, and accessible for the vast majority of folks, and I trust that a lot of the scientists and engineers on this call eminently much more qualified to help um, certainly on the technology front, and I'm here to share with you a little bit more about how we can help with the permitting front. Christine Harada: So within the federal government we—there is an entity called the Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council, and we like to call ourselves the Permitting Council for short, just because it is a relatively longer name. Christine Harada: Um, so to turn it over just a little bit. So FAST-41, we will use the terms interchangeably, FAST-41 or Permitting Council.
Christine Harada: FAST-41 stands for the statute that stood us up in 2015, the Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or the FAST Act in Title 41, hence FAST-41, established an entity called the Permitting Council, whereby Christine Harada: we fundamentally exist to help coordinate and integrate the federal environmental reviews and authorization processes, especially for very large infrastructure and complicated projects, so much like what we're seeing here with geothermal. Here's a couple of examples of the types of projects that we have the great opportunity of privilege to work on. This nerd is very happy about a lot of these projects, just because I think it's super cool technology-wise. Um also really need to to think through and solve through a lot of the environmental issues and make sure that we're doing it in a way that is sustainable, but also economically viable. It also helps promote good community engagement workforce jobs, etc., so it's a win-win-win-win-win-win kind of story um in the bottom, of course, Christine Harada: most importantly, helps us to address climate change Christine Harada: in our portfolio. I think you heard before we have on the order of 100 billion dollars for these projects. We have 30 projects. So that means we use, from quick and dirty math, on—on average, our projects are 3.3 billion dollars. Since our inception we have helped to permit 31 projects in total have actually reached completion, representing
Christine Harada: a crazy number like 166 trillion dollars worth of direct capital investment. And that's based on the project developers reporting as well as public media reports. So again, transmission lines out of 2 billion, 3 billion nuclear power plans. They add up really quickly. And so we're very much looking forward to adding geothermal to our portfolio as well. Christine Harada: So the Council itself, just to tell you a little bit about the who we are and what we do, and how we help entities with through the permitting process. A little bit about the Council. The Council is comprised of 16 members in total, and it is actually a council we are a relatively unique Christine Harada: federal entity, in that we are indeed a council of members, and the members are comprised of the deputy secretary or equivalents from these agencies that you see here on rows two through four. There are 13 federal agencies that are involved in the permitting process, Christine Harada: combined with two other two members from the White House. We have the director of the office of management budget and the chair on council on environmental quality. So truly the senior, most policymakers and decision-makers within the federal government associated with permitting Christine Harada: and the whole purpose of our statute again is to help project sponsors and developers through the permitting process, Christine Harada: and I'll get into some more of the details there. But you know fundamentally, we do that through um a big transparency mechanism that we'll talk about shortly. We but we also serve as the center of permitting excellence where we collect a lot of the—collect and share the best practices across agencies. We're also making investments into various tools and data management capabilities to ensure that we are trying to reduce the number of, you know, no-value add or low-value add process steps in the overall permitting process itself.
Christine Harada: The Council also, you know, we meet on a regular basis to talk through the major trends that we're seeing across various agencies. Christine Harada: Frequently they fall into two broad buckets. One is around um capabilities and resourcing, so ensuring that we're actually allocating the appropriate number of resources to make sure that we're addressing the permitting section of these particular projects. Um, and also a lot of policy questions as well. We have found that through our conversations with project sponsors that a number of questions that they raise Christine Harada: cause us to look through the various rules at various agencies, and uncover, um you know, what—what holes or what gaps there might be. And so we—we have uncovered some situations like that that has now offered us an opportunity to enter into the rule-making process.
