Project Overview

This data is part of a multiple case study of enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), a form of geothermal energy used for heating and power generation. Examining two EGS sites in Ithaca, NY, USA, and Redruth, UK, this project used ethnographic observation and semi-structured interviews with stakeholders involved in deep geothermal projects. Participants included geothermal experts (researchers, developers, and communication professionals) and members of the host communities. The interviews assessed participants' feelings towards deep geothermal, their visions of energy futures, and how their interpretations of geothermal energy intersected with the meanings and attachments participants held towards place. The data consists of de-identified transcripts of the stakeholder interviews and observational memos from ethnographic fieldwork.

Case Study Locations

The two sites for this case study are the Cornell Earth Source Heat (ESH) Project in Ithaca, New York and the United Downs Deep Geothermal Project (UDDGP) in Redruth, UK (labeled as “US”/”UK” in the project materials). ESH aims to provide district heating to Cornell University’s Ithaca campus and aid in making the campus carbon neutral by 2035. The project is located on campus land within the Town of Ithaca. Ithaca, NY is a college town of approximately 30,000 people located in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. UDDGP is being developed by Geothermal Engineering Limited (GEL), with the aim of providing 10MW of electricity and 55MW of local heating. The project is located in an industrial park near the town of Redruth (15,453) and the village of Carharrack (1,300) in the Duchy of Cornwall.

Data Collection

Interviews were conducted with two groups: geothermal experts and community stakeholders. The “expert” samples included researchers, geothermal professionals, university administrators, and project developers. Expert participants were recruited using personal and professional contacts and snowball sampling from an initial list of those involved with the projects. Community stakeholder interviews included interviews with students on the Cornell University campus. Students were recruited via the Sona system for participant pool management and were compensated with Sona credit. In the US case, additional community stakeholder interviews and focus groups did not include consent for data sharing; in the UK case, plans for formal interviews with community members were replaced with informal interviews during field observations, described below, due to recruitment challenges and high levels of local burnout with research projects.

Separate interview guides were developed for each group of participants, and adapted to each of the case settings. The expert interview guide asked participants to describe their involvement with UDDGP/ESH, for those who were directly involved in the projects, and their perspectives on the projects, the public responses, and their views on EGS and energy futures in general. The student interview guide followed a semi-structured format that began with a question about their feelings towards community and place before raising the topic of EGS. Participants were first asked if they were familiar with the EGS project in question, before being given a one-page handout describing EGS to read. They were then asked about their reactions and their feelings about EGS as an energy source for their community, as well as what their ideal vision of energy in their community would look like.

The US student interviews (N=19) were conducted between October and December 2021. The expert interviews were conducted between August 2021 and February 2022 (N=10, US) and February and June 2022 (N= 8, UK), for a total of 37 formal interviews. All interviews were conducted by Catherine Lambert. The student interviews took place over Zoom and lasted 15-20 minutes, while the expert interviews primarily took place over Zoom (25-30 minutes), with the exception of on-site interviews during the UDDGP site visit (UK_EXP06, 07, and 08), which lasted from 40 minutes to an hour.

Qualitative observation for the US case took place from 2018-2023. Dr. Lambert observed events in the Ithaca area including townhall meetings, public talks, and open house hours at the drill site visitors’ center. During the drilling of the exploratory CUBO well in summer 2022, Dr. Lambert attended the open house hours, documented the materials at the visitors’ center, and observed the interactions between visitors and the project team during the hour-long sessions. As part of these observations, Dr. Lambert also walked the area surrounding the drill site and recorded perceptions of the physical landscape as well as the sensory impact of the drilling activity. Observation in the UK case was conducted by Dr. Lambert in June 2022 over the course of a week and involved visits to the UDDGP site; the GEL and GeoScience offices, the communities of Redruth, Gwennap, and Carharrack; and the surrounding landscape, including local cultural centers, historical sites, and museums. These included informal conversations with local residents and geothermal developers; casual interviews included site visitors, area residents, museum volunteers, and tour guides, ranging from short chats to extended discussions while walking around various local sites. Photos from the observations are included in the memos for both cases.

Data Processing and Analysis

All formal interviews were recorded and transcribed using Otter AI, then reviewed for accuracy and clarity by Dr. Lambert. The transcripts were de-identified during the transcription review, with names and personal details removed. Square brackets are used to indicate unclear transcriptions, changes made for de-identification, and crosstalk.

The transcriptions and memos were coded using Atlas.ti. An initial round of coding identified key themes that emerged from close reading, and a round of focused coding combined and sorted categories. Dr. Lambert conducted peer debriefings discussing the data with other researchers, to provide a check on identification and interpretation of themes. A final cross-case synthesis was then used to aggregate findings across the cases.

Shared Data Organization

The shared data consist of 34 de-identified interview transcripts (from 35 individuals, with one UK transcript from a joint interview with two experts), with missing participant numbers indicating participants who opted out of data sharing, and six observational memos. The documentation files consist of three types of consent forms used (US students, US experts, and UK experts), three interview guides (for the same groups), the EGS handout used in student interviews, IRB documentation, and the codebook developed. Transcript labels reflect the case (“US” or “UK”) followed by the type of participant (“Expert” or “Student”). Observational memos are labeled with the event title and date. All data files are organized into folders by case location.