In the United States, geothermal project development may be subject to numerous permits, authorizations, and other regulatory requirements at the federal, state, and local (e.g., county/municipal) level (Levine and Young 2018). In addition, different permits and regulatory processes are required at different phases of geothermal development (e.g., leasing, exploration, well drilling, and utilization) (Levine and Young 2018;Young et al. 2014). These permitting and regulatory requirements are necessary to address potential impacts to land use, water quality and usage, biological species, cultural resource, recreation, and other natural resources at geothermal project sites. However, these regulatory requirements may act as non-technical barriers to geothermal project development, which may negatively impact development timelines and potentially raise the costs and risks associated with geothermal development (DOE 2019).Previous studies such as the 2019 GeoVision analysis have focused on non-technical barriers to geothermal development mostly at a national level with a heavy focus on federal regulatory requirements (DOE 2019). This report presents the results of our study of non-technical barriers that may influence geothermal project development in California and Nevada, including an analysis of federal, state, and local geothermal regulatory and permitting processes and considerations, case studies analyzing attributes at specific project locations, an analysis of cost and timeline implications for geothermal project development, and a qualitative analysis conducted through a series of semi-structured interviews with regulatory agencies and geothermal project developers in California and Nevada.
Regulatory and Permitting ConsiderationsThrough our analysis, we found that in California, project development timelines may be impacted by federal, state, and local regulatory permitting and environmental review requirements as well as coordination efforts between federal, state, and local agencies. For example, geothermal projects in California are potentially subject to environmental review processes at the federal (i.e., National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)) and state level (i.e., California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)). In particular, the state CEQA process is inconsistent (e.g., each state agency has its own separate, compartmentalized CEQA process) and time consuming, which may lead to geothermal permitting and project development delays. However, use of the California Energy Commission's Application for Certification process provides an option for projects 50 megawatts (MW) or greater to use a single process that can cover permitting requirements from multiple agencies and includes statutorily mandated processing timelines. The opportunity for developing a streamlined, integrated, and holistic environmental review process for projects less than 50 MW may exist for other agencies, which could potentially decrease permitting timelines.Geothermal projects in California may also be subject to federal (e.g., En...
