Low-Energy Fridays: Geothermal Power Permitting Reform Heats Up in Congress

Although Congress has a reputation for gridlock, progress can still be made on certain issues. One example is the House’s recent passage of a package of permitting reforms relating to the next big thing in American energy: geothermal. 

A common myth about energy is that it is scarce; in reality, it is incredibly abundant. There is enough energy in the nuclear bonds of the atoms making up a typical cheeseburger to power the entire planet for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. 

The issue is not how much energy exists, but rather how much is accessible to us and at what cost. Periodically, some technological or economic development will unlock a vast reservoir of new energy. Sunshine, wind, and lumps of coal have always been around, but the development of solar panels, wind turbines, and steam engines made the energy inherent in these natural resources usable. 

A similar process may now be happening with geothermal energy. If you paid attention in middle school science class, you might recall that it is quite hot beneath the Earth’s surface. In fact, temperatures at its molten core are as high as 10,800 degrees Fahrenheit—as hot as the surface of the sun. 

While the existence of this energy has long been known, it hasn’t been practicable to harness it for human use (aside from a few geological oddities). Now, technological advancements are allowing energy companies to drill deep into the Earth’s crust and bring heat up to the surface. Some analysts project that as much as 90 gigawatts of geothermal-based electricity could be operational in the United States by 2050, which is enough to power 90 million households. 

But advanced drilling techniques aren’t the only technologies necessary for geothermal to succeed. We don’t typically think of permitting regulation as a technology, but it is. Permitting requirements are meant to ensure that development projects don’t impose unwarranted environmental or other burdens on society at large. However, they often make projects cost more and take longer without delivering any appreciable benefit. At the federal level, the length of time needed to permit projects requiring an environmental impact statement under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) grew from 3.4 years in 2000 to about 4.7 years in 2019. This delay is a particular risk when it comes to an emerging technology like geothermal energy, because the regulatory systems in place weren’t designed with it in mind. 

Which brings us back to the geothermal legislation passed by the House. Known as the Geothermal Energy Advancement Act (H.R. 5631), the bipartisan legislation bundles together a number of separate bills involving geothermal energy, creating a system in which the permitting process is funded by royalties and fees. The bill would also impose consideration deadlines for permits and give exemptions to geothermal projects—similar to those held by oil and gas projects—under the National Environmental Policy Act. In fact, many of the legislation’s requirements apply existing standards and processes in place for oil and gas to analogous parts of the geothermal development process. Broadly similar legislation, including the HEATS Act (H.R. 5587) and the CLEAN Act (H.R. 1687), also passed the House this year. The Next-Generation Geothermal Research and Development Act (H.R. 8790), which is more focused on R&D funding, passed the House just this month. 

None of these bills will guarantee success in the geothermal energy industry, let alone any particular project. They won’t even completely solve every permitting obstacle to geothermal, which can also be a challenge at the state level. However, they do aim to minimize the risk that otherwise viable projects will fail due to red tape.