science
Oklahoma House Passes Bill Allowing Conversion of Orphan Oil Wells to Geothermal or Energy Storage
The legislation would allow companies to buy abandoned wells for geothermal energy or underground storage as states seek alternatives to plugging more than 20,000 orphan sites that could take 235 years to address. Similar measures have passed recently in New Mexico, Alabama, North Dakota and Colorado.
May 16, 7:00 AM·3m read1 source
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Oklahoma’s House passed the Well Repurposing Act in March, creating a process for companies to buy abandoned oil and gas wells and repurpose them for geothermal energy or underground energy storage. The state has identified over 20,000 orphan wells.
Fixing a single old well can cost anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 or more depending on location and complexity. The Well Repurposing Act is modeled after a similar law that New Mexico adopted last year to address its 2,000-plus orphan wells. In Alabama, legislators passed a law last month that allows the state to approve and regulate the conversion of oil and gas wells to tap alternative energy resources like geothermal.
North Dakota adopted a bill last year requiring a legislative council to study the feasibility of using nonproductive wells to generate geothermal power. Colorado state agencies launched a technical study to evaluate the potential of repurposing old wells for geothermal development and carbon capture and sequestration.
Millions of inactive wells are located across the United States, the relics of earlier eras of fossil fuel production.
Many of the sites have no official owner and continue to pollute groundwater and leak methane. At the University of Oklahoma, researchers have been evaluating how to turn four old oil and gas wells into sources of geothermal heat for public schools and homes in Tuttle. 7 million grant from the US Department of Energy’s Wells of Opportunity program in 2022.
It was paused last year during the Trump administration’s sweeping freeze on federal funding and is still waiting to start its next phase. Saeed Salehi was the Oklahoma project’s director before joining Southern Methodist University as an engineering professor in 2024. It took nearly nine months to get the Tuttle project’s permits.
