Oregon Public Broadcasting

MALTA, Idaho – U.S. Geothermal’s Raft River power plant.

Electricity is flowing from the first geothermal power plant to go online in the Northwest.

The southern Idaho plant is probably the first of many, judging from the number of Northwest utilities who say they’re interested in getting into hot water.

Local geothermal developers say their flavor of alternative energy has become cost-competitive.

Correspondent Tom Banse reports.

Ranchers on the hunt for irrigation water inadvertently discovered the geothermal potential in southern Idaho’s Raft River Valley.

Chris Harriman: “Ironically, they drilled a well not too far from here on the property and the water came out of the ground boiling.  Obviously, that became useless to the locals for the purposes they envisioned.”

But Chris Harriman knows what to do with very hot smelly water.  Harness it to make electricity.

Harriman has overseen construction of the Northwest region’s first commercial geothermal power plant. The owner is a small Boise company called U.S. Geothermal.

Chris Harriman: “It’s tremendous energy and vast amounts.  At peak, we’ll be circulating 7,000 gallons a minute through the plant.”

The water temperature at the well head is 284 degrees.  Insulated pipelines snake across the treeless valley floor, feeding the water into the new power plant.

There, the high heat produces steam.  Steam spins a generator.  And voila, you get electricity.  Harriman says all of the geothermal well water is subsequently pumped back underground.

MALTA, Idaho – The cooling towers of the Raft River geothermal power plant are visible over the left shoulder of plant manager Chris Harriman.

Chris Harriman: “They reintroduce fluids back into the system so it can go past the hot rock again, get pumped back out and continue the system. It’s essential to keep the production field going over a long period of time.”

Chris Harriman says the new generating plant can light about 10,000 homes.  Idaho Power Company is taking all of the initial output.

Expansion plans are already in the works at Raft River because of high interest from other Northwest utilities. Those include Puget Sound Energy and Eugene Water & Electric.  In Eugene, utility spokesman Lance Robertson explains the allure.

Lance Robertson: “One of the attractions of geothermal over something like wind is that it is a fairly steady supply.  Wind of course doesn’t always blow.  With geothermal it’s more like hydropower in the sense that it keeps putting out that power 24/7.”

Robertson says buying geothermal electricity will help the utility meet new state requirements for renewable energy.  He says it costs about the same as wind power.

The chief operating officer of U.S. Geothermal claims he even competes directly with natural gas and coal. Doug Glaspey says public policy and market forces are converging to lift the geothermal industry out of a long period of dormancy.

Doug Glaspey: “As most people know, the Pacific Northwest is blessed with a lot of cheap hydropower.  That’s really what has kept geothermal development out of the Pacific Northwest.”

But that cheap hydropower is harder and harder to find.

Doug Glaspey: “We’re suffering some droughts in the West.  So the availability of that power isn’t what it used to be. There’s lots of good opportunity for geothermal.  Oregon and Washington both we think have great potential.”

Glaspey’s company is working on a second project at Neal Hot Springs in eastern Oregon by Ontario.  Other firms have snapped up leases on the flanks of Mt. Baker in NW Washington and at Newberry Crater south of Bend. 

If you’ve visited the Cascade volcanoes or lava lands, you might consider them scenic, environmentally sensitive places.  And that’s a potential downside to geothermal development.

The Sierra Club has already come out against drilling at Newberry Crater.

Online:

U.S. Geothermal Inc.

Vulcan Power Company (Bend, OR)