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January 16, 2009, 11:12 AM ET
Through a Fault of Its Own, Oregon Institute of Technology Will Produce Power
The Oregon Institute of Technology is setting up a geothermal plant that will provide 100 percent of the campus’s power, according to an Associated Press article.
Most geothermal installations use a heat-exchange unit and the constant temperature of the ground, around 50 degrees, to heat and cool buildings. Fluid runs through pipes that might be six feet deep in a horizontal installation or hundreds of feet deep in a vertical installation.
The institute’s installation is different, according to the article. The institute will drill down some 6,000 feet to a fault where the water temperature is 300 degrees. “They hope to tap enough water to generate up to 3 megawatts of electricity. In a binary power plant, the hot water goes through a heat exchanger, heating another material such as ammonia that boils at a low temperature, producing steam to turn a turbine,” the article says.
Drilling will cost almost $4-million, and power plants will cost another $4.5-million. The institute is getting $1-million from a congressional earmark and $1-million from the Oregon university system to help cover the costs. Officials at the institute expect to save $500,000 a year on electricity, plus earn $200,000 from selling hot water. The story says that the institute also plans to use the power plants as living classrooms.
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