Alternative energy source found in Southwest Utah


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A company is claiming it has found the nation's biggest geo-thermal find in 25 years in southwest Utah.

This weekend they're already finishing up a power plant to provide electricity for Mickey Mouse's home town.

"We call them 'heat farms' because we're just extracting heat out of the earth," says Michael Hayter of Raser Technologies.

Alternative energy source found in Southwest Utah

The heat farm has sprouted quickly near Minersville. In the last several weeks, construction crews for Raser Technologies have installed 50 individual modules that produce electricity from steam.

According to Raser, the units can be installed and making power within three to five days of delivery. They make 10 Megawatts, enough for 8,000 homes already sold to the city of Anaheim, California.

"We knew we had enough for 10 megawatts when we started the development," says Hayter. "And as we went on we found a much larger resource."

Alternative energy source found in Southwest Utah

They found it hundreds of feet below ground where water is heated by molten rock. They started drilling into it about a year ago.

Now, some experts believe the underground hot water reservoir could produce as much as 238 MegaWatts, enough for a metropolis of 200,000 homes.

Raser's project in Utah was stimulated partly by a California mandate to get more electricity without adding to global warming. Dave Tabet, with the Utah Geological Survey, says, "It was a known geothermal resource area. But its potential hadn't been proven until Raser went in and did some more exploration."

At least a half dozen other places in Utah look promising for geothermal development.

Alternative energy source found in Southwest Utah

But Tabet says until there's more drilling they won't really know the true potential of all those areas.

Raser hopes to eventually develop the full potential in Beaver County with hundreds more modules. To do it they need to sell a lot more electricity. But they claim their price is now competitive with coal.

Among the advantages of geothermal; the resource doesn't get used up over time and there are no fuel costs. Raser hopes to eventually sell power to utilities in Utah as well as California.

E-mail: hollenhorst@ksl.com

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