Christine Harada: So the goals of the Permitting Council are, Christine Harada: and the FAST-41 statute you'll see here, is permitting predictability, efficient issue, resolution, transparency, and accountability and federal agency collaboration and coordination. And I like to say that especially for our project sponsors, you know, we are here to help you when we do that for these four buckets Christine Harada: with these four buckets we are reducing—reducing delivery risk, reducing regulatory risk, reducing litigation risk and enhancing predictability, certainty, and accountability. And our goal is to figure out, how do we get to a "yes." Christine Harada: Um, you know it may—it is a put in ensuring that we're running as many processes as concurrently as much as possible that we are putting into place, whether it be end-user agreements. Ah, amongst the federal agencies also, maybe with state agencies as well to say, hey, can we consolidate this step into one big one, and we can share the data and make sure that we're all marching together forward. Um, a lot of those types of discussions take place with our team. Christine Harada: Some of the benefits of FAST-41 coverage, um, our program is a voluntary one. And so it is up to the project sponsors of the developers of the geothermal entities in this particular audience, for example, that would be approaching us and asking us filing an application if you will, for coverage, Christine Harada: it is in our case the application itself is relatively simple, and we—we Christine Harada: encourage, we highly encourage folks to please come and talk to us, because in permitting things get very specific, very quickly, so please we serve as absolutely a one-stop shop for questions. Um, if I personally or my team personally, if I'm not able to answer your questions, we have an extensive network within the federal government, so it's certainly absolutely happy to connect you with the right experts, if you will.
Christine Harada: But these are the six big benefits of participating in our program. Again, you have increased predictability and enhanced coordination. As I mentioned before, um, turning over to the right-hand side you have focus intention of agency leadership again, just by the fact that you know you're participating in the program, and we discuss these projects on a regular basis with the council members that drives a lot more of the attention of leaders, which intent, which in turn helps with issue resolution. Christine Harada: Um, Christine Harada: of interest, I think maybe for this audience as well, our statute again relatively unique, our statute allows us to transfer funding Christine Harada: ah to federal agencies, but also our state, tribal, and local government partners to support work that's related to environmental authorizations. So my joke is if—if your project has a problem, Christine Harada: it can be solved by throwing money at it. So, for example, you just need that consultant, or you just need another person to please review the—the documents that get it signed up, etc. Those are the types of situations where I am able to provide funding support. And certainly last, but not least, we've got clear dispute resolution procedures in our statute that allows us to help remove a lot of those roadblocks Christine Harada: frequently delays associated with permitting customs largely from information differences, whether there is a disagreement or a lack of understanding about what the information requirements are to process your permit, and so, therefore, your application may not be perceived to be complete, or is not declared to be a complete application. But the federal agency can then go on to review, etc.
Christine Harada: There's you know there's science debates, about maybe be about a Christine Harada: particular species, or what geothermal or geo-technical kind of impacts might there be. Our statute in our office does not weigh into the merits of whose science is better, or what data do you really need to collect. But I help call the question Christine Harada: in the context of the project plan. So, hey, agency, and you guys had agreed on delivering this in the June timeframe. I'm seeing that you guys are having a big dispute or a debate and back and forth about this, looks like June is not going to be feasible. What are you guys' next steps? How are you going to drive this to resolution, etc. Christine Harada: To give you an example of one of our seminal products, we published something called the Federal Permitting Dashboard, um, and here is an example screenshot of a project. Um, this I picked off Sherwin, recognizing this as a very different audience. But I picked this one because it is a very complicated permitting activity, and so thought it might be a helpful example, to illustrate the kind of work that we do. Christine Harada: So this is the Dashboard itself, and this is the top half of the website, and for each of these projects you will be going to receive a page that looks like this. You can see on the right-hand side who are the actual points of contact at the agencies as well as active sponsor. The project sponsor's contact information so that, should your investors have questions and communities that are an impact enough questions or other state, local government agencies that are involved. Tribal nations can also look it up, and they know exactly who to go to.
