Assessment of Needs for Further Research to Understand the Role of Governments in Supporting Geothermal Exploration

This paper looks at financing barriers to geothermal resource exploration in the United States (U.S.) for electricity generation projects and analyzes why the market is not developing as quickly as foreign geothermal markets or as quickly as other renewable energy technologies in the U.S. Research opportunities and approaches to understanding these discrepancies are discussed, particularly whether government policies and programs are spurring development activities. Further analysis to understand policies, programmatic cost efficiencies, potential project revenues, and other economic impacts are recommended together with the preliminary conclusions.