There are over 450,000 registered oil and gas wells in the province of Alberta, Canada. A recent increase of the number of inactive wells creates significant environmental risk and financial liability in cleanup costs. By retrofitting wells for direct use geothermal heat energy production, these wells can produce clean, renewable energy and offset these risks and liabilities. This research is the first to create a model of well retrofit costs and power/benefits and to consider direct use of heat energy for ranching applications in Canada. We estimate the average cost to retrofit a suspended well to be $50,000 less than an identical abandoned well. The cost of retrofitting suspended wells varies little (<$11,000). The greatest variance in cost (>$120,000/well) is related to the distance between the well and user and resulting pipe/materials necessary to transport the hot water. Our model of well retrofit costs can be expanded to other geothermal re-purposing projects in North America and worldwide.

Geothermal energy systems can make it possible to source sustainable, zero-carbon heat through geothermal direct use. Jurisdictions with mature oil industries and well characterized reservoirs often have the greatest capacity to transition to geothermal energy, yet the same jurisdictions are also most likely to oppose it. Despite technical capabilities, studies show that public perception and policy can be significant limiting factors in geothermal development. We examine how stakeholders' discourses, networks, and resources interact over time to impact the success or failure of geothermal development within France and Alberta as two oil producing regimes. We found that these three elements of agency (discourse, resources, and networks) converge in France versus diverge in Alberta, and that their convergence is defined by their positive interaction with one another over time. We glean important lessons for policymakers interested in promoting energy transformation based on this analysis of the elements of agency in France and Alberta's geothermal case. The three policy recommendations are: policy for mobilizing third-party resources across the stakeholder network to support innovation; policy for aligning discourse about energy use across networks beyond the energy sector; and policy for enabling discourse about new energy resources that recognizes its distinctiveness from other resources.

Temporarily plugged or "suspended" wells pose environmental and economic risks due to the large volume of methane gas leaked. In the Canadian Province of Alberta, which, by far, has the largest number of petroleum wells in Canada, there are no regulations stipulating the maximum length of time a well can be left suspended. In recent years, an increasing number of wells have been put into the suspended state by owners. We show using a large data set obtained from the Alberta Energy Regulator that leak spells have increased between 1971 and 2019. For the same time period, the probability of an unresolved leak has also increased, and the amount of methane emitted per leak has substantially gone up. Lastly, we provide simple social-cost-of methane computations indicating that responsible policies can incentivize well owners towards remediation and reclamation and support efforts to fight climate change and improve upon economic expedience.