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Interior issues geothermal leasing plan Final PEIS sets the stage for program of geothermal leasing in western states; 20 mw plant possible at Bell Island in Alaska Alan Bailey Petroleum News
On Oct. 22 the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the release of the final programmatic environmental impact statement for geothermal leasing in 12 western states, including Alaska.
“Today I’m announcing a plan to make more than 190 million acres of federal land available for developing geothermal energy resources,” said Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne. “… In the plan that we’re presenting today … we’re proposing to identify about 118 million acres of public lands managed by Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and 79 million acres of National Forest System lands as available for potential geothermal leasing.”
Federal land within the National Park System will not be available for leasing, he said.
Kempthorne said that the United States will need a wide variety of energy sources, including geothermal energy, to meet the country’s future energy needs.
“Because geothermal energy is replenished by heat sources deep in the Earth it is a renewable resource that generates electricity with minimal carbon emissions,” Kempthorne said.
World leader With about 16,000 gigawatt-hours of geothermal electricity generated in 2005, the United States is the world leader in geothermal power generation, Kempthorne said. And almost half the current U.S. geothermal production and about 90 percent of all U.S. geothermal resources occur on federal lands.
“Under a reasonable development scenario the plan that we propose could produce 5,540 megawatts of new electric generation capacity from geothermal resources by 2015, which is enough power for 5.5 million homes,” Kempthorne said.
BLM has already conducted three geothermal lease sales and says that it hopes to have two or more sales per year, as nominations come in for land that is included within the PEIS.
The draft PEIS was issued in June and the public comment period for that draft plan ended on Sept. 19. The final plan now moves into a 60-day consistency review by state governors, before DOI can issue a record of decision. The state governors will verify that the plan is consistent with state plans, programs and policies, Kempthorne said.
Proposed action The proposed action in the PEIS involves opening for leasing much of the BLM and National Forest Land that has geothermal potential — DOI saw this action as preferable to just leasing land near existing power transmission lines. BLM will have to modify 112 land use plans to accommodate the possibility of geothermal leasing. Those land use plans include the Central Yukon, Kobuk-Seward and Ring of Fire resource management plans in Alaska.
And BLM and the National Forest Service will issue or deny any geothermal lease applications that were pending as of Jan. 1, 2005; identify any public lands that are closed or open to leasing; and develop a list of stipulations, best management practices and procedures for future leasing.
Alaska contains extensive lands with volcanic and hot spring features that present geothermal potential. These lands occur in the Aleutian Islands, the Alaska Peninsula, Interior Alaska and Southeast Alaska. Federal land occurs in all of these regions, but the PEIS points out that under the terms of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act a substantial portion of that federal land has been withdrawn from mining and mineral leasing — these land withdrawals can be revoked upon BLM recommendation and by final determination by the Secretary of the Interior, the PEIS says.
Three Alaska sites The PEIS says that in Alaska there are high potential sites for commercial geothermal electricity generation in federal land in Hot Springs Bay Valley in Southeast Alaska, at Bell Island Hot Springs in Southeast Alaska, at Circle Hot Springs in the Interior and at Unalaska in the Aleutian Islands (the City of Unalaska has been pursuing a proposal for a geothermal power plant on the side of the Makushin Volcano, although Petroleum News understands that the planned geothermal source for this project lies in private land).
There are, in fact, pending applications for three 2,560-acre leases at the Bell Island site, which lies within the Tongass National Forest about 43 miles north of Ketchikan. The applications envisage a 20-megawatt power plant to provide power for Bell Island Hot Springs, and possibly to the nearby Yes Bay Lodge via underwater cable. The power plant might also connect to a future Swan Lake to Tyee Lake Electrical Intertie that would connect with the City of Ketchikan and would cross Bell Island.
Exploration at Bell Island would involve drilling some six temperature gradient holes to test for a commercially viable source.
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