A geothermal project based in Milford and the only one of its kind on an international scale will continue its demonstration work in the dusty, remote desert in Beaver County after an agreement was reached by the U.S. Department of Energy.
The Utah Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, or FORGE, will continue its project through 2028 through an agreement that includes an additional $80 million in funding over the next four years.
The extension began Oct. 1 and will allow Utah FORGE to build on the breakthroughs that have been realized since the program started.
Managing Principal Investigator Joseph Moore said: “We are grateful to the DOE for their ongoing commitment and support of enhanced geothermal systems research. This next phase allows us to build on our important achievements and to further develop and de-risk the tools and technologies necessary to unlock the potential of next-generation geothermal power.”
The Utah location for FORGE was selected after a highly ambitious competitive process that eventually saw the University of Utah, the umbrella research organization in this case, competing against one final contender; Sandia National Laboratories, which is actually a facility under the purview of the U.S. Department of Energy.
Three competitors were eliminated in the second round, with the two finalists who moved on to 2016 to the third phase to determine which site was best suited for what would ultimately be selected for the nation’s headquarters for the underground lab.
The University of Utah and Sandia’s Nevada site beat out a volcanic area in Bend, Oregon, the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls, and a Sandia site at the U.S. Navy’s China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station north of Ridgecrest, California.
What is FORGE and why is it important?
The idea behind FORGE is to bring geothermal energy to the market on a utility scale that is financially viable and scientifically sound.
Last year, two deep vertical wells that link to a long horizontal conduit actually connected for the first time — picture a radiator in a car that operates on a circulating loop.
The project injected 1,800 barrels of water into one well at five barrels a minute and achieved success when it flowed along the horizontal pathway to travel up the production well.
Water is pumped deep into the super-heated rocks thousands of feet underground to ultimately turn into steam to power a turbine to produce electrons. Imagine capturing that steam from geothermal pools throughout the West.
At a 2023 visit to the University of Utah, U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm called geothermal “the holy grail of energy.”
She pointed out there is a prediction that at some point, 45% of U.S. homes could be powered by that earthen heat. With just 2% of the resources tapped, U.S. geothermal energy is abundant enough to power the United States 2,000 times over.
Utah already produces 59 megawatts of energy from geothermal resources, but a dozen projects are in some stage of development that could produce more emissions-free power generation.
In January 2023, the Bureau of Land Management announced it had leased two parcels in Millard County of 3,045 acres for development of renewable energy, which includes geothermal.
In 2023, Fervo Energy broke ground on the 400-megawatt Cape Station Project. The company anticipates it will begin delivering around-the-clock, clean power to the grid in 2026 and reach full scale production in 2028.
Utah is one of seven states with geothermal thermal energy production on a utility scale and third in the nation, ranking behind California and Nevada.
This Thursday, FORGE is hosting an open house from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Milford City Offices at 26 S. 100 West. The event will describe what breakthroughs have happened so far, the next steps for the demonstration project and include a question and answer session.