USA: $1,400,000 in Small Business Innovation Research Grants Involving Geothermal Energy

EERE Helps American Small Businesses with $21.6 Million for Phase I Innovation Projects (News Release)

American small businesses got nearly a $22 million boost from the Energy Department's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. As part of today’s announcement, small businesses are receiving Phase 1 Release II grants that demonstrate technical feasibility for innovations during the first phase of their research. Most Phase 1 awards are for $200,000 for less than one year.

Nine EERE technology offices will fund 109 awards under 12 topics including two for the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) alone and another five under the joint topic of Advanced Manufacturing and Geothermal Technologies Offices:

E-Spectrum Technologies Inc., San Antonio, Texas. 
$194,694 - A Machine Learning Based Geothermal Drilling Optimization System Using EM Short-Hop Telemetry of Bit Dynamics Measurements

Improvements in the telemetry of downhole drilling data are needed to optimize drilling performance and reduce geothermal well costs. This project uses short- hop downhole communications, downhole processing, pattern recognition, machine-learning algorithms, and long-range EM technology to create a Geothermal Drilling Optimization System to maximize penetration rates and drill bit life.

Ozark Integrated Circuits Inc., Fayetteville, Arkansas. 
$204,902 - Ruggedized Communication Technology for Enabling High-Temperature Directional Drilling

A novel power and data backbone for subterranean drill-strings is proposed that will increase operating temperatures, increase exploration depths, increase drilling duration, and reduce operational costs for geothermal, oil and gas exploration. This technology borrows from, and infuses into, other high-temperature applications including aerospace and industrial controls.

GreenBlu Inc., Hamilton, New Jersey.
$200,000.00 - Zero discharge desalination with mineral recovery using multiple-effect vapor adsorption
     

Because of cost, electricity demand, and production of toxic brine, current desalination technology is severely limited in contributing to solutions to the global water scarcity crisis. With this SBIR award, GreenBlu is developing innovative technologies to meet global need for desalinated water using low cost thermal energies, eliminating toxic brine discharge, while also recovering valuable minerals.

Savengy Technologies. LLC. Orlando. Florida.
 $200,000.00 - Novel Treatment of Produced Waters from Shale Gas with Zero Liquid Discharge by Geothermal Heat
     

Large quantities of impaired water are produced in gas and oil wells and they pose serious threats to the environment. This project will develop an energy-efficient desalination system to produce fresh water

Stratofire LC. Tulsa, Oklahoma.
 $199,580.00 - Integrated Sorbent-based Lithium, Power, and Water Recovery from Geothermal Brines
   

Geothermal brines used in power generation can be a potential source of critical elements, such as lithium. StratoFire and Southern Research propose to develop and optimize a novel process to economically produce high-value critical minerals (lithium) from geothermal brines while producing clean water.

Bettergy Corp. Peekskill, New York
 $199,982 - Novel Membrane System for Lithium Recovery from Oilfield Brines

Successful completion of the current program will make a significant contribution toward development of the practical and cost-effective technology for lithium production and brine water treatment, and bring significant economic and environmental benefits.

Technology Holding LLC. Salt Lake City, Utah
 $200,000 - Nanoporous Atomically Thin Membranes for Desalination and Rare Earth Materials Recovery

The proposed innovation, upon commercialization will enable recovery of critical materials important for many new industries. New domestic jobs will be created while reducing dependence on China.

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