The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is working toward a June decision to award either Fallon or Milford, Utah, an underground laboratory to conduct research on enhanced geothermal systems, business leaders learned Wednesday at this month's Churchill Economic Development Authority's breakfast meeting.
Josh Nordquist (GRC Member), Ormat's manager for U.S. Resource Operations, updated the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy or FORGE project and how he's hopeful the DOE will award the lab to Churchill County.
DOE will be selecting a location later this spring for a National Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) field laboratory. Nordquist explained an EGS field lab "produces energy by injecting and circulating water through fractured rock, then withdrawing the hot water and using it to supply a geothermal power plant." Once the site is selected, the DOE-funded field laboratory will begin a five-year research project to study EGS.