Raser Technologies Inc. marked the completion of a 10-megawatt geothermal power plant with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Beaver County facility located in Thermo. It is the first commercial-scale facility to utilize a new technology that allows the plant to generate electricity using geothermal heated water that is at a much lower temperature than was previously possible, said John Fox, general manager of UTC Power Corp.
The Thermo plant will generate enough electricity to power about 7,000 homes, he said.
UTC developed the technology that would work in conjunction with Raser’s modular power-plant design, he said. He added that the process used to generate power produces no emissions and can provide uninterrupted baseload power in the same fashion as coal or nuclear plants…He said the “closed-loop system” prohibits liquids and gases generated through the power production process from escaping into the environment. It also allows for the recycled use of those byproducts later on.
He said the site in Thermo is using an underground lake that is about the size of Utah Lake, with water at a temperature of approximately 300 degrees. Electricity is generated by 50 modular PureCycle power generation units, whose capacity can be expanded in the future.Craig Higginson [from Raser] estimated that the Thermo site may contain enough geothermal resources to power a third of the homes in Utah with zero emissions when fully developed. He added that his company is in talks with several utilities, including Rocky Mountain Power, about possible geothermal plant development.
I’m especially impressed by Raser’s modular conception. Too often, folks in the utility business seem to design projects from the top-down. This system allows for easy scale.
Seems like a cost-effective project even before it gets rolling. Not that we have much political history at looking down the road to see a juggernaut coming.
This facility cost about 50% more to build than a comparable coal-fired plant. And there is beaucoup coal in the region.
But, once it’s running for a spell, the money that would have been spent on coal – isn’t.
Ahhh. The cooling of the earth has begun.
What’s the cost per KW/hour to consumer?
# 3 Paddy-O
Geothermal ranges anywhere from 4.5 cents, which is less than coal, to 30 cents kW-h, which is about as high as it gets.
It depends on a couple of things like size of plant and depth drilled. If done right it can be cheaper than coal but not as cheap as wind, which other than gas and tide is the cheapest form of energy. Of course prices will go down once technology improves and production increases.
#4 J Thanks.
I know the general cost drivers. I was curious because of the relatively low temp of the steam used by this plant.
I hope this tech gets further funding.
Sheesh, they’ve been doin’ this in iceland for some time now… In fact 25% of their energy needs come from geothermal – more if you take into account their using the same steam to heat their homes.
#6
#1 Very small country
#2 Vastly different geology that the majority of our country.
Saudi Arabia pumps enough oil for much of the world but it isn’t feat we can duplicate in the U.S. …
# 5 Paddy-O
Yeah it is on the low end but there have been significant advance in low temperature conversion. There are a dozen or more companies making big advances in this area. A few of them are claiming that they can get the cost down on low temp conversion to less than a penny per kW-h.
#8 That sounds promising indeed.
What about places that are not sitting on geothermal grounds?
On a different note……
“The editors at Dvorak Uncensored all use the Firefox Browser. You should too. ERROR”
That is so weak as John would maybe put it. Use your freedom of choice and I personally prefer Opera.
[Opera is very fast but lacks the incredible variety of add-ons that are available for FF. – ed.]
Geothermal is a renewable energy source that really has not been exploited much, mostly because of the high initial start up costs and the fact that all the best places for geothermal power are not close to where people live.
It will eventually be exploited, though. Just like we exploited hydroelectric power, currently our best source of renewable energy.
Utah uses the same technology that is being used in Alaska.
The #1 use of geothermals in Iceland / Greenland was for hot water – not electricity.
They are only starting with electricity. They are still doing the old-fashioned way for an island state – diesel generators.
– cheaper to buy
– cheaper to run
…than making large-scale steam-to-electric, in an earthquake zone.
Raser Technologies will be able to sell these power plants elsewhere in the world, in exchange for a % of the resale of electricity over X years (like 20 or 30).
Iceland & the Philippines are likely future customers.
http://www.invest.is/key-sectors/energy-in-iceland/
Geothermal power
Icelanders are world leaders in the use of geothermal energy for domestic and industrial purposes. Some 87% of the population enjoy central heating by geothermal energy at a price that is generally less than half of the comparable cost of oil or electric heating, thus contributing to making Iceland one of the cleanest environments in Europe. Geothermal steam has been used directly for a number of industrial processing applications in Iceland for decades now, and has also been developed for electricity generation on a small but growing scale. Today, the total installed geothermal electric power is around 422MW, and a further anticipated expansion of 60MW will lift the total to 482MW.
