Could the same forces that heat the water at Mount Princeton and Cottonwood hot springs resorts, be harnessed to power nearly half of all Chaffee County households?
That’s the question being posed by a local development and investors group in tandem with researchers from the Colorado School of Mines.
A team of students from Mines will be in the area through the month, collecting detailed geophysical information to better understand the area’s deep gravity, magnetic and seismic profile as it relates to the deep underground reservoir potential for geothermal energy.
If the remaining geophysical data continues to point in the right direction, a $40 million geothermal power transmission plant could be built in or near Chalk Creek Canyon, a hotbed of geothermal activity along CR 162 in Chaffee County.
The envisioned geothermal power plant could generate 10 megawatts of electricity, enough to power roughly 10,000 homes.
Heading up the research and potential development of such a facility is Mount Princeton Geothermal LLC. The speculative renewable energy company recently held an open house at Frontier Ranch to explain what’s known and what’s yet to understand about the capacity for local geothermal electricity.
An all-star cast of some of the state’s most knowledgeable experts on geothermal potential turned out for the mini-conference at Frontier Ranch. Guests included a team of researchers from the Colorado School of Mines Department of Geophysics; Joani Matranga, Western Regional Representative for the Governor’s Energy Office; and Michael Hayter, Director Geothermal Development for Raser Technologies.
The remainder of the 80 or so folks in attendance included a handful of investment bankers as well as local homeowners, government and business leaders including Sangre De Cristo Electric Association’s Bill Bennett. Sangre De Cristo has expressed interest in incorporating geothermal into its energy portfolio.
Interest in the development of alternative energy has been propelled by Gov. Bill Ritter’s pledge to make developing a new energy economy a key part of his administration’s focus.
Matranga told the group the state is supportive of small-scale local renewable energy production adding that geothermal seems very promising.
Indeed, over the past year, newspaper reports indicate geothermal power is enjoying popularity among leading state and local energy experts. Tom Plant, Director of the Colorado Office of Energy Management and Conservation said a year ago that geothermal electrical generation should “serve as a cornerstone in Colorado’s renewable energy future.”
At the state’s first geothermal working group meeting last year, Curtis Framel, US Department of Energy, said geothermal could “help secure the nation’s energy future while diversifying the country’s energy portfolio.” Framel also noted that geothermal represents a “tremendous economic development benefit for rural Colorado” by creating jobs, diversifying the local economy, and increasing the tax base.
Contrasted against wind and solar, geothermal energy is the lowest impact and most consistent source of round-the-clock power, according to Raser’s Hayter. Raser, which is already exploring geothermal energy opportunities in Nevada and Utah, has its eye on Colorado too.
Closer to home, the Frontier Ranch meeting offered a time to share questions and answers about the project and its potential impact on neighbors in the area.
Fred Henderson, an owner in Mount Princeton Geothermal LLC, said that quite a bit is already known about the geophysics of the area around Chalk Creek Canyon thanks to exploratory research conducted in the 1970’s. At that time, Amax Mining Co., sought new energy sources to make energy self-reliant its molybdenum mine north of Leadville.
Henderson explained the leading system the investors group has been looking at to convert geothermal energy to electricity is a “non-consumptive pump and dump” system. Hot water would be pumped up through the ground from a deep hot water (hydrothermal) reservoir and once the heat from it is extracted at the power plant, the water would be returned directly back into the deep reservoir.
Community issues include the project’s affect on the water table, ground pollution, as well as visual, noise and heat impacts. Henderson said that these issues will be monitored in collaboration with the community, but using the non-consumptive system above, he expects these impacts will be minimal or non-existent.
Henderson, who conducted his own geological study of the area, said he concluded the Chalk Creek Canyon area is a pretty good area to look for a site to produce geothermal energy since four of the hottest wells in the state can be found here. The very hottest known springs are the Hortense and Wright Hot Springs, just west of Mount Princeton resort, where the water temperature is around 185 degrees Fahrenheit. In addition, the Colorado Geological Survey just issued a state-wide heat flow map that shows the Mt. Princeton area has the highest geothermal heat flow in Colorado.
A team of Colorado School of Mines professors and students are in the area to conduct research that will help fill in the blanks that will complete the geothermal energy capacity assessment of the area. Mines geophysics profs Michael Batzle and Andre Revil described their methods, including a 30-ton vibrator truck used to examine the “deep seismic geometry” of the area, as the equivalent of medical resonance imagining (MRI) only for the earth rather than the human body.
A public review of the initial data will be held May 22 at Deer Valley Ranch.
About Mount Princeton Geothermal LLC
Ownership stake in the LLC is being divided as follows: Frontier Ranch and Mount Princeton Holdings (parent company of the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs Resort) each will hold 40 percent interest in the company. The remaining 20 percent is divided evenly between two local geothermal landowners in the canyon, Hank Held and Fred Henderson.
Stanford and Harvard educated, Henderson is the resident expert on economic geology and geochemistry. He is an expert in satellite remote sensing systems for global geology. He is also member of the National Advisory Council of Environmental Policy and Technology for the US Environmental Protection Agency. He and Adams own their own Deadhorse Lake (renamed Lake Angelie) property, another area of geothermal activity. Henderson is happy to answer questions about the project. Email him at hendcos@msn.com.
Denver attorney Hank Held fondly recalls childhood visits to the family cabin his grandmother bought up Chalk Creek Canyon. Held said he originally considered retiring to the area to start a geothermally heated greenhouse for growing hydroponic tomatoes but after meeting Henderson, he said his thoughts turned toward the possibility of developing geothermal power. Held said the company is considering opening up ownership to additional investors and equity partners.
To learn more about geothermal energy, check out these web sites:
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