About a mile and a half south of Tuttle's elementary and middle schools is an oil field with some wells drilled in the mid-1980s. While there are ongoing oil and gas operations, the site also serves a new purpose.
Researchers at the University of Oklahoma have been investigating whether they can produce geothermal energy from retired oil and gas wells with the help of a federal grant. Geothermal uses Earth's natural subsurface heat to produce energy. It can produce electricity with steam rising from deep below ground or use fluid pumped from the formations to heat nearby buildings.
The project was paused by the Trump administration last year and is waiting for approval from the Department of Energy to start its next phase. Eventually, the researchers want to pipe heat to the nearby schools to offset their utility costs.
"That's kind of the whole gist of this, is how can we use a resource that's here and is not being used now, to benefit a school system, or a church, or some kind of end-user?" Jeff McCaskill, director of the Tuttle project, said.
The research is one example of exploring a future with renewable energy generation using Oklahoma's retired oil and gas assets. McCaskill said the Tuttle wells were donated by Blue Cedar Energy, managed by OU alumni, which bought them as part of a larger batch.
But the state also has more than 19,000 abandoned oil and gas wells, which have unreachable or unknown owners.
Could repurposing help with Oklahoma's orphaned well problem?
Unplugged wells pose environmental and health risks from pollutants that can seep into soil or water, and they are also known to leak methane, a greenhouse gas. Wells with untraceable owners fall under the responsibility of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which hires companies to plug them.
Speaking to lawmakers earlier this year, the commission detailed the extent of the documented orphaned well issue. Holly George, chief financial officer, said it would take 235 years to plug each of them if no more wells are discovered, and plugging costs and revenues stay the same.
"The conversation can't be, 'Please give me billions of dollars for us to go remedy,'" she said. "We have to take this bite by bite, little bit by little bit. And what does that look like?"
A measure in the state legislature, authored by Rep. Nick Archer, R-Elk City, could present a new purpose for some of those wells. House Bill 3173 would authorize the conversion of orphaned and abandoned wells for geothermal or energy storage use.
The legislation is largely modeled after a similar measure from New Mexico, Archer said, which was signed into law last year.
As it's written now, the bill would create a process for companies to buy orphaned wells and use them for energy storage or geothermal resources at or above 250 degrees Fahrenheit. Either the Corporation Commission or the state Department of Environmental Quality would oversee the process, the bill reads.
"The orphaned and abandoned well situation is now a century in the making in the state of Oklahoma," Archer said. "I believe, statistically, the first well was drilled in 1897, and so we have a long history of poking holes and moving on."
"Historically, we have not done a great job as a state of ensuring that when those interests are abandoned, that it's remediated quickly and efficiently," he said.
Archer said the conversion of an orphaned well would be more economical than drilling a new one for geothermal or energy storage.
"If there's an opportunity to avoid some of those costs, utilizing the existing infrastructure and repurposing it, that may be economically viable to private capital," he said. "And it is not currently something that entities are able to do in the state of Oklahoma."
In an email, Runar Nygaard, director of OU's Mewbourne School of Petroleum and Geological Engineering, said the Tuttle project may have benefited from the bill. The researchers were unable to operate as deep as they initially expected, which would help them reach higher temperatures, because there were no rules in place, he said.
Oklahoma's geothermal temperatures are not generally as hot as some other states like Nevada and California. McCaskill said while the bill is a good idea, he worries the temperature threshold of 250 degrees is too high.
"Drop that temperature down to 180 degrees or something," he said. "That makes it feasible for people to start saying, 'I can convert one of these wells over.'"
Advancements in the geothermal industry could make it easier to produce energy from lower temperatures. Maria Richards, geothermal laboratory coordinator for Southern Methodist University, said the field is developing new technologies that could match lower temperature wells.
"So, new technology, lower temperature, smaller output — but you need more of them," she said. "But is that really a problem? Or does that just give us distributed energy, which makes it safer for things like an ice storm where the whole grid doesn't go out at once?"
Still, Archer said he doesn't expect geothermal or energy storage to completely solve Oklahoma's orphaned well issue.
"We aren't going to reduce that 200-year list even in half by allowing this," he said. "But I think if private industry wants to invest the capital and to explore this, we need to let them be able to do that."
On the federal level, geothermal may get a boost from the Trump administration. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said his department is prioritizing the renewable energy form, according to reporting from The Hill. The industry's tax credits were also preserved in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, despite the spending law's cuts to other forms of renewables like wind and solar.
In Oklahoma, the well repurposing bill has also caught the attention of environmentalists. The local Sierra Club is advocating for it this year because it could help clean up old abandoned wells that "create long-term environmental liabilities for communities and taxpayers," the organization wrote in its newsletter.
The bill passed the House floor on March 16 and now heads to the Senate for consideration.
