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Show Solar, Geotliermal combine, in Milford Steam Project! I n e t- xy-ys . ys , . ..,-..,. '- - " . HOT WATER. Steam from the super-hot water of Roosevelt Hot Springs escapes from a pipe during flow tests. The Springs are the site of a power plant planned by Phillips Petroleum. Solar energy will power instruments the U.S. Environmental En-vironmental Protection Agency will use in a monitoring study around Roosevelt Hot Springs in soulhestern Utah, the site of planned commercial production of electricity from geothermal energy. Roosevelt Hot Springs, about 10 miles east of Milford, at the base of the Mineral Mountains, was once a surface hot spring used as a health spa. In the early 1940's, wells were drilled in nearby valleys for irrigation and within a few years the spring dried up. But the hot water is apparently ap-parently still there, deep underground, and the Phillips Petroleum Company Com-pany plans to use this geothermal resource to produce electricity. It expects ex-pects to construct a plant that will produce 50 megawatts of electric power (50 MWe) by 1980. This is equivalent to 55,000 barrels of Oil per year, and is enough to supply power to a town the size of Cedar City. If the plans go through, the plant will be the nation's first commercial liquid-dominated liquid-dominated geothermal resource development. It will use the super-heated water of Roosevelt Hot Springs under pressure, rather than steam, to generate electricity. EPA's research Laboratory in Las Vegas, Nevada, is conducting a study at the Hot Springs, The study vill test and demonstrate an integrated monitoring system to measure the environmental impact of the new plant. Water in Roosevelt Hot Springs is not the "rock soup" of come geothermal sources, but it does contain a high concentration of take over the job. Each panel produced 34 watts of electricity, supplying sup-plying enough direct current to power the instruments at each meteorological station. Each solar monitoring panel costs $1150, making the cost of electricty about $25 per watt. This is astronomical when compared com-pared to home power costs, but it is far cheaper than the $50,000 price for bringing a power line to the site or the cost of sending a person to change batteries every few clays for the two or more years of the study. Although the plant is only in the planning stages, EPA is already collecting environmental en-vironmental dala so that it can detect and measure changes that may take place once the plant is built and operating. Scientists from the Las Vegas Laboratory are tagging and trapping native animals in the area and measuring the heavy metals and other elements and compounds in their body tissues. They are identifying plant populations and collecting plants and soil samples for analysis. And they have control plots staked out where they can apply known amounts of geothermal water and pollutants and then measure the storage capacity and reactions of different species. Air sampling stations will begin operating in February, and water sampling will start shortly thereafter. The data collected from these aspects of the study over the next two years will form the baseline against which similar data collected when the plant is operating can be compared. minerals. The water has about 7,000 parts per million of total dissolved solids, something that only sheep and ducks might safely drink. Expected pollutants include hydrogen sulfide, ozone, radon, and a variety of heavy metals. The integrated monitoring system to be tested by EPA will monitor all environmental en-vironmental media - air, ground water and surface water, soils, plants, and animals. Traditional monitoring focuses on only one medium, such as air or water, rather than on the total environment. It therefore may miss an important effect which may have its ultimate impact on man. The solar energy comes into the study through EPA's use of five photovoltaic panels. Each panel contains 72 solar cells which convert sunlight into electrical power. These will power five meteorological stations the Las Vegas Laboratory has set up around the geothermal geother-mal site, 10 miles from the nearest power line. EPA needs the meteorological data to select the best locations for air monitoring stations. Right now, the meteorological instruments are powered by batteries that need changing every 4 or 5 days. Within the next 2 weeks, the solar panels will |