I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2304 
To direct the Secretary of Energy to conduct a program of research, develop-
ment, demonstration, and commercial application for geothermal energy, 
and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 14, 2007 
Mr. MCNERNEY (for himself, Mr. GORDON of Tennessee, and Mr. LAMPSON) 
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
Science and Technology 
A BILL 
To direct the Secretary of Energy to conduct a program 
of research, development, demonstration, and commercial 
application for geothermal energy, and for other pur-
poses. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Advanced Geothermal 
Energy Research and Development Act of 2007’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
The Congress finds the following: 
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(1) The United States has a critical national in-
terest in developing clean, domestic, renewable 
sources of energy in order to mitigate the causes of 
climate change, reduce other environmental impacts 
of energy production, increase national security, im-
prove public health, and bolster economic stability. 
(2) Geothermal energy is a renewable energy re-
source. 
(3) Geothermal energy is unusual among renew-
able energy sources because of its ability to provide 
an uninterrupted supply of baseload electricity. 
(4) Recently published assessments by rep-
utable experts, including the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, the Western Governors Association, 
and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in-
dicate that the Nation’s geothermal resources are 
widely distributed, vast in size, and barely tapped. 
(5) Sustained and expanded research, develop-
ment, demonstration, and commercial application 
programs are needed to locate and characterize geo-
thermal resources, and to develop the technologies 
that will enable their widespread commercial devel-
opment. 
(6) Federal support is critical to reduce the fi-
nancial risk associated with developing new geo-
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thermal technologies, thereby encouraging the pri-
vate sector investment necessary to make geothermal 
resources commercially viable as a source of electric 
power and for other applications. 
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS. 
For purposes of this Act: 
(1) ENHANCED GEOTHERMAL SYSTEMS.—The 
term ‘‘enhanced geothermal systems’’ means geo-
thermal reservoir systems that are engineered, as op-
posed to occurring naturally. 
(2) GEOFLUID.—The term ‘‘geofluid’’ means 
any fluid used to extract thermal energy from the 
Earth which is transported to the surface for direct 
use or electric power generation, except that such 
term shall not include oil or natural gas. 
(3) GEOTHERMAL.—The term ‘‘geothermal’’ re-
fers to heat energy stored in the Earth’s crust that 
can be accessed for direct use or electric power gen-
eration. 
(4) 
HYDROTHERMAL.—The 
term 
‘‘hydro-
thermal’’ refers to naturally occurring subsurface 
reservoirs of hot water or steam. 
(5) SECRETARY.—The term ‘‘Secretary’’ means 
the Secretary of Energy. 
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(6) SYSTEMS APPROACH.—The term ‘‘systems 
approach’’ means an approach to solving problems 
or designing systems that considers the entire sys-
tem, rather than a particular component of the sys-
tem. 
SEC. 4. HYDROTHERMAL RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall support pro-
grams of research, development, demonstration, and com-
mercial application to expand the use of geothermal en-
ergy production from hydrothermal systems, including the 
programs described in subsection (b). 
(b) PROGRAMS.— 
(1) ADVANCED
HYDROTHERMAL
RESOURCE 
TOOLS.—The Secretary, in consultation with other 
appropriate agencies, shall support a program to de-
velop advanced geophysical, geochemical, and geo-
logic tools to assist in locating hidden hydrothermal 
resources, and to increase the reliability of site char-
acterization before, during, and after initial drilling. 
The program shall develop new prospecting tech-
niques to assist in prioritization of targets for char-
acterization. The program shall include a field com-
ponent. 
(2) INDUSTRY COUPLED EXPLORATORY DRILL-
ING.—The Secretary shall support a program of 
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cost-shared field demonstration programs, to be pur-
sued, simultaneously and independently, in collabo-
ration with industry partners, for the demonstration 
of technologies and techniques of exploratory drilling 
for undiscovered resources in a variety of geologic 
settings. The program shall include incentives to en-
courage the use of advanced technologies and tech-
niques. 
SEC. 5. GENERAL GEOTHERMAL SYSTEMS RESEARCH AND 
DEVELOPMENT. 
(a) SUBSURFACE COMPONENTS AND SYSTEMS.—The 
Secretary shall support a program of research, develop-
ment, demonstration, and commercial application of com-
ponents and systems capable of withstanding extreme geo-
thermal environments and necessary to cost-effectively de-
velop, produce, and monitor geothermal reservoirs and 
produce geothermal energy. These components and sys-
tems shall include advanced casing systems (expandable 
tubular casing, low-clearance casing designs, and others), 
high-temperature cements, high-temperature submersible 
pumps, and high-temperature packers, as well as tech-
nologies for under-reaming, multilateral completions, 
high-temperature logging, and logging while drilling. 
(b) RESERVOIR
PERFORMANCE
MODELING.—The 
Secretary shall support a program of research, develop-
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