The Future of Geothermal in Pennsylvania: Rapid Scale of Geothermal Energy Could Propel Commonwealth's Energy Industry to New Heights
HARRISBURG, Penn., Feb. 26, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A report published today concludes that if Pennsylvania takes steps now to fully access the geothermal heat that exists underground, the Commonwealth could leverage the know-how of its oil and gas workers to generate enough energy to meet 100% of its electricity, heating and low- to medium-temperature industrial process needs in as few as 10 years.
' The Future of Geothermal in Pennsylvania ' r eport, backed by Project InnerSpace in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University and working with 10 contributors from four Pennsylvania institutions, evaluated the potential scale of geothermal energy in the Commonwealth, and found widespread opportunities to use the Earth's natural and abundant subsurface heat for Pennsylvania's residential, commercial, agricultural, manufacturing, and pharmaceutical sectors. The report also identified hotspots across the Commonwealth that can generate secure and always-on geothermal power.
'Pennsylvania has a long and proud history of energy innovation, and my administration is working to cement the Commonwealth's place as a national energy leader – working with the energy industry, including organizations like Project Innerspace, to build exciting new technology in Pennsylvania like geothermal, hydrogen, and more,' said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. 'My ' Lightning Plan ' will spark new innovation and build a more reliable, affordable energy grid by incentivizing new projects, streamlining permitting approvals, and encouraging communities to lower utility bills and improve reliability through shared energy resources. By coming together around commonsense technologies like geothermal, we can support groundbreaking projects, lower costs for consumers, create more jobs, and position the Commonwealth to continue to be a national energy leader for decades to come.'
For more than a century, geothermal energy has proven to be a safe and sustainable source of energy, but it was limited to only a few places on earth. Recent technological developments by the oil and gas industry now allow us to efficiently and cost-effectively tap into the Earth's heat, making geothermal energy available almost anywhere, including Pennsylvania.
These advances are allowing oil and gas workers to produce geothermal energy, driving significant interest in this home-grown and abundant energy source from the Trump administration, as well as from leading Democrats. Pennsylvania is well positioned to take advantage of that potential given its large oil and gas workforce and its status as the nation's second-largest energy-producing state.
'Pennsylvania is an energy leader and an epicenter of oil and gas industry workforce, talent and know-how,' said Jamie Beard, Executive Director of Project InnerSpace, a non-profit organization dedicated to expanding the use of geothermal energy. 'Pennsylvania led the charge historically with the first oil well and in the shale revolution, now it can be at the forefront of the next drilling revolution, but this time around for heat.'
The Report offers 23 targeted policy recommendations to accelerate the adoption of geothermal energy across Pennsylvania, which could create economic savings for residents, generate long-term job opportunities, reduce emissions, and bolster energy security in the commonwealth.
'Geothermal energy is a potentially limitless, always-on power source that could provide clean, locally-sourced electricity to millions of Pennsylvania residents and businesses,' said Rep. Elizabeth Fiedler, a Democrat and chair of the House Energy Committee. 'A thriving, growing, job-creating economy isn't built on yesterday's technologies. It's built on innovation – on bold investments. Project InnerSpace's report shows that Pennsylvania can lead the way in this next energy revolution.'
'Pennsylvania can help the United States dominate on energy by ensuring we have a reliable, secure and diverse supply of energy,' said U.S. Rep. Kristin Marcell, a Republican representing the 178th district in Bucks County. 'Given geothermal's potential to help advance key industries in Pennsylvania like advanced manufacturing and agriculture, I am excited to see this resource be added to Pennsylvania's prolific energy portfolio.'
'Pennsylvania is a national leader in energy production, and geothermal systems can be the next step in the Commonwealth's transition to a cleaner, more resilient grid,' said Acting Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Jessica Shirley. 'As electricity demands continue to grow, geothermal can play a crucial role in creating clean energy jobs and lowering utility bills.'
