[Geysers] GOSA's position on geothermal development

[Gordon Bower]

A few comments re the recent discussion on GOSA taking a position on geothermal development. (I have a feeling my viewpoint may not be a particularly popular one, but I'm sure we can keep the discussion civil.)

I am all for the preservation of interesting natural features, and of whatever is inside the national park boundaries. But I don't care for the notion of "oh my goodness, geothermal energy is a terrible idea." Some of these developments are proposed in places where there aren't surface hot springs at all; many are proposed in places where the surface hot springs have already been subjected to some kind of private development. If the spring is already encased in concrete and the water chlorinated before it's dumped into a swimming pool, by all means, get some energy out of it too before you dump it in the pool. (The owners of Chena Hot Springs up here in Alaska have installed a novel low-temperature power plant. Others on this list might be interested in the details: http://www.chenahotsprings.com/index.php?id=90 and links at the bottom of that page.) 

If GOSA can help circulate information about the effects of geothermal drilling, good. As Jeff said, solid documentation is needed, too. I'd like to see us have prepare such a packet.
A good point has also been made that the sooner we get information into the process, the better. It is indeed often too late by the time environmental impact statements are released and opened for official comment. However ---

Udo wrote:

"Since the organization is still relatively small and has limited resources I think aligning ourselves with other larger organizations would be beneficial.  Cooperation with an outfit that has a publicist and perhaps an attorney would be ideal, providing they agree with our viewpoint.  Yellowstone Association, Yellowstone Foundation, National Parks Foundation, Sierra Club(??) are some that come to mind."

I have to speak against this idea. Mostly because of that "agreeing with our viewpoint" part. I'm sure I am not the only one on this list who remembers the Old Faithful Protection Act. (Proposed in 1993, passed the house but failed in the Senate in 1994, it was going to ban any additional uses of the Corwin Springs geothermal area north of Mammoth, and ban issuing any new geothermal power leases within 15 miles of the park boundary.) The bill was half hype and half tripe.

A few years prior there had been some additional geothermal development at Corwin Springs. It went through the usual environmental review processes. A USGS report came out in 1991 about it, concluding that small-scale developments should be allowed but larger-scale projects at that site might require further study. A small development was approved, and used for a time with no adverse impacts.

The environmentalists decided this was the worst calamity ever to befall the Yellowstone region, notwithstanding the fact that nothing bad happened at all. They stirred up a huge public outcry, pressured the Montana representative into introducing this bill, and then proceeded to tell people all over the country to write to their representatives and "demand that our national treasures get the protection they deserve." Headlines in magazines screamed "Old Faithful is in Danger! Act now to save it!" 

The National Parks Conservation Association (which I had just joined a few months previous -- the first organization other than GOSA I joined after I moved away from home) made an enemy for life out of me, by sending out a magazine editorial AND a couple direct-mail letters full of the most ridiculous claims about how Old Faithful itself was at dire risk for imminent destruction if I didn't write to my Congressman to pass the Protection Act.

That is the sort of organization that we do not want to touch with a ten-foot pole, if we want to have ANY kind of credibility as a "disseminator of information" about geysers, as opposed to being seen as just another bunch of tree huggers blinded by their hobby. Are there other organizations that are better? Maybe. I don't know. I don't care to risk it. I'd much rather see us stick to making information available to folks on both sides of the debate. 

Jeff Cross also raised an interesting point:

"Here's an interesting question: if geothermal fluids are withdrawn from
point A, what is the greatest distance (point B) at which the effects of
geothermal fluid extraction have been noted?  Is it 1 mile?  3 miles?  10 miles?"

Yes, that's a very interesting question. It depends on a whole lot of things -- where fluid is reinjected as well as where it is extracted, and on whether the well is "upstream" or "downstream" of the thermal features. (If memory serves, the water for the Firehole River basins arrives from the west-northwest, more or less cold, and is heated as it approaches the west side of the Mallard Lake Dome, so no potential outside-the-park places to intercept it; the water for Mammoth arrives from the south and once it continues north out of the park it's already gone past Mammoth.) It's the sort of thing that a literatures search can give a good start on -- and the sort of the thing that I'd expect to see studied (probably over a period of a couple years!) with some pilot wells if Island Park were ever to be drilled, before anyone would approve a power plant. To be honest I'd love to see that study done, not that I think anyone is in a hurry to do it.

My memory of the accounts from Nevada and New Zealand is that 1 mile is about right. That's the same scale as the largest distances over which we've seen underground connections (if you count Norris disturbances -- the next-largest is Giant.) The 1960s wells in Yellowstone don't provide too much information about it, seeing as they weren't allowed to release huge amounts of water and heat before being capped. Our one recent experience was when Y-8 de-capped itself in November 1991 and created something like a Beehive steam phase in the Biscuit Basin parking lot for a couple weeks: it affected Jewel Geyser (apparently permanently - that's when it quit overflowing after its eruptions; I had expected it to be overflowing again a few weeks after the well was capped, and checked it at Christmastime to see if it had) but, so far as we could tell at the time, not the Silver Globes, Island Geyser, or anything farther away.

GRB


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