Christine Harada: Um, they can also see who are all the relevant, ah, federal agencies that are involved in this particular project as well. And what's interesting for offshore wind is that, um did you know or fun fact, ah, that for just in the federal realm, for offshore wind, Christine Harada: a project, every project needs to obtain at least 12 authorizations Christine Harada: from at least six different federal agencies, and I say at least, because, depending on the location offshore, there may be some additional agencies that might need to get involved. So, for example, let's say, in the case of geothermal, maybe if you're on the Western lands, there's probably going to be a lot of BLM, BIA, Forest Service, but sometimes you might also run in a National Park Service. You might also run into national wildlife refugees, and so, depending on, you know the—the situation, we can do, of course, with the various agencies, and one of the things that we publish is a comprehensive project plan and timetable Christine Harada: for every single project. And this way you can see who's on first, what's on second, what are all the federal reviews that are going to be required, and how, um, what's the timeframe associated with it. Christine Harada: The benefit of this is a—there's a couple of benefits about this. Number one, Christine Harada: this is probably the first time that we all collectively will have seen a comprehensive project schedule for a particular project by having this kind of process in place. Um, secondly, it also provides for real-time updates and edits as well. So say, for example,
Christine Harada: and this might not be as pertinent for geothermal, but let's say there's a transmission line, and you are exploring two or three different options, and it turns out that maybe your first option doesn't quite work out. This one requires a modification of a fourth plan. Christine Harada: Example this way. The—the schedule itself can then be modified to reflect the new changes that need to happen in real time, and therefore what are the next steps helps to establish the expectations from the project sponsor's perspective. If we're going to go through for service lands, now, here are the things and information that we need to submit. Here is what we can leverage from the previous parts of the analysis to feed into it, so that we're not repeating and duplicating stuff and trying to keep the project um on track as much as possible. Christine Harada: We have heard from some of our existing project sponsors that they, Christine Harada: their investors and their constituencies, watch this Dashboard like a hawk, and that frequently for many projects that do struggle with raising financing for their projects that are participating in our program, and having this kind of certainty in display, Christine Harada: enables them to provide their investors, you know, and signal to them that, yes, this is a real project we are making progress in, that we are scheduled to deliver by such a such date. Christine Harada: Um, and that they're able honor other commitments or whatever the case might be. And in effect, you know, it's lowering the overall cost of capital. It allows these project sponsors to focus most their efforts most on the permitting process itself, and move everything forward if you will.
Christine Harada: It is my personal goal to make the United States number one in infrastructure investing ah attractiveness, and we certainly believe, are, I certainly firmly believe, that are playing a role in this to again reduce the regulatory risk reducing overall litigation and risk, because we are ensuring quality throughout the process. Um, and last, but not least, reducing delivery risk absolutely helps towards that goal. Christine Harada: Um, for your edification, recognizing this as a geothermal audience, these are the sectors um that qualify for our program. Ah, geothermal would fall under the renewable energy production bullet that you see up top. Um, but just for your awareness, these are all the other sectors that are involved as well. So, for example, if you have other going to be pipelines or other transmission lines, you know, going to or stemming from your plans, that's also an option to be able to participate Christine Harada: with us. Christine Harada: Ah, with that um second less, thank you so much for having me, greatly appreciate your attention and the opportunity to present out to you. There's an email address at the bottom Fast dot fortyone at FPISC dot gov. If you have Christine Harada: any questions at all, no question is dumb, please contact us. We are absolutely happy to help, we do permitting 24 by 7 by 365. I have a team of permitting nerds who are genuinely genuinely excited to help you solve these types of problems. So thank you so much. We look forward to hearing from you.
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Thank you, Executive Director Harada. It is a pleasure to add your permitting nerds to our all-hands-on-deck effort, and thank you for leading, informing of us on the opportunity presented by FAST-41. I encourage present developers to check out that Federal Permitting Dashboard, and of course we support the goal in making the U.S. the number one, the infrastructure investor capability. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: And now i'd like to introduce Dr. Jesse Jenkins, who is an assistant professor and macroscale energy systems engineer at Houston University. He leads the Princeton Zero Lab which focuses on improving and applying optimization-based energy system models
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: to evaluate and optimize low-carbon energy technologies, guide investment in research and innovative energy technologies, and generate insights to improve energy and climate policy and planning decisions. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Dr. Jenkins recently served on the National Academy of Science and Engineering and Medicine um Expert Committee on accelerating the carbon invasion of the U.S. energy system, and he was the principal investigator and lead author of Princeton's landmark Net-Zero America Study. Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: Dr. Jenkins will help put us,
