US land agency to open 220,000 acres in Nevada for geothermal exploration

The US Bureau of Land Management announced it will hold a competitive lease sale on Oct. 8 for the exploration of nearly 220,000 acres in Nevada for geothermal power production.

The agency's Aug. 9 announcement came as artificial intelligence companies like Google increasingly look to advanced geothermal technology as a round-the-clock carbon-free source of electricity to power datacenter operations.

Nevada, with more than a dozen operating geothermal plants capable of producing around 827 MW, is the nation's second-largest producer of geothermal energy after California.

The Bureau's Oct. 8 lease sale totals 66 parcels located on federal land in Churchill, Esmeralda, Elko, Eureka, Humboldt, Lander, Lyon, Mineral, Nye, Pershing and Washoe counties.

"This lease sale includes parcels that cleared environmental review and public comment," Justin Abernathy, the Bureau's deputy state director of energy and minerals for Nevada, said in a statement.

The Bureau said Aug. 9 that future exploration or development plans for lessees will be subject to additional environmental review.

In April, the Bureau adopted two existing categorical exclusions under the National Environmental Policy Act to help streamline geothermal exploration activities.

A bipartisan Senate permitting reform bill advanced out of committee in July would go further by requiring categorical exclusions for "low disturbance" renewable energy development, including geothermal resources, on federal lands. The bill would also require annual geothermal lease sales.

In November 2023, the Bureau announced the successful lease of 33 parcels covering over 96,000 acres in Nevada for about $1 million. The Bureau, an agency within the US Interior Department, is authorized to manage geothermal leasing on approximately 245 million public acres, including 104 million acres of US Forest Service lands.

A study released last year by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that total installed geothermal capacity in the US could grow from just over 3 GW today to 38 GW by 2035 and 90 GW by 2050.