Los Cerrillos
February 21, 2025
09:09:33pm

1/30/25

New Mexico, Colorado exploring additional geothermal potential, whither South Dakota?

At least as early as 2011 the Four Corners region was seen as a geothermal powerhouse where Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories assembled plans for energy development. 

In 2021 the Bureau of Land Management sold a geothermal lease in Hidalgo County, New Mexico despite a 2016 blowout near a $43 million geothermal electricity plant erected by Cyrq Energy in 2013 when Republican Susana Martinez was governor. Cyrq Energy has four working geothermal projects including Lightning Dock Geothermal Power Plant near Animas. It's a 15.3 MW binary geothermal plant with two production wells and 7 injection wells that sells power to Public Service of New Mexico (PNM) with firm baseload power. In December, 2024 the BLM sold geothermal leases on seven parcels totaling 4,468 acres in Doña Ana County.

Using an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) at its Project Red site in northern Nevada Google-financed Fervo Energy completed a full-scale, 30-day well test able to generate 3.5 megawatts or enough electricity to power over 2,600 homes full time. Fervo employs a hydro-shearing process and believes it can deliver about 400 megawatts by 2028 or enough electricity to power 300,000 homes at once from half a dozen other sites across the western US. In 2024 the BLM approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah which has the potential to generate up to 2 gigawatts (GW) or enough energy to supply over 2 million homes.

Colorado could tap orphaned oil and gas wells to supply hot water for electricity generation especially now that the state is falling behind on its own self-imposed emissions-reducing mandates.
Colorado is interested in geothermal as a way to supplement other renewable energy resources, as the state looks to end coal production by 2030 and reach 100% net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. [What is geothermal energy, and how are states in the Mountain West promoting and regulating it?]
In South Dakota’s Black Hills the US Department of Energy, New Mexico's Sandia Labs, Los Alamos National Laboratory, South Dakota School of Mines and others are collaborating on the potential for generating electricity using EGS but Hot Springs, Belle Fourche, Philip and Midland also enjoy untapped geothermal resources.

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