Geothermal in the United States: Commercial Considerations and Growth Opportunities

Lauren Boyd leads the efforts of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Geothermal to improve performance, reduce costs, and accelerate deployment of geothermal technologies. In this role, Lauren is responsible for geothermal research, development, and demonstration and champions Office of Geothermal’s partnerships with industry, academia, the DOE national laboratories, and others to increase geothermal deployment and advance geothermal as an economically competitive and widely available part of the U.S. energy supply.  Prior to becoming director, Lauren served as Office of Geothermal senior advisor, providing technical expertise and input on matters across the Office’s portfolio. She also spent more than a decade leading the Office of Geothermal’s enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) program, where she was instrumental in spearheading and launching DOE’s flagship EGS research site, the Frontier Observatory for Research in Geothermal Energy (FORGE).

Gino joined SLB in 1996 as a project engineer in the Integrated Project Management business and progressed to project manager and program manager roles in large scale projects. Initially in well construction and later in multi-year field rejuvenation and production optimization. He then moved to the position of Asia VP New Ventures and Business Development for SLB Production Management, working with partners to define long-term collaboration agreements for field redevelopment. Subsequently he became global VP Engineering and Marketing for Integrated Production Services. In 2022, Gino took the role of Director Carbon Storage, in which he collaborates with partners on CCS project development, guiding the technology and competency development for carbon storage. In January 2026, Gino assumed the position of VP Geothermal. With his team, Gino now leverages over 20 years of corporate experience working with industry partners to accelerate hydrothermal and next generation geothermal projects. Gino holds an Msc in both Physics and Petroleum Engineering.

Shangyou Nie, PhD, is AAPG’s Commercial Director and editor of Well Read, AAPG’s upstream energy business newsletter. Nie is a former strategy advisor at Shell.