Devinn Lambert, DOE MC: the Enhanced Geothermal Energy Earthshot in concept context, focusing on where geothermal fits into the climate energy puzzle. Thank you, Dr. Jenkins. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you all about the role that enhanced geothermal can play in a decarbonized and lower cost energy system. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Let me be in here all right. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: So let's talk about the new tool in our toolbox that enhanced geothermal would provide. If we can achieve the goals set out by the Geothermal Earthshot.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: We'll start here, which is that if we're trying to build a decarbonized energy system to reach our climate goals and secure our energy supplies at lower costs. The electricity system is the linchpin. We need to deploy clean energy at a record pace to put that into perspective Dr. Jesse Jenkins: today. Here is our current electricity supply mix where we get about 4,000 terawatt hours overall, and about 40% of that comes from carbon resources Dr. Jesse Jenkins: to—to be on a path for net-zero by 2050, and to hit our national role of a 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. We need to add more than one-and-a-half times all current carbon-free electricity generation in new carbon-free supplies by 2030. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: By 2035, the new additions of clean generation would have to be equal to all of our current generation supply today, and by 2050 we would have to build that much again, reaching at a total increase of two times all current generation entirely consisting of new carbon-free electricity supplies.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: This in many ways is the central challenge of decarbonising the overall U.S. economy, as we have to keep up with growing demand for electricity to power electric vehicles, produce clean hydrogen, decarbonise industry, and heating all while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the power sector which today are responsible for about a quarter of all of our greenhouse gas emissions. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: So that twin challenge puts the central focus on deploying a range of new clean electricity options again, totally more than double all generation today, from new carbon-free sources by 2050. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: To do that, of course, will require smashing new record rates of deployment. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: As we see here, this is the historic annual increase in capacity for different generation technologies. Over the last several decades you can see the more the substantial growth of natural gas power plants in the mid-2000s, the more recent increase in solar and wind capacity in the past decade.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: These are the paces of deployment that we would need to see to again to be on track for that net-zero goal over the next decade, basically smashing new record deployment rates for wind and solar year after year, roughly doubling the P-creative deployment that we've seen for both wind and solar on average through the through the end of the decade, and accelerating that rate further to about three-point-five times our record equipment rate between 2031 and 2035. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Now that might sound daunting and impossible, with the good news is that, according to the Energy Information Administration's latest short-term energy outlook, solar deployment is actually already on track to hit double its peak deployment rate in the next 2 years. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Wind power, unfortunately, is lagging behind, projected to run at only about half of the peak deployment rate scene to date. And so we need to pick up the pace there. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: I focus on wind and solar, because these are technologies that are mature, cost-competitive and ready for scale, which means they can drive substantial cost of substantial emissions declines over the next decade and help diversify and lower the cost of our energy supplies. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: The reason for that is that over the last decade and beyond, we supported these technologies when they looked like expensive sort of what alternative energy technologies, which is what we used to call them in the mid-2000s, if you'll recall um, and we've driven down the cost of these technologies by really dramatic amounts. So we look just from 2010 to 2021 we've seen effectively a 90% decline in the cost of both lithium ion battery packs and solar PV.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: And about a two-thirds decline in the cost of onshore wind. These technologies are now no longer niche alternative energy technologies. They are the mainstream options for new supply trillion-dollar industries that have the potential to supply the bulk of our new energy generation over the next decade and beyond. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: In fact, if we look at the levelized cost of electricity for wind and solar, we can see that in recent years they've crossed below that of basically every other option, including new fossil generation technologies like natural gas, the CCS or coal, as well as more expensive, clean technologies, like nuclear or geothermal. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: So you might ask, then we're done, right? What's the point of this EarthShot for geothermal or other technologies, when wind and solar are now the cheapest sources of new electricity really anywhere in the world? Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Now, this presents a bit of a riddle. I think it summarized quite nicely by David Olsen, who is then a member of the Kaiso Board of Governors and former president CEO of Patagonia back in 2020, but he stated in an interview that it can actually be more expensive to add cheap solar than to add expensive geothermal to our electricity suppliers. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: This seems a bit counterintuitive, right? How could it be more expensive to add a cheaper resource than to add a more expensive one?
