(The Center Square) – Pennsylvania’s next big energy push heads back underground to tap a resource once limited to the fringes of volcanoes and hot springs.
At least, that’s what two state Democrats from Allegheny County think the commonwealth should prepare for, as outlined in a new bill introduced Thursday.
Sen. Nick Pisciotanno, D-Monroeville, and Rep. Arvind Venkat, D-Pittsburgh, sponsored companion legislation in their respective chambers that would establish the building blocks for a geothermal harvesting industry statewide.
“Pennsylvania’s energy future depends on innovation,” Pisciotanno said in a release. “Geothermal energy has the potential to provide locally sourced heat and electricity while creating new opportunities for workers who have powered our energy economy for generations.”
Enhanced geothermal systems, under development since the 1970s, hit a breakthrough in recent years after developers borrowed hydraulic fracturing techniques from the oil and gas industry to crack open rocks and pump water inside to create steam, generating electricity above ground.
Fervo Energy, a Texas-based geothermal start-up that began testing the technology in Nevada in 2023, told MIT Technology Review that the resource could serve as underground batteries that are always on to power grids when solar and wind power are unavailable.
According to research from the University of Utah, tapping into just 2% of the United States’ geothermal energy stores could provide 2,000 times its annual energy use.
In decades past, geothermal wells only worked in regions with naturally high subsurface temperatures. Hydraulic fracturing can reach much deeper, expanding availability nationwide.
It’s good news for Pennsylvania, the second-largest producer of natural gas, and a haven for drillers interested in tapping into the vast Marcellus shale deposit that stretches across the western half of the state.
But it’s an expensive proposition for investors, and Pennsylvania is notorious for permitting delays that discourage development.
The bills, however, leverage a longstanding problem for the Department of Environmental Protection: abandoned oil and gas wells – which could number as high as 500,000 – litter the Allegheny National Forest, posing environmental and safety risks.
Instead of continuing the expensive and sluggish process of capping wells, the proposed framework would repurpose them for geothermal drillers and give the department regulatory authority. It would also establish ownership of the wells at the surface – a step that wasn’t adhered to for six decades as oil and gas drillers abandoned dry sites.
The proposal has caught the attention of lawmakers far from Pennsylvania’s drilling platforms: Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, D-Philadelphia, and Craig Williams, R-Chadds Ford, have also signed on as cosponsors.