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©2002 Cascadia Times

Hot Rocks

Politics stalls geothermal development power in Oregon

Several miles everywhere beneath Earth's surface is hot, dry rock being heated by the molten magma directly below it. We're standing on a resource that could easily supply the energy needs of the entire world for centuries.

Today, geothermal power is poised to make a major breakthrough. Few other energy sources are as clean (emits little or no greenhouse gases), reliable (average system availability of 95 percent), and homegrown (making us less dependent on foreign oil) as geothermal. What’s different now is that geothermal is almost as cheap as fossil fuel, and the difference has been shrinking.

Geothermal energy is already a significant supplier of electricity to the western grid, with 2800 megawatts installed in California, Nevada, Utah, and Hawaii, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Recent studies have identified nearly 300 western communities in 10 states with potentially useable geothermal resources within 5 miles. But while the Northwest has numerous potential sites, it produces no power from geothermal generation.

Building a geothermal project is no easy task. Production costs a little more than conventional sources, and while pollution is next to nil, environmental issues can still kill a project. And even if a project solves all the financial and environmental problems, it can get sideswiped by politics.

Politics it seems killed the region’s most promising geothermal project, at Newberry Crater about 30 miles south of Bend, Ore. Someday Newberry could produce 700 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 700,000 homes. In 1999, Portland General Electric agreed in principle to a deal with a developer that would have brought the first 30 megawatts of Newberry power to the Northwest grid. “We have the opportunity to create a sustainable power source that can benefit both our customers and the environment,” Walt Pollock, a PGE senior vice president, said at the time. But a year later, the Oregon Public Utilities Commission rejected the plan in large part because environmental groups wanted control over which renewable projects get built in the state.

That decision preceded the creation of a new non-profit group, the Oregon Energy Trust, that will make decisions on how the state invests some $8 million a year in renewable energy projects once it gets up and running next March. The Trust will spread that money over numerous projects; it remains to be seen whether that approach will produce as much renewable energy as Newberry.

“I find this very troubling because it set back the major green baseload project in the Pacific Northwest by two or three years,” said Steve Munson, CEO of Vulcan Power, a partner of PGE in the Newberry project. Vulcan owns leases on the west side of the crater.

Newberry had been sunk before. In 1996, CalEnergy pulled out after the Bonneville Power Administration poured some $9 million into development. CalEnergy claimed Newberry couldn’t produce enough hot water, but Munson says that company was simply drilling in the wrong spot. Vulcan’s test data shows its leases hold significant reserves of hot water, a finding PGE apparently found valid.

Meanwhile, CalEnergy and another company, Calpine, are having trouble developing separate geothermal projects at Medicine Lake, a volcanic caldera in Northern California, about 50 miles south of Klamath Falls. Bonneville has a contract to buy geothermal power there if it’s ever developed.

But it’s no sure thing. In a recent decision, the Bureau of Land Management rejected CalEnergy’s project, claiming it would have been built on land Native Americans consider sacred, and would have interfered with the threatened northern spotted owl. The BLM did, however, approve Calpine’s proposal, but its permit faces court challenges filed by the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund on behalf of the Pit River Tribe and the Shasta Nation.

The landscape the companies hope to develop has been a place of cultural significance and spiritual renewal for Native American tribes for thousands of years. The cold, deep blue waters of the lake are part of an aquifer system that forms a major source of spring water ultimately flowing into the Sacramento River. The surrounding volcanic landscape and pristine forestlands that rise up from the lake's shore are home to a wide variety of species, including eagles, goshawks, rare bats, martens, fishers, and a host of sensitive plant species.

Calpine is the largest geothermal developer in the world, but only because in 1999 it took control of The Geysers, the world’s largest geothermal energy complex, in the rugged Mayacamas Mountains near Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. Several years ago, The Geysers was thought to be tapped out, a victim of over development. But the site still produces 1000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power all of San Francisco, and new investments are expected to increase power there by 150 megawatts.

When added together, California's geothermal power plants produce about 40 percent of the world's geothermally generated electricity. These plants have a dependable installed capacity of about 1,900 megawatts -- producing 4.9 percent of California's total electricity in 1999.