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Environmental reviews required under NEPA are essential to ensure protections for federally managed lands and overall environmental quality. However, as noted, those reviews can contribute to development delays, including for geothermal projects. The GeoVision analysis explored pathways to complete environmental reviews for geothermal projects under reduced timelines. Depending on the nature and complexity of the activity under consideration, there are several levels of NEPA review that may be used, including a categorical exclusion,59 an Environmental Assessment, or an Environmental Impact Statement.60 Each of these pathways to NEPA compliance has different requirements. Existing BLM regulations61 include one categorical exclusion specific to geothermal exploration, stipulating that exploration activities may not cause any new surface disturbance (e.g., access road, drill pad) or touch the geothermal resource (BLM 2016, Department of Interior 516 DM 11.9(B)(6)). Although the review period for the existing BLM geothermal categorical exclusion only takes a couple of months, the scope of drilling permitted under the categorical exclusion does not provide the data required to confirm the geothermal resource. Because additional steps and NEPA analyses are required, confirming the resource is more costly and risky. The delay and need for additional steps can result in a 5–7-year period (rather than a 1–3- year period) for a permit applicant to demonstrate a bankable geothermal development (Beckers et al. 2018, Young et al. 2019).62 2.4.3.2 Non-Technical Barriers: Non-Electric Sector Non-technical barriers to deployment of geothermal resources for the non-electric sector relate primarily to soft costs such as market barriers and consumer adoption. Barriers include a lack of awareness and understanding by the public, utilities, regulators, and policymakers, and a shortage of professionals skilled in the geothermal non-electric technologies. Development in the non-electric sector can also be hindered by market mechanisms that do not adequately value the benefits offered by GHP systems. Geothermal District Heating The GeoVision analysis of simulation outputs and geothermal district-heating case studies (Fleischmann 2007, Thorsteinsson and Tester 2010, Snyder et al. 2017) identified several key barriers to widespread district- heating deployment in the United States. Policy and market barriers to geothermal district heating include competition from alternative heating sources, especially natural gas; a lack of federal or state incentives such as subsidies or tax credits used in other countries or for other renewable energy technologies; and a shortage of geothermal professionals, consultants, and businesses along with a general aging of the existing geothermal workforce. Geothermal Heat Pumps Major barriers to rapid consumer adoption of GHP technologies include high initial upfront costs, poor public awareness and confidence, historically lukewarm government support, lack of appropriate market resale valuation, and slow development of new technologies to improve GHP system cost and performance (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority 2017). Although low fossil fuel prices have reduced the effect of energy savings, barriers to GHP deployment are exacerbated because the market has few mechanisms to assign value to other environmental and social benefits of GHP systems. 59 As discussed in Section 3.2.1.2, the GeoVision analysis included an expansion of categorically excluded activities as one of many pathways for an Improved Regulatory Timeline scenario. A categorical exclusion can be applied when a project’s activities fit within a list of actions that an agency has determined do not significantly affect the quality of the human environment. A categorical exclusion is one option that complies with the National Environmental Policy Act, which is required for projects that are on federal lands, supported with federal funds, or otherwise include a major federal action. Categorical exclusions exist for some oil and gas and geothermal development categories, covering geophysical and exploration activities, including the drilling of temperature gradient holes with no new surface disturbance. 60 Categorical exclusion: 40 CFR §1508.4; Environmental Assessment: 40 CFR §1508.9; Environmental Impact Statement: NEPA Sec. 102 [42 USC § 4332] and 40 CFR §1508.11. 61 Categorical exclusions can be created either via legislation or through agency regulations within exiting statutory authority (e.g., within BLM’s authority). 62 Bankable describes a bank’s willingness to finance a geothermal project, based on demonstrable and sufficient collateral, future cashflow, and probability of success to be acceptable to institutional lenders for financing. Sufficient data—often as many as three wells drilled into the reservoir capable of producing at least 50% of the expected enthalpy—must be provided to allow for financing (Beckers et al. 2018). 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