PITTSBURGH (TNS) — In 2017, Cecil-based CNX Resources Corp. plunged a drill bit two and a half miles into the earth under the small town of Marchard, Indiana County. From there, it extended a horizontal well bore along the Point Pleasant Formation and fracked it 34 times along the lateral.

The results were lackluster.

“Gas production did not meet expectations,” the company said.

But the test well yielded a lot of data, including that the temperature of the rock at the bottom of the well was 231 degrees Fahrenheit.

Technically, that’s enough to boil water, which produces steam, which spins a turbine, which makes electricity. It could be enough to repurpose this gas well and potentially many others in the state to extract geothermal energy from the ground.

Marchand well pad in Indiana County

CNX Resources is seeking to turn one of the deep shale wells at its Marchand well pad into a geothermal pilot project.

In the fall, CNX partnered with the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Pennsylvania Geological Survey, several other companies, Lehigh University and Idaho National Laboratory to pitch a geothermal pilot project in Marchand, an unincorporated community in Indiana County.

At a proposed budget of $37.6 million, the team would either repurpose an existing well on the Marchand well pad or drill a new one there. It would then circulate a liquid inside the well to pick up the heat — maybe water, or maybe carbon dioxide or some liquid hydrocarbon — then transfer the heat of the geothermal liquid to another fluid, heating it up until it gasifies and expands. The gas would spin a turbine and produce electricity — about 1 megawatt, according to the application submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy.

That electricity could be sold to nearby farms or even put on the regional electric grid, the application proposes.

“The successful implementation of this project is expected to encourage the wider oil and gas industry to integrate geothermal operations into their development strategies, utilizing the technical and economic insights gained from our work,” the application states. “The benefits extend beyond energy production, promising economic revitalization in a region historically dependent on coal and natural gas, contributing to cleaner energy generation, and supporting the transition to a more sustainable energy mix while decarbonizing electricity generation.”

The funding that the group is vying for is part of the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act of 2021, which President Donald Trump ordered frozen during his first day on the job. But some of those funds have recently begun to flow again and geothermal energy is specifically listed as an energy resource to be “unleashed” in Trump’s energy emergency executive order.

His energy secretary, Chris Wright, who most recently ran Colorado-based fracking firm Liberty Energy, this month included geothermal energy as one of the priorities for the Department of Energy’s research and development efforts, alongside fossil fuels, nuclear energy and hydropower.

“Without the DOE funding, it is unlikely any one company will emerge as the first mover in the near term and, if they do emerge, the information regarding the technical components and pathways to success will remain proprietary and limit the breadth and depth of potential adoption,” the Pennsylvania team’s application cautioned.

Funding awards were scheduled to be announced sometime early this year.

Heat beneath our feet

“It’s hot everywhere underground,” says a new report, The Future of Geothermal in Pennsylvania, released by Penn State University and Project InnerSpace, an organization working to mainstream geothermal energy.

It depends how far underground you go, but the heat it there. The report argues that with modern drilling techniques and even with the wells that the shale industry has already drilled, Pennsylvania can tap a reservoir of energy “1000-fold (or more) … than Pennsylvanians consume each year.”

Plenty of the state has rock shallow enough and hot enough to produce heat that can dry concrete blocks, or pasteurize milk, dye fabric and power smaller electricity generators like the one envisioned for CNX’s Marchand well pad. That kind of heat — up to about 212 degrees Fahrenheit — lies less than 8,000 feet deep in nearly all parts of the state.

Even less heat is needed to heat and cool buildings.

The Iron Mountain facility in Butler County — the one recently thrust into the headlines by Elon Musk’s discovery that federal documents are stored there — uses a 35-acre water reservoir inside the limestone mine to cool the data center that operates there.

This is possible many times over, the report said. “Pennsylvania has the technical potential to cool hundreds or thousands of data centers,” it said.

The analysis owes its insights to the past 15 years of the shale boom, as thousands of holes have been drilled, logged and used to characterize conditions underground.

It also argues that shale has paved the way for enhanced geothermal development to take off in the commonwealth, given that the landmen, geologists, drillers and engineers that know the conditions underground and on the surface are already here.

The report makes recommendations for bringing this vision to life, like streamlining permitting, increasing clean electricity mandates, allowing utilities to own district heating and cooling systems, funding projects, and developing a geothermal plan for the state.

Already, some of the bigger players in the oil and gas industry are interested and investing in geothermal, said Mike Sommers, CEO of the Washington-based trade group American Petroleum Institute.

“It makes a lot of sense for an oil and gas company to invest in that,” he said. “It’s about the subsurface — and who better than the oil and gas industry” to tackle that challenge.

He said the interest isn’t necessarily driven by the so-called energy transition, which Sommers said is more a transition of language — “we’re transitioning from the concept of an energy transition to the energy reality,” he said.

Rather, it’s about adding to the arsenal. Oil and gas will be around and dominant for a long time, Sommers said. But the more energy that can be produced with the same expertise and equipment, the better.