Oregon Public Broadcasting

When you flip the switch, where does your power come from? And what will power Northwest homes and businesses in the future?We're asking these questions and more for our special series The Switch.

Geothermal power soon will get a share of $400 million in federal stimulus money.

That’s a tectonic shift for a field that almost had its funding zeroed out under the Bush Administration.

Any money for Oregon geothermal projects could have a real impact. And that's the next installment of our energy series, The Switch.

Central Oregon correspondent Ethan Lindsey reports from one of the hottest "hotbeds" of geothermal power and research, Klamath Falls.

The tropical fish aisle in your local Petco isn’t glamorous. In fact, it can be downright depressing.

Sad-looking fluorescent orange fish swim slowly back-and-forth in their smallish aquariums.

But, and this is no big fish story, this mega pet mart is part of our country’s renewable energy future.

Ron Barnes: “A lot of our fish end up in the Petco chain.”

Ron Barnes lives a few miles south of Klamath Falls, just a hop-skip-and-a-jump from the California border.

At this moment, he’s throwing fish food into a pond – sending hundreds of fish into a frenzy of excited leaping.

We’re outside, in front of what appears to be a dozen poorly-dug swimming pools. Each contain hundreds of brightly-colored tropical fish.

Ron Barnes: “Bright Orange fish happens to be one of our big ones. And, most of the Petcos, and virtually all of the Petcos on the West Coast, have our fish.”

But remember, this is the high desert of southern Oregon. Why in the heck is this guy raising tropical fish outdoors here? 

Ron Barnes

Ron Barnes: “It’s cold here. And these fish -- we keep these ponds here at 80 degrees year-round, so when it’s 5 degrees outside, we create our own fog bank.”

That 80-degree water is the answer. Barnes gets it for free, from a regular-old well.

And he pumps the hot water right into the pools for the fish.

We’re sitting next to an earthquake fault line, here in the geologically-active Cascade Mountains.

So, Klamath Falls’ water is naturally heated by the earth’s core, even though the air is freezing months on end.

Ron Barnes: “What we do is impossible, without the geothermal water. It’s ridiculous. You couldn’t do what we do economically, and almost physically, because there’s 3 million gallons of water in ponds here. And you can’t keep that hot enough, if you were paying to heat it. It’s just not, basically, possible.”

That free, renewable energy in the hot water is why many see geothermal power as a key piece of a green energy future.

In Klamath Falls, for example, geothermal wells benefit more than just fish.

Oregon Institute of Technology

John Lund is the director of the Geo-Heat Center at the Oregon Institute of Technology.

John Lund: “They heat most of the eastside of the city, most of the schools. We have greenhouses that are heated in town, we melt snow, and we even have a brewery that makes their beer using geothermal energy.”

Right now, worldwide, about 25,000 megawatts of heat energy comes from geothermal sources.

Many experts predict that could double in the near future – saving a lot of natural gas and electrical heating power in the process.

The city estimates that its geothermal sources replace 60 megawatts worth of conventional power every year and that amounts to a savings of 50,000 barrels of oil and millions-of-dollars.

Randy Travis: “What you’re looking at right here is the Wall Street bridge up to Klamath Union High School.”

Randy Travis is the water operations supervisor for the city of Klamath Falls. His geothermal project is a bit more advanced and far more renewable.

He pumps dirty water from the earth up into a tank and then uses it to heat clean, drinking water. He then sends the dirty water back underground.

Klamath Falls residents then get hot tap water and even melt snow on icy roads.

Randy Travis

Randy Travis: “There is a geothermally-supplied snow melt system underneath this incline, bridge and the sidewalks. If we didn’t melt it, the crashes could be pretty nasty.”

But while geothermal is effective at heating, the real frontier is figuring out how to use geothermal to generate large-scale electricity.

There is already 10,000 megawatts of geothermal power worldwide right now -- a lot in Nevada and California.

Right now, Oregon gets less than 1 percent of its heat and power from geothermal.

But Oregon could get as many as four geothermal power plants in the next 10 years.

The plants would be located across the state and produce 210 megawatts of energy.

And remember, because of its consistent nature, geothermal is an ever-present, baseload power source.

The cost is relatively inexpensive, ranging from 3 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour.

That’s a little less than Oregon customers pay for power right now.

One power plant will be on the Oregon Tech campus, which could mean the school wouldn’t have to buy power from the outside.

John Lund: “Here is the power plant, 200 kilowatts gross.

O.I.T.’s John Lund says decades ago, geothermal ran into trouble with environmentalists for pollution and land use impacts. Supporters say new technology solves most problems.

John Lund: “You catch the rotten egg smell, that’s hydrogen sulfide. And it’s not enough to actually hurt you.  The water from the wells come into this storage tank, and from this tank its fed to all the buildings on campus.”

The construction of power plants is more expensive and not as advanced as just using the water for its heat.

Take, for instance, a potential geothermal gusher in the Newberry National Monument south of Bend.

There, an investment company has spent millions of dollars drilling two deep wells, and come up empty.

Here’s John Lund again.

John Lund: “With large projects, there is a risk up front. And the risk is when you drill a well, does it produce temperature and water? And that’s the big problem right now – very few investment firms are willing to take on that risk.”

Lund says because of its landscape, Oregon possesses a treasure trove of geothermal power.

And because of early development here, researchers believe the state can become a leader in geothermal research and education.

Ron Barnes says, in the depths of winter, he looks at his orange fish in heated pools, and dreams of all the possibilities.

Ron Barnes: “When it's snowing, and there’s 2 feet of snow on the ground, it’s amazing if you think about it. You know, the amount of this resource is phenomenal. And it's all renewable energy, it's beautiful.”