Weekly Clean Energy Roundup: June 26, 2008
DOE Offers $90 Million for Enhanced Geothermal Systems Forty Teams Compete in Solar Boat Race in the Netherlands New Biodiesel Standard Allows Automaker Approval of 20% Blends DOE to Invest $1.3 Billion in Carbon Capture and Storage DOE Offers $90 Million for Enhanced Geothermal Systems DOE issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) last week for the research, development, and demonstration of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), an advanced geothermal technology that drills deep wells into hot rocks, fractures them, and circulates a fluid through the fractures to extract heat. EGS technologies can be used to create new geothermal reservoirs or to stimulate existing geothermal reservoirs that are underperforming. The FOA offers up to $90 million over four years, of which $40 million will go toward research and development (R&D) projects for the technologies needed to commercialize EGS and $50 million will go toward demonstration projects that stimulate existing unproductive geothermal reservoirs. The R&D projects will target the technologies needed to create reservoirs at temperatures up to 300 degrees Celsius (572 degrees Fahrenheit) and depths as great as 10 kilometers (6.2 miles). They will address specific needs identified in a recent DOE report, "An Evaluation of Enhanced Geothermal Systems Technology." According to […]