By James
Yearling
High
Country News
The thought
of Nevada’s cities — lighting up the desert landscape with neon lights,
all-you-can-eat buffets and noisy slot machines — makes most environmentalists
cringe. It’s not just aesthetic: These gambling hubs are seen as gluttonous
resource gulpers. One of them, however, is gaining praise for its production of
renewable energy.
The city of
Reno, north of Las Vegas, is a "hotspot" for geothermal power
production. Geothermal plants now provide enough electricity to serve all
200,000 residents. And energy analysts say Reno's success barely scratches the
surface: Projects slated for the West could nearly double the nation’s
geothermal generating capacity in the next few years, according to a new survey
from the Geothermal Energy Association.
Geothermal
sources now generate nearly 3,000 megawatts per year in the U.S. — more than
any other nation, but still only 0.4 percent of total energy use, roughly
equivalent to two large coal-fired power plants. The investment risk is still
too high for a commercial-scale geothermal industry to flourish, according to
Jefferson Tester of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the projects
take years of planning and construction and don’t get the large government
subsidies that other energy producers do. But adequate federal funding for
research and development would smooth out operational kinks, slash the risk and
give investors more confidence, he says.
“We know
the resources are there, it’s just a matter of developing them,” says Karl
Gawell, executive director of the Geothermal Energy Association. “The solution
isn't black-and-white, and we have a long way to go, but we have all the pieces
— they just have to be put together.”
The West is
prime for geothermal development because its underground reservoirs of steam,
hot water and hot rocks tend to lie close to the surface, especially in places
like the Pacific Northwest’s Cascade Mountains and Southern California's
Imperial Valley. Half of all geothermal energy production in the nation is in
the West, and 90 per cent of the identified geothermal resources are on Western
public lands.
In its
infancy, geothermal electricity production required extremely hot water, over
360 degrees Fahrenheit (182 Celsius). New technology, however, allows the use
of water as cool as 165 degrees (74 Celsius), greatly expanding opportunities
for power production. Geothermal energy can also be tapped directly as a
heating source.
In some
places, geothermal heating districts have been established; one such system
uses hot water pipes to heat 37 buildings in San Bernardino, California.
More than
80 geothermal power projects are in the works across the West, in every state
except Montana and Colorado. In Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California, geothermal
plants already supply power to the grid. By 2050, advances in geothermal
technology could supply 100,000 annual megawatts of power, according to a 2006
MIT study — 10 per cent of U.S. energy consumption.
And by
2015, the cost of geo-thermal electricity should be competitive with that of
coal, which currently provides about half of the country's energy, according to
the Department of Energy. Consumers generally pay between three and five and a
half cents (U.S. dollars) for a kilowatt hour of coal power and between five
and eight cents for a kilowatt hour of geothermal power. Not only will
geothermal costs come down as technology improves, coal costs will continue to
rise, due to the cost of transporting coal and complying with eventual
greenhouse gas legislation.
Unlike
other renewable energy sources that depend on the vagaries of wind or sun,
geothermal plants produce consistent power.
“Geothermal
plants generate power 24 hours a day, year-round, and don't face hazards like
tropical storms that plague other energy industries,” says Paul Thomsen of
Reno-based geothermal developer Ormat. “And the plants release hardly any
carbon emissions.”
But no
energy source is entirely free of environmental impacts. Although geothermal
development is prohibited in national parks and wilderness areas, development
on other public lands could alter viewsheds and geothermal features and pollute
surface water. A typical natural-gas-fired plant sucks up 361 gallons (1,366
litres) of freshwater per megawatt hour, compared to less than five gallons (19
litres) for geothermal plants — but even that could cause conflicts with other
water users in drought-stricken areas. Vents around geothermal operations can
release objectionable gases such as ammonia, methane and hydrogen sulfide,
which smells like rotten eggs, and some projects have induced small
earthquakes.
Still,
proponents say these side effects are minimal when stacked against the
environmental costs of traditional energy production.
To help
developers unleash geothermal potential on public lands, the Bureau of Land
Management and the Forest Service are jointly investigating the environmental
impacts of expanding geothermal leasing. (The BLM issues all geothermal leases
and permits.) Once the final assessment comes out this fall, the agencies will
allow additional leasing on lands with high potential. Currently, there are
about 420 geothermal leases on federal land, 55 of which are producing
geothermal energy.
Interest in
leasing has increased sharply in the last decade; the BLM has issued nearly 300
geothermal leases since 2001, compared to only 25 between 1996 and 2001. Last
summer, the agency launched an effort to speed up the leasing process. Of the
approximately 100 geothermal lease requests pending as of January 2005, the BLM
has pledged to process at least 90 per cent of them by August 2010.
