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Figure fudging
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Don Gillispie, president and CEO of Alternate Energy Holding Inc., appears to have answers to the West’s energy problems.
His plans call for the construction of an advanced design nuclear power plant in Idaho’s Owyhee County. These plans propose an advanced plant that will eliminate the need for excessive amounts of cooling water. To promote his power plant, Gillispie has spoken of the environmental and economic benefits to the state of Idaho.
Don Gillispie’s opinion piece, titled “21 companies cannot be wrong,” ran in the February 19 issue of The Arbiter. His piece was designed to show the superiority of nuclear power over all other alternative power methods being considered in southern Idaho.
Gillispie’s article hinged upon his claims of expensive geothermal power compared to his cheaper nuclear power. He claimed that the Raft River geothermal power plant was selling power at the rate of 61 cents per kilowatt-hour, and that this was more than 10 times the going rate.
According to the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, U.S. Geothermal – the Boise company that runs the Raft River power plant – sells power to Idaho Power at the rate of 5.36 cents per kilowatt-hour, or $53.60 per megawatt-hour. It appears that Gillispie had his figure off by a simple decimal point. But in an attempt to clarify his numbers he came back with 73.96 cents per kilowatt-hour.
“This approval amounts to 73.92 cents per kilowatt-hour rate for residential customers if there is no add-on by IPC [.] or about 12 times their current rates. That is expensive power by any accounts . highest I have seen for base load in the U.S. [.] nuclear was 1.68 per kilowatt-hour, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute,” Gillispie said.
The problem with these new numbers is that they are based on negotiated power rates between U.S. Geothermal and Idaho Power for the year 2033 and they are off by a factor of 10.
Douglas Glaspey, founder and director of U.S. Geothermal, commented on Gillispie’s new math.
“There seems to be some trouble converting between megawatt-hours and kilowatt-hours. The $73.92 per megawatt-hour, 25 years from now, is actually 7.392 cents per kilowatt-hour, not 73.92 cents per kilowatt-hour. If you divide $73.92 by 1,000 you get $.07392, unless my math is wrong,” Glaspey said.
Idaho Power’s new rate for residential customers is 6.9 cents per kilowatt-hour during summer months and 6.4 cents per kilowatt-hour during the rest of the year.
It appears from IPUC data, that the rates being charged by U.S. Geothermal are in line with market prices.
Gillispie is also the CEO of the Idaho Energy Complex, the corporation dedicated to the building of a 1,600 megawatt nuclear power plant in Owyhee County. His resume includes management positions at Duke Energy, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nuclear Management Company.
Nuclear power utilizes the thermal energy resulting from the decay of uranium isotopes. Operating costs may be lower for nuclear as compared to geothermal, but decommissioning costs for geothermal plants do not include disposal of radioactive waste.
U.S. Geothermal wants to eventually produce 100 megawatts of power, utilizing three geothermal plants on Raft River and one plant at Neal Hot Springs in eastern Oregon.
Binary geothermal plants of the type used by U.S. Geothermal, make use of the energy difference between the naturally occurring hot waters found at a depth of 5,000 feet and surface air temperatures to drive the turbines which power the electric generators.
Theoretically these plants can function as long as there is sufficient hot water to power the turbines, this compares to the approximate 40-year lifetime of a nuclear power plant.
CLAUDIO BEAGARIE
News Writer