About Project InnerSpace:
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
19 minutes ago
- Business Insider
'Economic heart attack': 3 top experts detail how they see a possible US debt crisis unfolding
Investor concerns over a swelling government debt load were soothed last week. But some experts say the US isn't out of the woods yet. Goldman Sachs spoke to three top economic experts — Ray Dalio, Ken Rogoff, and Niall Ferguson — about rising debt levels in the US. All three said they were worried about an impending debt crisis, particularly when considering the effects of President Donald Trump's GOP tax and spending bill, which has been estimated to add trillions to the budget deficit over the next decade. That reflects a slightly more pessimistic view than the market. After a scare last month, demand for long-dated government bonds was strong this week. It was a sign that investors are feeling more comfortable about the fiscal situation in the US, after showing nerves last month after Moody's downgraded US debt and Trump's tax bill began making its way through Congress. Here are the top points each of the experts had to make: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates founder The billionaire hedge fund manager said he sees three factors determining the outlook for the US debt. How much the government pays on debt interest relative to its revenue. If interest payments keep rising, it can "unacceptably" prevent the government from spending money on other things. How much debt the government needs to sell relative to demand. If the government needs to sell more Treasurys than people are willing to buy, interest rates will have to rise. That provides a more attractive yield to investors to hold onto the US debt, but high rates also hurt markets and the economy. How much money the central bank needs to print in other to purchase the remaining debt. If demand for US Treasurys is especially weak, the Fed can step in to purchase bonds to keep the government funded. If it has to print more money to do so, that can raise inflation and ding the value of the US dollar. "One can easily measure these signs of deterioration and see movement toward an impending debt crisis," Dalio, who has long warned of troubling debt dynamics in the US, said. "Such a crisis occurs when the constriction of debt-financed spending happens, like a debt-induced economic heart attack." To prevent a crisis, Dalio said he believed the government should reduce the budget deficit to 3% of GDP. Reducing the debt could cause interest rates to decline around 150 basis points, he estimated, reducing interest payments on the national debt and stimulating the economy. Ken Rogoff, Harvard professor and former IMF chief economist Given Trump's current agenda, Rogoff thinks the US will likely enter a debt crisis within the next four to five years. That's faster than the five- to seven-year timeline he predicted prior to Trump's reelection. "The notion that debt is a free lunch that had been pushed by many economy-watchers is absurd," Rogoff said. "Today's larger deficit on top of already-high debt levels is setting up for a crisis that will necessitate a significant adjustment." Rogoff thinks a debt crisis could play out in two ways: Inflation spikes and results in an economic shock. "Exactly what that shock will look like is difficult to say, but it will likely be more painful than the Covid inflation shock that precipitated only relatively minor adjustments in bond markets," Rogoff said. The government could manage the debt by keeping interest rates artificially low and restricting capital flows. But those measures will hurt economic growth and essentially serve as a tax on savers in the economy, he said. Investors have long been concerned about the US debt, but the outlook is especially worrying now because long-term interest rates are going through a "normalization" from low levels that stretched over the past decade, Rogoff said. "People need to recognize that higher interest rates are here to stay and that a return to the low-rate era of the past might well prove wishful thinking," he added. Niall Ferguson, historian and Harvard researcher Ferguson thinks a crisis could be triggered by a military challenge that results in the US losing its position as a global power, as it goes deeper into debt. The British-American financial historian said his favorite gauge to determine how unsustainable national debt was is when a country spends more on interest payments for its debt than on defense. That rule, which he calls "Ferguson's Law," now applies to the US, which spent $1.1 trillion on interest payments on the national debt over the 2024 fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department. It was more than the $883.7 billion approved that year for total defense spending. Nearly every nation that has violated Ferguson's Law has lost its status as " great power" in financial markets, he said. "Any great power that pursues a reckless fiscal policy by allowing the cost of its debt to exceed the cost of its armed services is opening itself up to challenge," Ferguson said. "The US is just the latest great power to find itself in this fiscal jam." The US has been able to borrow as much as it has through now with no issues, in part because the US dollar remains the world's reserve currency and investors still see Treasurys as " risk-free," Ferguson said, meaning they have faith in the US's ability to make good on its interest payments. But that already appears to be shifting, he said, pointing to investors around the world shedding their exposure to US Treasurys and moving away from dollar assets. "I've warned the US is on an unsustainable fiscal path for 20 years now, and so at times have felt like the boy who cried 'wolf,'" Ferguson added.
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
This Vermont Town Loves Its Canadian Neighbors. Trump Made Things Complicated.
On the front porch of her tidy yellow house on Canusa Street — so named because it runs along the border with Canada in tiny Beebe Plain, Vt. — Jan Beadle recently removed the American flag and hung a Canadian one in its place. Ms. Beadle, who has lived along the border for 71 years, hoped that the red maple leaf rippling in the breeze would send a message to her neighbors in the country across the way: I stand with you. And I'm sorry. 'I do feel like it reflects on me, somehow,' she said of President Trump's frequent jabs at Canada, including his imposition of steep new tariffs and his talk of making it the 51st state. 'As a kid, my family went to church in Canada. I went to the movie theater there, and to a youth club. We were just a group of kids together. We weren't labeled as Canadian or American.' The economic impact of Mr. Trump's trade war with Canada is already palpable on both sides of the border. Economic data shows a steep drop-off in spending by Canadians at Vermont hotels and restaurants; normally, 750,000 Canadian visitors spend $150 million in the state each year. Governors of New England states plan to meet on Monday in Boston with leaders from five Canadian provinces to strategize about the strain in their trade relations. But in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont, where many towns and villages sit close by the border, residents also fear the loss of a kinship that has run deep for as long as they can remember. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
After Decades of Atrophy, Canada Vows to Beef Up Its Military. Can It Deliver?
At the end of World War II, Canada boasted one of the world's largest navies, with 95,000 uniformed members and 434 ships. The current Royal Canadian Navy is far less impressive — about 11,500 members and 40 vessels. Only one of its four diesel submarines, which were bought secondhand from Britain in the 1990s, is operational. And Canada's armed forces as a whole are about 16,000 people short of an approved head count of 101,500, including reserves. Prime Minister Mark Carney, seeking to reverse what he characterized as the atrophying of Canada's military, is directing billions of dollars to the armed forces, with the goal of reaching a NATO spending commitment this year, seven years ahead of schedule. And while the move comes after repeated claims by President Trump that Canada was effectively sponging off the United States to ensure its defense, Mr. Carney also cast the spending as part of his effort to loosen Canada's ties with its neighbor after Mr. Trump's repeated comments about making it the 51st state. Many of Canada's allies in Europe, including Britain and Germany, are also expanding their militaries in the face of Mr. Trump's isolationism. Mr. Carney has yet to say where the 9.3 billion Canadian dollars, about $6.8 billion, he has added to the defense budget will come from. Many people also question whether the armed forces will be able to actually spend that extra money so quickly. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
