Heat for casinos, prisons and homes

Press, 4 March 1982, Page 17

Heat for casinos, prisons and homes

By

JOHN HUTCHISON

in San Francisco

District heating systems, using underground hot water to supply household, institutional and business energy needs to whole communities, are multiplying in the American West.

Geothermal energy of vast but still unmeasured and often mostly unexploited potential is latent in hot springs, geysers, deep-drilled wells and scores of sleeping volcanoes. In 12 western states more than two dozen relatively new projects have been undertaken or have begun to produce geothermal heat to substantial populations. Dozens of other communities are studying how they might reduce public and private budgets through the substitu-

tion of the resource under their feet for the oil and gas they are bringing in at increasing expense. The Geo-Heat Centre at the Oregon Institute of Technology is -in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where it is not uncommon for a family to depend for heating and hot water on its own well. The centre has just published a review of new geothermal developments in the west. Klamath Falls, with more than 400 homes, 14 public buildings and numerous businesses supplied by hot wells, is extending its municipal system to the entire central commercial district of the city of 17,000 inhabitants. The wells range in depth from 30 to 650 metres and in tem-

perature from 21 to 110 degrees Celsius. Boise, the capital of the state of Idaho, a city with a 100,000 population, has undertaken projects to heat its government buildings and to expand its down-town geothermal heating system to include 185,000 square metres of office space and up to 1000 homes. In another project in Idaho, hot water from underground used in commercial dehydration of potatoes will be “cascaded" to heat public buildings. In the state, of Nevada,

) where geothermal systems have been in use for years in > some small communities, the i city of Reno, with a 100,000 ■ population, is investigating ; the feasibility of geothermal > heat for most of its down- - town area, to include many .. of its famous gambling ; casinos, as well as shopping I centres, apartment developi ments, schools and the state ■ university. I In Utah, the heating sysI tern at the state prison is : being redesigned for geothermal supply. >?. In Colorado, the town of

Steamboat Springs has plans to generate electric power from the geothermal resources that gave the town its name more than a century ago. In California the town of Susanville, in the north-east-ern uplands of the state, is looking to geothermal resources to revive the town’s economy. The closure of . a military base and other reverses led officials to fit 14 public buildings for geothermal heat and to plan for a “park of commerce” with geothermal heating for large commercial greenhouses, a pig farm and a distillery for industrial alcohol. Much of

the heating for the commercial area would be “cascaded” to serve a nearby state prison. The Geo-Heat Centre lists other projects under way in New Mexico, Montana, Washington and North and South Dakota. . Energy shortage and escalating costs are stimulating increasing attention to district heating systems, according to Ms Ann O. Fornes, author of the report. In contrast with fossil fuels, geothermal energy is a resource with comparatively predictable and stable annual costs after initial development, she said. ■