Our Sustainable Northwest

NWPR Energy Series Part 4: Geothermal

 

 

(Click on this image to go to a comprehensive USDOE geothermal map of Washington State. )

Listen to the audio file of this interview here .

Intro: In the fourth and final “Our Northwest Energy” interview between Dave Sjoding and correspondent, Mary Hawkins, a discussion of three types of geothermal energy production.

Hawkins: Geothermal energy is heating buildings, greenhouses, and homes across the Northwest and there will soon be new geothermal power generation in the Cascades.

Geothermal doesn’t just comprise pockets of super hot water. We can harness warm water and have learned how to optimize shallow, underground water systems for heat and cooling. Dave Sjoding describes how ground source pumping works:

Sjoding: The Lake Washington School District takes its ball field and puts piping in the ground – It takes just the normal ground temperature, pulls the heat out of it and uses it to heat the high school.

The savings are significant. I believe the Lake Washington School District’s high school – about 66 thousand a year is the last figure I saw in terms of savings that they have. Well, that starts getting you toward the salary of a teacher.

Hawkins: Say, I lived in the Bellingham area and I wanted to install geothermal for my home? How big of a yard would I need?

Sjoding: You need more on the mansion scale of home before this really starts to get cost-effective.

Hawkins: So, I couldn't do it in my little cottage?

Sjoding: [It’s] not a little cottage thing. If you had a well, then it might start to get a little bit cheaper. And you could downscale a little bit in terms of the size of the building.

Hawkins: Groundsource geothermal applications like the one at Lake Washington work best west of the Cascades where there is more ground moisture.

[Well groundsource systems – where you cycle from your underground water source – are very practical in many parts of central and eastern Washington.  They rely on naturally cool water – water that remains at nearly the same temperature year-round.]

Much of the Columbia Basin, though, sits over low temperature geothermal. In Ephrata, for example, the average tap water comes out at 85 degrees.  This warm water can be appropriated for any number of heating and energy projects.  It’s great for small-scale operations where you desire a warm, humid climate.

Sjoding: The Columbia Basin Area – just normal well water coming out of the ground - we have a fairly significant low temperature geothermal resource. And that’s available for a wide variety of uses. We have an alligator farm in Idaho. They’re using the geothermal to keep the alligators at the proper temperature. Greenhouses are another situation where you can use that kind of geothermal heat.

Hawkins: High temperature geothermal, is prevalent in the Cascade Mountains. Two areas with potential for power generation are near Mount Baker in the North Cascades and in the Gifford Pinchot (pinch-oh) National Forest near Mount Saint Helens. According to Sjoding, there are even places near the Columbia River where geothermal is very close to the surface.

In some places, large-scale geothermal exploration has ruined geysers and dried up energy reserves. But according to Dave Sjoding, we’ve learned to manage & preserve geothermal systems.

Sjoding: The classic one in the U.S.  is The Geysers in Northern California where they taxed the system and they realized they had to recharge those aquifers with water – get the water back down into the hot zone and so there was a learning curve the U.S. has gone through – worldwide we’ve gone through - to manage the geothermal resource properly. Actually, “The Geysers” has been brought back to a fuller power production.

Hawkins: For geothermal maps of the west, information on California’s “The Geysers” and information about how low temperature and groundsource geothermal works, go to Our Northwest at NWPR dot org. For NWPR, I’m Mary Hawkins.

Listen to the audio file here: Listen to the interview here. .

Links:

DOE Geothermal Information

The Geysers

Washington's Geothermal Energies Program

WSU's Geothermal page

Map of Washington State's Geothermal Systems  (slow to download)

Landmark PEIS Opens the Door for Western Geothermal Exploration

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the USDA Forest Service (FS) released a joint Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) in October which impacts millions of acres of land in 11 Western states and Alaska.

A whopping 530 millions acres of land in the west have geothermal potential. Of that land, around 248 million acres are owned by BLM and NFS and were therefore considered in the study.

The recommendations included putting 92 million acres into consideration for geothermal leasing. 155 million acres were deemed inappropriate for a number of reasons. Among the areas closed to leasing are: wilderness areas, national recreation areas, national parks, fish hatcheries, Indian trust or restricted lands, national monuments, national conservation areas, national historic or scenic areas. Among the lands open to leasing, the study further sought places within a certain proximity to power transmission lines.

As of January, 2005, 194 lease applications were submitted. 34 were still pending earlier this year. In Oregon, there were applications for 4 sites in the Mount Hood National Forest, and one in the Williamette National Forest. In Washington, 4 were submitted for the Mt. Baker National Forest.

Links:

The BLM Geothermal Information Page

An Executive Summary of the PEIS

Geothermal Energy Production