Geothermal data grant awarded today

The geothermal data grant from the U.S. Dept of Energy Geothermal Technologies Program was officially awarded today to the Arizona Geological Survey, which is acting on behalf of the Association of American State Geologists.

Over the next 3 years, data relevant to geothermal exploration and development will be digitized and published online from 46 states in a web-based, distributed, interoperable National Geothermal Data System (NGDS).

The $18 million grant is the second largest one awarded by DOE for geothermal energy out of federal stimulus funds.

AZGS is already a partner in the Geothermal Data Coalition effort based at Boise State University to design and build the NGDS.

The new effort will deploy the network nationwide with a node in each state, and populate the NGDS with terabytes of state-specific data. The AZGS has been developing a collaborative data effort between AASG and the USGS for the past 3 years under the Geoscience Information Network (GIN). The data integration mechanisms in GIN will power the NGDS data discovery, access, and interoperability components.

Other partners on the new grant are the USGS, Microsoft External Research, and the petroleum industry consortium, Energistics, Inc.