But even
after a geothermal company leases public land, the process of actually acquiring
a permit to develop the resource remains painful. The BLM is so overrun with
oil, gas and coalbed methane permit requests that geothermal interests get
pushed to the back burner.
“The BLM
doesn't have adequate resources or personnel to deal with geothermal, so
permits get delayed for years,” says Gawell. “I literally know people who have
died waiting.”
Geothermal
development has benefited from bipartisan support in the House and Senate, but
the Bush administration's commitment has been less than robust. The Energy Act
of 2005, touted as renewable-friendly, created the Geothermal Technologies
Program in an attempt to boost the industry. The administration requested $26
million for the program the first year and $23 million the next— but for 2007 and
2008, it didn't request a dime, leaving industry experts, environmentalists and
policymakers angry and confused. The 2009 budget, though, asks for $30 million.
Questioned
by Congress, the Department of Energy justified the 2007 budget cut by saying
that geothermal was a “mature technology” that didn't needadditional funding.
The department also cited an Office of Management and Budget grading system in
order to claim that the geothermal program wasn’t performing well enough to
justify extra dollars. But funding for the clean-coal technology program was
upped, even though its performance was rated lower than that of the geothermal
program. Meanwhile, federal subsidies for the nuclear and fossil fuel
industries still range in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
In 2005,
federal production tax credits previously tied to wind and solar power were
expanded to include geothermal projects. But the credits are set to expire at
the end of this year, even though over 100 geothermal development companies
recently sent letters to the White House calling for an extension. By one vote,
the Senate recently declined an extension that would have lasted through 2012.
Those tax
credits have been the deciding factor as to whether developers can afford to
break ground on new geothermal projects, says Lisa Shevenell, director of the
Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy. For 10 years after plant
construction, the tax credits pay geothermal developers 2 cents for every
kilowatt-hour of electricity generated. That substantially lowers the cost of
generating power, leading to lower costs for consumers and lower risks to
investors.
“Without an
extension of the tax credit deadline, most likely, projects will be downsized
or put on hold altogether,” says Gawell.
But
geothermal may get a boost from the Energy Independence and Security Act of
2007, which Bush signed in December. The legislation includes the Advanced
Geothermal Energy Research and Development Act, which directs the Department of
Energy to authorize up to $95 million annually for research and development.
And most of the Western states, with the exception of Wyoming, Utah and Idaho,
have established renewable portfolio standards, which require electric
utilities to produce a certain percentage of their energy (usually 10 to 15 per
cent) from renewable sources, including geothermal, by a certain date.
As with any
power source, access to transmission facilities is key. In November 2007, the
Bush administration proposed 6,000 miles of “energy corridors,” rights of way
for distributing oil, gas, hydrogen and electricity. Although some
environmentalists disapprove of corridors in national parks and monuments,
others welcome the plan because it could minimize the time it takes to site and
approve projects.
Success
stories like Reno prove that, although geothermal is by no means a
cure-all
for the nation's energy problems, it is definitely part of the solution.
“Interest in geothermal has really blossomed,” says Shevenell.
“And in the
next few years, I think that the industry will, too.”
Tapping
energy from underground could make the barren Nevada desert a land of
plenty
— and someday soon, it
could power millions of households in the West.
The author
just completed an internship at HCN. This article originally
appeared on
Feb. 18, 2008, in High Country News (www.hcn.org), which covers the West's
communities and natural-resource issues.
Editor’s
Note: Geothermal energy is also being looked at in B.C. as a potential power
source, and tests are still underway at Meager Mountain to the northwest of
Pemberton. Temperatures range from 220 degrees to 240 degress Celsius, and the
developers of the site estimate that the area could support a 100 MW plant
which would produce enough power to supply 80,000 households.
In B.C.,
the provincial government and B.C. Hydro have a policy to ensure that at least
50 per cent of new power projects are “green” — renewable and with a minimal
impact on the environment. That definition doesn’t include large damming
projects, but will include the smaller run of river projects proposed
throughout the Sea to Sky corridor.
Mount
Cayley, closer to Pemberton, is also being looked at closely for its geothermal
potential.
In
addition, several buildings in the province and in Whistler are heated using
geothermal exchange technology — essentially pumping water several hundred feet
under the ground to warm it a few degrees in the winter or cool it a few
degrees in the summer. The exchanged water assists by reducing the load
required for conventional heating or cooling systems.
The Spruce
Grove Field House and new Whistler Public Library are two examples of buildings
using geoexchange to bolster their heating and cooling systems.