Early adopters of geothermal, like Iceland, New Zealand and the USA, used open loop systems where cold water was injected into the deep steam flow to increase the amount of tapped energy, with a resulting drop in steam field temperature and heavy metal pollution of surface waterways. This novel idea, closing the loop and using shallow steam fields, is very promising. It makes more areas viable sources of clean energy.
Ahhhhh, sure, right, global cooling begins with extracting heat from below the earth’s surface and letting it escape into the atmosphere. Duh.
Excellent. Now, if we can just get people to pony-up for geothermal HVAC in their homes instead of the alternatives……
Problem is: People only see the initial cost, and not “total cost of ownership.”
I had Geothermal installed in my new house. The total system cost was about $18,000. (Dual zone, closed loop. including excavation for the ground loop) An electric heat pump or gas furnace/AC was about 8,000.
“Payback” is on the order of 5 years or less, at today’s energy prices, without considering the property tax break I get for geothermal.
In the summer, when it’s taking heat out of the air in my house, instead of putting it back in the ground, it puts it into a “preheat water heater” … generating about 95% of my hot water needs… for “free”
Please consider geothermal if you’re building a home!
Wow! Excellent to see something good out of Utah other than a place to ski.
I need to figure out which rectangular state that is and tour how this Geo thermal stuff works which makes for a nice tourist attraction.
Obama’s energy push is already making the US look at clean forms of energy. Obama is like, magical!
#17 moondawg.
Those are some great ideas. I wonder how well that works in the colder climates?
Before you all jump for joy. You do realize how small this plant is. Most major power plants (coal, Nuclear, etc) generate 100 times the power of this plant. This is good for research and prototyping. It’s getting to full scale is always the problem.
It the cost is only 50 million like the article says then that’s great and relatively cheap. So that’s good. The main problem is getting the heat source. Was this one easy to get to and how much can it totally produce.
I always thought Hawaii should be 100% geothermal with all those Volcanoes. Can we put on in Yellow Stone?
I’ll wait until they make one that can do 1000 Megawatts before I get my hopes up. Otherwise give me Nuclear now.
Two items not in the (LDS Church owned) Deseret News that I’ve come across in other local media.
– This plant (and hot water field, for lack of a better term) is being billed as having the eventual ability to produce 75% of the state’s power. With the number of wind turbines going up in the state, Utah could be energy independent on the home/business power front in 10 years (or less).
– The company that built this plant is building plants in a few more states, and in Indonesia.
– This plant is much more efficient than those in Iceland, which require a higher water temperature than the 300 degrees in the lake being used in Utah.
#12 – Funny how Utah is where I live, and Alaska is where I used to live. I should sell my hot air to environmentalists.
#18 – Yet another ignorant comment. You’re owned. Silence.
This would give Mormons more free time to spend on things like banning gay marriages while teaching others that Christian concubinate is a good thing.
# 19 Ah_Yea
It works fine. I live just north of Chicago and I have Geothermal. Mine too is a closed loop system. It works great in the winter and also it helps cool in the summer. I save year round.
Whenever I see articles like this, I think of the 50’s sci-fi movie “Forbidden Planet”, where a race of alien beings used the prodigious internal energy of their world to eventually create a technology that could materialize anything by thought alone.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if that same kind of initiative turned out to be how we ourselves dealt with our own so-called “energy problem”?
(hopefully we wouldn’t end up like them, though)
#13 I don’t know where you get your facts, next time try wikipedia…
Oh yes and I know the US isn’t the same geography but there is activity and lot’s of it in areas, and they’re just now getting round to it. USA is so wrapped up in it’s self it can’t see the progress other countries are making. I’d say european dike technology could save New Orleans, but where’s the profit in that, right? There are things good goverments invest in, and yeah they cost money and yeah there’s waste and mismanagement, but if you leave everything to the private sector the only things that’ll be done are the ones that generate profits and to hell the common welfare.
#19. As long as you can get to “isothermic” ground, i.e., below the frost line…. you can use geothermal.
http://www.waterfurnace.com
I have the Envision model. I live in southern indiana. Water Furnace is an Indiana company and I insisted on using them. The fact that they’re a top tier supplier is just a benefit!