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Show So tosGuel! Springs wheihr-i it would be better to build piping net"v',V: to carry the sfeam to the units,, which woull Include transmission trans-mission llr.es to Individual small units, or develop a system us'ng both central plant together with the smaller units. This week, at Phillips Petroleum Pet-roleum well 54-3, equipment for the small unit was unloaded after, it was Trenton, Tren-ton, New Jersey. The equipment equip-ment Included control room, switch gear and rotary separator sep-arator turbine. The technology techno-logy was developed by Biphase Bi-phase Energy Systems, joint venture of research Cottrell and Transamerica Delavel. Additional funding for the In the junipered foothills of the Mineral Mountains, northeast Milford, a hat-url hat-url caldron seethes a few hundred feet below the surface. sur-face. In earlier days, the area generally known as "Negro Mag Wash" offered hot baths and a swimming pool. And for those so inclined, in-clined, the area offered another attraction a sporting sport-ing house known as "Negro Mag's." But that's another story. Wednesday, there was a far different scene taking place at the Wash: Utah Power & Light Co. and Biphase Bi-phase Energy Systems unloaded un-loaded equipment that will be used to generate electricity this, fall from geothermal energy the first for Utah the third field development in the United States. Last fall, the company announced an-nounced plans to design and build a 20,000 -kilowatt geothermal geo-thermal plant at Roosevelt Hot Springs, northeast of Milford. Steam for the plant will be produced by Phillips Petroleum Co. The pilot plant is scheduled to be operating oper-ating in 1984. This spring, UP&L an-nouced an-nouced it planned to produce electricity from geothermal steam in the fall about 3 years ahead of schedule. The reason for the speedup: a breakthrough In geothermal technology .Thecompany still plans to build the 20,000-kllowatt 20,000-kllowatt unit, but will install a smaller, mobile unit that will produce 1,600 kilowatts of electricity initially. It will eventually produce about 7,000 kilowatts." There are two major differences dif-ferences between the small unit and the more conventional conven-tional 20,000 kilowatt unit: First, the small unit runs on both geothermal steam and geothermal water. The larger plant uses only geothermal geo-thermal steam. Second, the smaller unit will operate right next to the well elim -inatlng the problem of transporting trans-porting steam any distance. The 20 -megawatt unit requires re-quires pipes to carry the steam from the' wells to a central facility. The company plans to study the economics and technical feasibility of both approaches to determine development and fabrication effort was provided by the Electric Power Research Institute, In-stitute, the national electric utility research arm . "If there is enough steam in the geothermal wells, and costs are competitive, UP&L plans more plants which could produce 50,000 kilowatts kilo-watts each. The small unit will give the company researchers re-searchers information on the size and capability of the geothermal reservoir. Develppment at Roosevelt Hot Springs will occur In three phases. UP&L plans to test the unit at well 54-3 for two months to establish performance characteristics characteris-tics and then operate for a longer period of time to test endurance of the unit during the spring of 1982. In early 1983, the company plans to expand the unit which will increase in-crease its output from 1,600 kilowatts to approximately 7,000 kilowatts. By utilizing this smaller unit prior to 1984 when the 20,000 kilowatt " plant will go on line, re -searchers will have expanded ex-panded knowledge of this resource. Older than civilization heat has always been a universal energy source. Like the human body, the earth maintains a natural natu-ral heat flow although In some places temperatures are much higher than others. oth-ers. Bubbling mud pools, volcanos, hot springs and geysers mark these hot spots, where thermal energy escapes. Centuries ago, the ancient Romans harnessed this geothermal geo-thermal energy by channeling channel-ing hot springs to heat their public baths. And as early as 1904 Italians began generating gen-erating electricity from geothermal geo-thermal energyon an experimental experi-mental basis. Today, geothermal generated gener-ated power accounts for about 1,600,000 kilowatts of electricity worldwide. That may not seem like much considering that UP&L's Hunter Plant will produce the same amount when It Is completed in 1985. In the U.S. geothermal energy development has been increasing steadily since the 1960's. The Geysers in Cali-(Continued Cali-(Continued on Page 2) here's more about POWER PLANT fornia, the worlds' largest geothermal power complex, puts out over 900,000 kilowatts of electricity from 15 generating units running on steam from 200 geothermal geother-mal wells. j Since the '60's Utah Pow- er and Light has been exploring explor-ing geothermal energy as a possible heat source for electric generation. But federal fed-eral land lease policies presented pre-sented a major obstacle. In 1970 the geothermal steam I act was passed and a leasing leas-ing program allowed many companies to begin actively exploring for geothermal resources. re-sources. In 1974, Phillips petroleum petrole-um obtained a lease at Roosevelt Hot Spring and discovered a hydrothermal reservoir about 2,000 feet from the surface with a temp of over 500 degrees Fahrenheit Fahren-heit hot enough for commercial com-mercial electric generation. A series of tests estimated estimat-ed that the Roosevelt Hot Springs area could support a 200,00 to 400,000 kilowatt electric generating plant for as long as 35 years. Phillips and UP&L signed a contract In 1980 in which Phillips agreed to drill and explore for hot water, and UP&L agreed to provide the generating plant and steam transportation facilities. |