Raser Power Systems gets 2-year Mount Spurr geothermal permit
Alan Bailey for Petroleum News
Alaska’s Division of Oil and Gas has issued a two-year permit to Raser Power Systems LLC for geothermal exploration in three state land tracts covering about 7,666 acres on the southern flank of Mount Spurr. Mount Spurr is an active volcano, to the west of upper Cook Inlet, about 80 miles west of Anchorage. Raser Power Systems is a Utah-based geothermal drilling company. A geophysical survey conducted in the 1980s indicated the possibility of warm or hot brine 2,000 feet below a plateau at the entrance to the pass on the south flank of the mountain.
Raser Power will need an approved plan of operations and all relevant federal, state and local permits before commencing exploration activities. And the state can extend the permit for an additional year, if Raser Power has been unable to discover a viable resource, despite reasonable diligence in conducting exploration during the initial two-year term of the permit. The state’s final finding for the permit issuance specifies mitigation measures that would need to be taken, to prevent unacceptable environmental and cultural resource impacts from exploration activities.
“Alaska’s special geologic characteristics are what established our state as a national storehouse of energy,” said division Director Tom Stokes when announcing the issuance of the permit on March 12. “Approving this permit to explore for geothermal resources in the Mt. Spurr area is the next step forward in potentially expanding that storehouse to include new energy resources.”
Critical to the viability of a geothermal resource for power generation is proximity to a region with significant electrical power demand - the geophysical permit area lies about 40 miles from the Beluga gas-fired power station on the Alaska Railbelt electricity grid.
Previous exploration In a previous Mount Spurr exploration effort Ormat Technologies, a Lower 48 geothermal company, conducted aerial surveys, gravity and electromagnetic measurements, and some exploratory drilling in state leases between 2008 and 2011. The company failed to find a viable geothermal resource and subsequently relinquished the leases. However, that does not preclude the possibility of finding a resource at an as yet untested location - eruptions of Mount Spurr in 1952 and 1992 have indicated that there is a significant heat source associated with the volcano. In its final finding the division says that there is an untested exploration area to the west of where Ormat drilled, in an area where there is an increased risk of volcanic activity.
The current active vent for the volcano consists of Crater Peak, on the volcano’s southern flank, to the immediate north of the permitted exploration area. A discontinuous zone of weak geothermal activity, including warm seeps, springs and fumaroles, extends from south of Crater Peak to the north side of the volcano. There is also a meltwater lake, created by increased heat flux that began in 2004 at the mountain’s summit.
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