GEOTHERMAL HEATS UP
Sector makes renewed bid as alternative energy source to Site C dam proposal.
Tapping the heat of the earth as a major power source isn’t a new concept, but Canada’s geothermal-energy sector is making an updated bid to get British Columbia interested in its potential as an alternative to BC Hydro’s Site C dam proposal.
B. C. could generate 5,500 megawatts of power from geothermal sources, equivalent to the amount of electricity from Site C, at prices of 10 cents per kilowatt hour or below, also comparable to Site C, according to new research by the Canadian Geothermal Energy Association ( CanGEA).
“It’s a massive advance, it seems to me,” sustainable- energy proponent Guy Dauncey said about CanGEA’s research, “because they’ve followed all the international protocols ( for calculating resource potential) and done some pretty good homework.”
To Dauncey, the timing is apropos, with the provincial government preparing to make a decision on whether to proceed with Site C sometime in November, and the private power sector’s lobby group, Clean Energy B. C., already working on submitting to cabinet a portfolio of smaller proposals as another alternative to the $ 8- billion megaproject.
The Joint Review Panel that examined BC Hydro’s application for Site C also noted that the utility hadn’t demonstrated the need for the dam on the timetable it had proposed, and that there were potential alternatives that hadn’t been fully explored, including geothermal.
Utility- scale geothermal energy involves drilling thousands of metres into the earth to tap hot spots, such as volcanic zones, to draw heat to the surface to generate steam to drive power turbines.
Hot springs are surface indications of places to examine, and Meager Creek north of Pemberton is one area where a private developer has drilled exploration wells and found the high temperatures needed for geothermal energy, but none that could get hot water to the surface for a successful project.
The province has no geothermal generation now, but the U. S. has more than 3,000 megawatts of geothermal generation installed, according the Department of Energy, some at plants that have been in operation for decades.
And Dauncey noted that among the countries that exploit the resource, highly- volcanic Iceland gets about 30 per cent of its electricity from geothermal power.
BC Hydro’s most recent Integrated Resource Plan identified about 16 locations in hot zones that could deliver an estimated 780 megawatts of generating capacity, but at widely varying costs.
The CanGEA work, Dauncey said, expands what B. C. knows about the resource, and he would like
We’d love to have some geothermal in the system. RANDY REIMANN BC HYDRO’S DIRECTOR OF RESOURCE PLANNING
to see the province put a one- year moratorium on the Site C decision to give the industry some time to explore the research further.
“Once they decide on Site C, the industry shuts down,” Dauncey said. “There will be no new geothermal.”
From BC Hydro’s perspective, geothermal power would be a welcome addition to the utility’s mix of resources, but it is limited in its mandate to develop proposals.
“We’d love to have some geothermal in the system,” said Randy Reimann, BC Hydro’s director of resource planning.
“It’s a good, base load resource that provides capacity,” he added and, unlike intermittent resources like wind or run- of- river, geothermal “is there when you need it.”
The problem, he said, is that there is a lot of uncertainty in the exploration. Developers can drill expensive wells in promising spots, but, as in the case of Meager Creek, still come up empty.
Reimann said that since 2002, government energy policy has limited BC Hydro’s ability to engage in such exploration on its own. The utility’s mandate is to leave new energy proposals up to the private sector.
BC Hydro hoped that the Meager Creek proposal, now owned by a company called Ram Power Corp., would be submitted as a bid for new private power sources that the utility opened up in 2006, Reimann added, but that never happened.
He said that he hasn’t seen CanGEA’s results, but he hopes they will provide better mapping of sites with favourable resource potential, as well as better indications of the costs of developing geothermal to include in BC Hydro’s next Integrated Resource Plan.
“What we’ve seen/ heard of ( CanGEA’s research) is that there are some shortcomings,” he said.
CanGEA’s effort is just the latest research effort to encourage geothermal power. In 2011, the Geological Survey of Canada calculated that the country has enough geothermal potential to meet all of its electricity needs with as few as 100 projects.
Dauncey said governments could kickstart more geothermal exploration by extending some of the incentives other industries receive, such as the flow- through tax credits that company shareholders get for the exploration work of junior mining companies.