News

Decision on award for FORGE geothermal laboratory to either Nevada or Utah expected in June

Decision on award for FORGE geothermal laboratory to either Nevada or Utah expected in June Vibroseis trucks for 2D and 3D Seismic on site in Utah (source: Utah Geological Survey)
Alexander Richter 13 Apr 2018

A decision on the award for the FORGE geothermal laboratory funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Geothermal Technology Office is expected in June 2018. The choice will be between the two final project sites in Fallon, Nevada and Milford, Utah.

During a recent local economic development meeting in Nevada, it was reported that a decision on an award for the FORGE geothermal laboratory to either Fallon in Nevada or Milford in Utah is expected for June this year.

During the meeting Josh Nordquist, Manager for U.S. Resource Operations of Ormat, a partner in the Fallon/ Nevada FORGE project team, said that he is hopeful the project will end up in Nevada.

The FORGE project by the DOE’s Geothermal Technology Office is going to establish an EGS field laboratory. Two projects and teams are in the final round for the award, the site in Fallon, Nevada and in Milford, Utah.

 

As reported by the Nevada Appeal, the FORGE project site in Fallon has sufficient space and infrastructure to support the EGS project, and the Governor’s Office for Economic Development (GOED) also contributed $1 million toward the study. There have been a large amount of exploration wells been drilled and some 15.4 square miles will be used for instrumentation and monitoring of the project’s activities. Drilling was conducted earlier in 2018.

Initially about 10 projects applied under the FORGE program in the first round, while the list was then narrowed down to the two sites in Nevada and Utah in consecutive rounds.

Funding was awarded by DOE with the support of the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to evaluate potential EGS underground research sites in 2016.

The Fallon FORGE team includes Sandia National Laboratories as the project lead; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Navy Geothermal Program; the University of Nevada, Reno and home of the Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy, the Geothermal Academy and the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology; the U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, the Nation’s preeminent geoscience research organization; GeothermEx/Schlumberger; and Itasca Consulting Group, global consulting and software developer with expertise in geomechanics, fracture modeling and EGS simulations.

Source: Nevada Appeal