A New Idea Put Before the Massachusetts Legislature

While many bills related to thermal transition, geothermal energy, workforce, and more, were filed earlier this year here in Massachusetts and across the country, we want to lift up a bill filed by Representative Steven Owens that you may not have heard as much about. This legislation, H.3543 An Act relative to the protection and development of the thermal commons of the Commonwealth, has been introduced for the first time and represents a policy innovation proposed by HEET. Read more…

This Thermal Commons Act recognizes the thermal energy all around us as a “thermal commons” held in the public trust. What thermal energy? The temperature of the air, water, soil, and bedrock in the world around us — that we can feel but not see — is thermal energy. Different materials can hold different amounts, with water holding more than rock, and air able to hold the least.This temperature or thermal energy can move or dissipate and change over time and much of it in the ground beneath our feet has been accumulated over millennia of the sun warming the earth. 

The Thermal Commons Act categorizes this ambient geothermal energy as the temperature of the soil, bedrock and water at and near the surface of the earth. It also adds the new category of anthropogenic geothermal energy (anthrothermal!) as the excess temperature accumulated over time as a result of human activities. Anthrothermal energy is accumulating annually at a pace that exceeds our global energy use. Tapping and drawing down this excess heat could multisolve - both providing heating where needed and moving towards restoration of our natural world. 

Imagine for a moment that we have just installed a string of large seawater titanium heat pumps under docks circling the Boston Harbor. They are connected to a growing thermal energy network that has geothermal boreholes in available spaces and also intersects with the sewer system and other thermal energy resources. People wonder - is this good for the bay or not? If those heat pumps draw down the excess thermal energy that has warmed the harbor in the past fifty years then it is not only a good thing for the bay but the lobsters, who have packed their bags for Maine as the waters warmed, might even return. But what if too many heat pumps are installed and the bay gets too cold? And who owns that heat and gets to use it?

By recognizing this thermal energy all around us as a "thermal commons" held in public trust we set a basis for fair regulation, ensuring that we incentivize the drawdown of anthrothermal and that we ensure the balanced maintenance of the natural ambient geothermal energy. The bill mandates the creation of a dedicated commission to develop a comprehensive and equitable framework for managing this valuable resource as we turn to it for a local, safe, secure and affordable future energy system. You can read the full details of the legislation here.