Geothermal Power Plants May See Some Relief From Legislation

Good news for the geothermal industry in two bills that may ease regulations.  Currently the amount of projects started in the USA has stagnated.  This is due to two main reasons; the long permitting process and the cost of test drilling.  Slowly these two items might be alleviated for the industry as legislation seems to be moving forward.  A lot of geothermal projects take 4-8 years to come on line between permitting, test drills and other factors.  Limiting any of these delays could spur more development as companies stand to lose less time and money on a given project.  Currently the permitting process for each test well may be 15 months, if it takes multiple tests to get a well up and running the time between conception and production can be too long to bear for most companies.