The Department of Interior on Oct. 17 announced that the Bureau of Land Management has approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah, which will use innovative technology to generate up to 2 gigawatts of baseload power.
The BLM is also proposing a new categorical exclusion to facilitate geothermal energy resources confirmation on public lands. These actions come as the BLM hosted the biggest geothermal lease sale in more than 15 years.
The announcements follow the BLM Nevada State Office’s geothermal lease sale on October 8, which brought in near-record revenues, marking the most successful sale since 2008 and the second-most ever, Interior said.
The BLM sold 64 parcels covering nearly 218,000 acres, bringing in over $7.8 million in high bids. This marks a sharp increase from the previous year’s sale of 96,600 acres for just over $1 million, demonstrating the growing interest in geothermal development on public lands.
Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project
The Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project is an enhanced geothermal system that produces energy by injecting water into hot subsurface rock formations and then extracting the heated water to generate electricity, rather than depending on naturally occurring underground hot water like traditional geothermal systems.
If fully developed, the project will cover approximately 631 acres, including 148 acres on public lands, and produce up to 2 gigawatts of clean energy. Additional information on the project is available at the BLM National NEPA Register.
Today there are 51 operating power plants producing geothermal energy from BLM-managed public lands. Learn more at the BLM Geothermal Energy website.
Proposed Categorical Exclusion
BLM on Oct. 17 also proposed a new categorical exclusion that would help accelerate the discovery of new geothermal resources.
The categorical exclusion would apply to geothermal resource confirmation operations plan of up to 20 acres, which can include drilling wells (e.g., core drilling, temperature gradient wells, and/or resource wells) to confirm the existence of a geothermal resource, to improve injection support, or to demonstrate connections between wells.
It will be published in the Federal Register in the coming days to begin a 30-day public comment period.
The permitting proposal would help accelerate the discovery of new geothermal resources throughout the West, especially in states like Nevada, home to some of the largest undeveloped geothermal potential in the country, Interior said.
Currently, geothermal developers must conduct two separate environmental reviews: one for initial exploration drilling and another to fully test the geothermal resource, even if both have similar environmental impacts. The proposal would apply only to geothermal resource confirmation operations on public lands and split estates.
Further geothermal development would still require additional environmental analysis. Based on previous DOE analysis, these permitting actions could significantly reduce permitting timelines and capital costs of geothermal deployment.
Under the National Environmental Policy Act, categorical exclusions are categories of actions that typically do not have significant impacts on the human environment. When used appropriately, categorical exclusions eliminate the need for an environmental assessment as part of the permitting process.
Categorical exclusions cannot be applied in cases with special circumstances, such as potential impacts to endangered species, in which case an EA must still be conducted.