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Well, the key here is that when we focus solely on cost alone and compare different technologies like wind or solar to that of geothermal or nuclear, or even natural gas, it's a little bit like comparing the cost of a banana to the cost of a burger when you're trying to decide what to eat. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: It's good to know that a banana is cheaper than a burger. That's critical information, right nice to know, but clearly not the only thing you want to know when trying to decide your balanced diet. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: The more bananas you eat the less valuable the potassium that you might get from it, and the more and sick of the taste you might become. Of course, your doctor's probably going to yell at you if you only eat burgers as well. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Now this is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it's actually quite representative of the real situation in our electricity sector as well, where, like these two different foodstuffs, they both provide calories. All of our electricity technologies provide megawatt-hours, but they're not fungible substitutes. We can't treat a megawatt-hour as equal to any other megawatt-hour for any other technology just like we can't treat a calorie from one—one source of food as a pure substitute for calories from others. It's because these technologies come in complete packages of different characteristics, Dr. Jesse Jenkins: and play different roles in a balanced diet of our energy system. The— Dr. Jesse Jenkins: we can look at that quite clearly when we think about the declining value that different technologies buy. Of course, cost is only one half of the equation to determine whether something is profitable or valuable to society as long as the value exceeds that at the cost, it doesn't really matter how the cost of one electricity technology compares to any other. What's key is that its cost remains below its value.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: What we see then for wind and solar is that as their costs have plummeted and deployment increases, they also drive down their own energy value. And there's a couple of ways in which that works. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: The first is the declining energy substitution value, as we deploy more and more solar in the system. They come into our grid, mix as zero marginal cost resources that effectively shifts out the supply curve, Dr. Jesse Jenkins: and since our electricity markets price electricity based on the intersection of supply, the short on marginal cost of supply and the current demand at each time period, the more renewable energy production we have at any one time, the lower the electricity price becomes. We've already seen this than much of the United States, but very low costs are very low prices throughout much of the periods when solar energy is peaking during the daytime, say in California or Arizona, or where—where wind energy is at its maximum, say in SVP or other parts of the Midwest
of high wind penetrations. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: And so, as we add more and more solar to the system, eventually we get times our solar wind eventually we get times when the electricity price actually collapses to zero, reflecting the fact that we're curtailing zero marginal cost, wind or solar or geothermal, for that matter, on the margin, indicating that increases in demand can be satisfied effectively for free. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: This poses a particular challenge for wind and solar power, because their output is highly correlated and weather dependent. That means we can't move solar energy or wind energy easily to more valuable time periods, and when one wind farm is producing all of the wind farms are producing in the region. So this heavy correlation and output means that we're piling more and more renewable energy into the hours to get less and less valuable. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: That leaves the hours when wind and solar output are low to still be challenging to meet. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: In fact, we can see that if we think about the capacity substitution value of these resources as well, so not only do wind and solar displace fuel costs from more expensive fuel-consuming resources when they're available. There's also an opportunity to shut down the capacity from more reliable power plants. If we can produce power at times.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: Now, this is the famous California duck curve which we've now seen in recent months actually go to net-negative output, meaning that the net demand for electricity minus the availability of wind and solar is now negative during certain hours of the day, particularly in spring months. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: And what we see is that while the belly of the duck curve has gotten fatter, the head or the neck has stuck around and been quite stubborn at roughly 20 gigawatts of evening deep demand. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: What this means is that while solar might have initially helped reduce that peak from, as you can see, something more like 25 gigawatts, initially, now, the challenges of the evening peak occurs exactly at the time when solar output is minimal and wind output is typically quite low. It is at 8 or 9 p.m., the sun is set, wind output tends to die off um, and so the more and more solar or wind you add, we're getting very little capacity substitution down. So we might need to add, you know, 100 megawatts of solar and wind. In this case you're basically at zero megawatts, of substitution from solar, and maybe only 5 or 10 megawatts of substitution from wind. Dr. Jesse Jenkins: And this is true throughout other parts of the world as well. And so, while wind and solar are increasingly cheap, and are going to continue to be cheap, the more we deploy them into the system, the lower their value becomes as well, and there are stubborn challenges like how to meet these evening periods for long sustained periods of time when wind and solar output are low. When electricity prices actually go up and—and get more, they get higher, signifying greater and greater value for flexible resources. That can be better.
Dr. Jesse Jenkins: OK, but what about energy storage? Isn't this the solution, then, to meet those evening peaks and to
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