News
October 25-29, 2025
HotRock team (Shuvajit Bhattacharya, David Chapman, Bissett Young, Sai Liu) is making splash at the Geothermal Rising Conference in Reno, Nevada. HotRock has a booth at GRC this year. Come visit us!
Shuvajit Bhattacharya presents two papers on deep geothermal resources in El Paso (funded by Department of Defense) and Hydrothermal and EGS play fairways in the broader Rio Grande Rift at GRC’25. Sai Liu presents on increasing efficiency of closed-loop systems granites. Ken Wisian is participating in a sedimentary basin geothermal panel with other experts. Stay tuned!
October 22, 2025
Sai Liu presents an innovative case study on “closed-loop systems-based heat production from salt domes” at SPE ATCE.
Rama Arasada presents results from geothermal play fairway mapping in the Rio Grande Rift of Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado at the GSA annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas.
September 17, 2025
Shuvajit Bhattacharya recently served as one of the panelists at the Houston Energy & Climate Week (https://climateweekhouston.com/), discussing the geothermal resource potential in Texas. He showed updated geothermal resource maps from the ongoing Texas Imperative study.
August 25 - 29, 2025
Shuvajit Bhattacharya organized a post-convention workshop on the Leading-edge Geothermal at IMAGE annual conference in Houston. The esteemed panelists included Philip Ball (Geothermal Energy Advisors), Malcolm Ross (Eavor), Parker Anderson (Sage Geosystems), and Ghazal Izadi (XGS Energy).
Ken Wisian taught a short course “Exploration and development aspects of geothermal energy” at IMAGE’25 in Houston.
August 14 - 15, 2025
HotRock hosted its annual sponsors’ meeting in Austin. They co-organized an afternoon event with Exceed Geo Energy and Geothermal Rising TXLAOK RIG, featuring HotRock’s ongoing research, a DOD presentation, and an industry panel on challenges and opportunities in geothermal. The gathering drew nearly 50 participants, including representatives from more than 10 energy companies and state regulators.
June 16-19, 2025
Shuvajit Bhattacharya was one of the organization committee members for the AGU-SEG Geothermal Workshop in Salt Lake City. HotRock team presented four papers at the workshop and attended Utah FORGE site and nearby geothermal power plants.
May 6, 2025
Geothermal Expansion in Texas is a game changer
April 23, 2025
UT Austin and NTOU have signed an MOU to boost geothermal development in Northern Taiwan
May 23, 2024
Project Innerspace released GeoMap™ Beta, a pivotal tool for geothermal prospecting released, in collaboration with HotRock
Spatial Distribution of U.S. Geothermal Data Points - This comprehensive map depicts the geographic locations of data entries from the AASG, Cornell, SMU BHT, and SMU HF databases. Each symbol represents the database's contributions to the national compilation and is aligned with IHFC standards.
As global momentum builds toward achieving carbon neutrality, geothermal energy remains a critical and sustainable resource. As a result, industry stakeholders and decision-makers benefit from better information to help identify viable geothermal resources more than ever.
To that end, the Bureau of Economic Geology’s HotRock Geothermal Research Consortium, supported by Project InnerSpace, directly contributes to develop GeoMap™ Beta, a pivotal tool for geothermal prospecting.
HotRock’s recent work integrates 66,000 data points from three subsets of the SMU heat flow database (shown on map below) with the Association of American State Geologists database, and aligns it to International Heat Flow Commission (IHFC) standards.
This enhances the reliability and usability of the U.S. subsurface resources database, providing high-quality, standardized data, and enables professionals and policymakers in the geothermal industry to make informed decisions.
Recognized for its importance, the work was published in the IHFC's 2024 release of the significantly expanded Global Heat Flow Database (GHFDB). Inclusion in such a crucial global initiative marks a huge milestone for both the consortium and researchers Dr. Mohamed Shafik Khaled, Bissett Young, and Dr. Ken Wisian.
April 4, 2024
HotRock Geothermal Research Consortium Launches Kickoff Meeting
The Bureau of Economic Geology’s newest major research initiative, the HotRock Geothermal Research Consortium, held its member kickoff meeting at the Bureau’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. HotRock is an industry-funded research consortium that works to find and fill science and technology gaps to further develop the geothermal-anywhere ecosystem.
The meeting was held over two half-day sessions, and attendees included representatives from founding member companies of the consortium, Shell USA, SLB, and Chesapeake Energy, as well as representatives from additional interested organizations.
A host of HotRock researchers reported results from their recent state-of-the-art studies. They also discussed their ongoing work across a wide range of geothermal energy topics and recent additions to the consortium’s research capabilities.
Representatives from member companies were particularly enthusiastic about HotRock’s potential, and shared their priority research topics for the near future.
“Through a multidisciplinary approach,” observed Ryan Sonntag, Senior Staff Geologist and Geothermal Lead at Chesapeake Energy, “the HotRock consortium is prioritizing research on the critical economic drivers to improve commercial competitiveness of next-gen geothermal, while providing companies with valuable data and insights to make informed business decisions.”
For more information about the innovative research of the HotRock Geothermal Research Consortium, or to join, please contact Principal Investigator Dr. Ken Wisian.
January 24, 2023
After a year-long multi-disciplinary, cross-collaborative effort, researchers at five Texas universities, the University Lands Office, and the International Energy Agency published “The Future of Geothermal in Texas: The Coming Century of Growth & Prosperity in the Lone Star State.” Participating authors include researchers from The University of Texas at Austin, Southern Methodist University, Rice University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Houston. The landmark study evaluates the size and potential scale of geothermal – the naturally occurring heat energy in the Earth’s subsurface – as an abundant clean energy resource in the State of Texas, as well as its potential to scale globally over the coming decades. Most importantly, the Report provides a scientific basis for informed decision making as entities begin to consider increased development of geothermal in Texas, and provides a compelling roadmap to global decarbonization by 2050.
More at: https://energy.utexas.edu/research/geothermal-texas
