DOE launches Geothermal Center of Excellence to push U.S. geothermal toward gigawatt scale The U.S. Department of Energy has launched a new Geothermal Center of Excellence in Golden, Colorado, with a clear mandate: connect industry with the national labs, accelerate geothermal innovation, and help move the technology toward gigawatt-scale deployment. The center is part of DOE’s effort to position geothermal as a more competitive source of reliable baseload electricity in the United States. The announcement matters because it comes at a time when geothermal is gaining fresh attention from policymakers, developers, and power buyers, especially as data centers and industrial users look for firm clean electricity. DOE says the U.S. already leads the world in geothermal electricity capacity at just over 4 GW, but that current output represents only a fraction of the country’s technical potential. [1] Why DOE created it DOE says the new center is designed to become industry’s main entry...
Templin Lies on a Hot River: How Geothermal Energy Could Secure Affordable District Heating By: Robert Buluma A Hidden Treasure Beneath the Uckermark For more than 25 years, the NaturTherme Templin has been pumping thermal brine from a depth of 1,650 meters, using it as a healing remedy. The water that rises from this depth has a temperature of 57.7 degrees Celsius—impressive by any measure, but only a fraction of what lies beneath. During a routine annual check-up of the production well, geothermal specialists from Neubrandenburg posed a question that would set in motion one of the most ambitious energy projects in the region: Did the city even know what treasure it was sitting on? The answer, it turned out, was no. And that realization has since transformed Templin into a pioneer in Germany's heating transition. The Assessment That Changed Everything The city was already working on a heating concept aimed at achieving a sustainable, fossil-fuel-independent supply. The Natu...