Geothermal system replaces local fossil fuels

COURTESY NEW YORK TIMES -- A map of Boise's geothermal energy plan.

Boise State University continues to go green through a partnership with the City of Boise that expands a geothermal system throughout campus.

“The Boise geothermal system is a utility run by the city,” said John Gardner, associate vice president for energy research, policy and campus sustainability. “We (BSU) will become a paying customer of the city for that resource.”

The planning process started almost 30-years-ago.

“The system was originally designed to go to BSU when it was built in the early ’80s,” said Boise’s Geothermal program coordinator, Kent Johnson.

“There were some problems with the system when it first came online,” Johnson said. “Water levels started to drop so that kind of scared everyone off. There was a moratorium issued for any further development so the extension across the river to BSU never happened.”

Local interest in the expansion diminished even when water levels rose back to the original state.

“It’s really been since the early 2000s when we put an injection well in and water levels have been recovering, so we can consider further expansion,” Johnson said.

Community relations supervisor, Vince Trimboli explained the injection well process.

“Injection well means that the water that goes through the system, 100 percent is injected back into the geothermal aquifer. Whereas before we put the water into the river,” Trimboli said.

According to Johnson, interest increased when a BSU student intern working with him at public works asked him to speak at an engineering club meeting. Another student seeking election for student body president was in attendance and began the process of applying geothermal heating to campus. He sought support for geothermal heating by speaking with representatives from the university and the city to get the ball rolling once more.

For four years, Boise State and the city jointly applied for congressional appropriations but did not receive funds until recently.

U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), designated $250,000 for the project in the fiscal year 2008 in a bill that was approved by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

“About two years ago we got a small grant through the HUD (Housing and Urban Development) to do some planning and then the next year we got a combination of HUD and DOE (Department of Education) money to construct what we’re calling ‘phase one,’” Johnson said.

Phase one includes continuing pipelines across the Boise River up Capitol Avenue toward campus to six buildings: the Morrison Center, the Interactive Learning Center, the Multipurpose Classroom Facility, the Mathematics and Geosciences building, the Administration building and the Student Union building. The projected cost is $3.4 million.

Boise State President Bob Kustra voiced his support and enthusiasm in a statement to the faculty newsletter.

“This initial appropriation is an important step forward in the installation of geothermal heating on the Boise State campus,” Kustra said. “When the overall project is completed, it will provide a significant benefit to Boise State for heating our expanding infrastructure in a locally available, sustainable manner. The availability of geothermal heating also offers our faculty and students new research opportunities.”

Although it may sound as if everything is being paid for by government grant money, it’s not. To have a DOE grant, the DOE requires 50 percent in local shares.

“Boise State is going to come up with money to help pay for the conversion of the buildings ($800,000) and the city is going to come up with the other money to pay for the pipelines ($400,000),” said Johnson. “To a certain extent, it was money that was going to have to be spent anyway to work on the conversion of the buildings. We thought we had all the money we needed, we kind of had to change the scope of the project. That means now that the DOE grant with local shares is $2.8 million. The HUD grant was $665,000. That not only covers getting the pipe but also the conversion of the buildings.

“Since February, we (were) notified we got phase two, which is basically going to start at the Student Union building and run back over to Broadway Avenue and then connect the system,” Johnson added.

According to Johnson, phase two would also include connecting the Center for Environmental Science and Economic Development building (CESED) as well as possibly the Norco building.

The time frame is as long as the project is big.

“Because of the federal funding we have to go through the federal environmental review process,” Johnson said. “We might be able to start the environmental review process in the next couple of weeks, which may take a year. For actually heating buildings, the earliest would be fall 2011.”

The education of geothermal heating holds a lot of potential. Some residents of Boise generally don’t think of geothermal heating as an option. The interest in the benefits and possibilities of geothermal heating will continue to rise as the idea of going green takes a tighter grasp on the community.

“The fact (is), any time we’re heating with geothermal then we’re probably displacing, in most cases, the burning of fossil fuel. It will be able to provide more renewable energy for community and bring a benefit to the air quality,” Johnson said.

According to Johnson, approximately one out of 10 buildings in downtown Boise is heated using geothermal energy.

“It’s still a little bit unusual, different, maybe university students get excited about that but sometimes building holders don’t,” Johnson said. “They want to do it the way they’ve done it the last 50 years. That’s why it’s exciting to go over to the university where we have more people interested in looking at the leading edge of stuff.”

“The fact of the matter is, a lot of technology used to utilize geothermal energy is modifying the technology from gas boilers, maybe there is something out there to make it even more efficient. The university would be a good place for that to happen,” Johnson said.

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Posted by Arbiter Staff on Apr 8 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.