Natural gas has been having a field day in the US energy profile for the past dozen years or so, but it looks like the sleeping giant of US geothermal power is being nudged out of its stupor. Yesterday, the Energy Department announced that it is plunking down $31 million to rev up a cutting edge geothermal demo project that could enable the US to tap into an estimated 100 gigawatts of geothermal power.

The new geothermal project, called FORGE for Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy, is just one of a package of clean energy investments that President Obama has been rolling out in recent days.
US geothermal FORGE project

‘Virtual reservoir,” US geothermal FORGE project (cropped) courtesy of US DOE.
US Geothermal vs. Natural Gas

Earlier this week the US Energy Information Agency released a new futurecast in which the base scenario calls for almost 75% of all new generating capacity to be from gas-fired power plants. In consideration of the new geothermal announcement, which comes on top of stunning gains in wind and solar power, it looks like EIA has a bit of revising to do.

Here’s the Energy Department enthusing over FORGE:

The FORGE initiative is […]