Show Western Resources WRAP-UP Geothermal developments By Hele ne C. Washington-Demonstration planned in the geothermal resource areas in the in New In southwestern in southern Idaho and in the Imperial Valley of southern will soon be turning on electric lights in these If current plans work four geothermal projects will lead to the construction of plants with a capacity totalling more than kilowatts of power during the next With more to come Baca Project Stirs Up The New Mexico Baca geothermal project has stirred up the most interest have been inundated with requests for information on our geothermal President J. D. of the Public Service of New Mexico recently wrote to Western Resources Wrap-up He called It most exciting pro- that has been involved In since he assumed the utility presidency In the early Geothermal resources are literally heat from the interior of the earth in the of dry hot or a com- of If the Baca project would be the first commercial- scale plant to generate electricity from underground reservoirs of hot Plans call for a start on the project in fiscal 1979 beginning with the first electricity due to come on the line in the spring of A geothermal generating plant would be constructed in the Valles Caldera of the Jemez Mountains In the Rio Grande Valley in New about 60 miles north of Albuquerque and about 19 miles west of Los water from underground reservoirs of volcanic rock would be brought to the surface via producing The water would be converted into which would spin a turbine generator capable of producing KW of It would be fed in- to the power grid at going The geothermal resources are located on what is known as the Baca They are held by Union Oil of which has been drilling test wells in the area since and is a pioneer in the development of mal resources in California and The Department of Energy In 1977 asked for bids on demonstration geothermal It announced on July 6 it had selected the Baca project for cooperative development as propos- ed by Union and Cost of the pro- is estimated at In excess of Richard C. of Union told a New Mexico legislative natural resource committee in Santa Fe on July Of that amount DOE would pick up about 50 percent and Union and the other 50 explained the planned work as will drill the re- wells and will construct and operate the separately and other surface facilities required to sup- ply clean dry steam to the generating The generating plant will be con- and operated by It will also provide the transmission facilities required to connect the plant to the company's existing transmission net- work The initial demonstration will take five Including operation and he has been designated project and Jack D. Maddox of is already on the job as Baca Project supply the initial KW generating we anticipate drilling 12 additional wells and constructing a pipeline system to connect a total of 17 producing wells and three injection Lindwall About a dozen wells have been drilled to date at the Redondo Creek site of the proposed but less than half are capable of producing at commercial Drill- Ing is from to feet Testing which Union has done at the Redondo Creek site indicates the underground reservoir a minimum of million acre-feet of hot with temperatures ranging from degrees F. is enough to produce a minimum of KW of electricity for 30 years based on heat in the water By the we also may be able to recover a portion of the heat in the In this way the total energy recovery could possibly represent three times the energy present in the water Lindwall told the New Mexico There are no major en- problems emanating from the project he Hot and Haft Reid Area Geothermal Super- visor of the U.S. Geological Survey In Menlo has told the Roosevelt Hot Springs area In Beaver County in southwestern Utah appears to have a particularly promising geothermal Utah Power and Light of Salt Lake Phillips Petroleum of and Rogers International of San Francisco are working under a cooperative agreement to build a KW geothermal electric power plant at Roosevelt Hot Springs near The geothermal resource is hot water over degrees F under the control of which has been do- ing a lot of exploration and develop- ment work In geothermal resources In the Rogers wW construct and operate the which is expected to cost abut mill If current plans work Completion of the plant for operation is targeted for June Initially plans to buy the electric power from the But it will have the option to purchase the plant after and If It has been operated for a period of time to satisfy of the long-term reliability of the geothermal according to a on the Rogers Engineering the parent company of Rogers has done a feasibility study of indicating two KW units could be built at Roosevelt Hot Financing of one or more units of the plant Is expected to be handled by Bank of America with backing from the Department of Energy's loan guaranty DOE is itself doing some work at Roosevelt Hot Field testing ha been done there recently on a new system called a helical screw expander to generate electricity from the hot geothermal fluids in the DOE is attempting to determine whether this is a more satisfactory method to turn the hot fluids into steam than the conven- |