Energy developers who use heat from the earth to create power want to explore a broader swath of the Newberry Volcano for the super-hot rock that lies miles underground.
The Deschutes National Forest is considering a request from the Bureau of Land Management to open 30,000 acres on the flanks of the volcano southeast of Bend for potential geothermal exploration and development. While it’s too early to say how many acres might eventually be developed, and how much energy could be produced, the request would add to the land currently available for geothermal prospecting at Newberry — what’s already a global frontier for emerging geothermal technologies.
The request comes as geothermal energy enters a new era in United States and creates local excitement as a clean and renewable energy source that could help meet the region’s ever-growing demand for power.
On Sept. 17, the U.S. Forest Service posted draft environmental review documents for the BLM’s “consent to lease” request, triggering a 30-day public comment period.
It’s an early step in a complicated process that could eventually lead to new geothermal projects at Newberry.
First, energy prospectors “nominate” lands they want to explore to the BLM, the federal agency in charge of underground mineral rights. But the BLM must first get permission to lease the land from the Forest Service, which manages the forest above Newberry’s hot rocks.
If that permission is granted, the BLM can sell underground rights to hot-rock prospectors in an auction.
“Just because we put out a lease, it doesn’t mean it’ll be bid on,” said Sarah Bennett, a spokesperson for the BLM in Portland. “Even if it is bid on, it’s up to the winning bidder whether they want to actively explore the area for those geothermal resources or not.”
According to the U.S. Forest Service, about 20,000 acres in the Deschutes National Forest are currently open to geothermal leasing, and geothermal infrastructure has been developed on about 60 acres.
Race for the hottest rock
The BLM declined to provide a list of developers who nominated the lands, citing proprietary information.
But a spokesperson for Mazama Energy, the Texas-based company demonstrating new geothermal technologies at Newberry, told the Source the company nominated a portion of the land for lease. Last month, the company announced $135 million in capital investment and said it’s eventually targeting 10 gigawatts of energy production at Newberry, which is equivalent to 10 nuclear reactors, enough energy to power millions of homes.
Geothermal has the potential to fill an important space in Oregon’s future energy needs, said Rob Del Mar, senior policy analyst with the Oregon Department of Energy. It doesn’t rely on burning fossil fuels, and unlike wind and solar, it can create energy around the clock, he said.
Mazama said it holds the record for the hottest geothermal system ever built, at 629 degrees Fahrenheit. In September, one of Mazama’s wells reached a depth of about 2 miles in just 15 days, aiming to reach a depth of 3 miles and a temperature of 750 degrees.
Meanwhile, another Texas-based company, Quaise Energy, says it’s creating the “world’s first commercial superhot geothermal power plant” at Newberry, with the capacity to expand up to 1 gigawatt. A spokesperson said the company plans to use millimeter wave drilling to create geothermal wells, which will allow it to reach superhot rock at depth and temperature that would be too expensive for other technologies.
Both companies are pioneering in “superhot” systems, drilling deep wells to create fractures in the rock and injecting water to produce electricity, borrowing from technologies developed by the oil and gas industry.
“That’s the very frontier of geothermal right now,” said Adam Schultz, a geophysics professor at Oregon State University who has founded geothermal exploration companies. “When you get to extremely high temperatures, the amount of water you need and the number of wells you need is dramatically reduced.”
Water use can vary depending on the project, but both Mazama and Quaise say their systems use about one-quarter the water of conventional geothermal or gas-fired power plants.
Because superhot geothermal projects use only a few dozen acres apiece, it won’t be feasible to develop all 30,000 acres in the lease request, Schultz said. Developers likely nominated lands with a broad brush to keep exploratory options open, he said.
Necklace of geothermal?
Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang has applauded the efforts to develop new geothermal technology at Newberry and talked about the potential for Central Oregon to become a regional exporter of energy.
Chang said recent announcements from geothermal companies have showed the potential for geothermal is becoming a reality. But now, he’s becoming anxious about what he called a “necklace of geothermal wells all around the Newberry Caldera.”
“I would love to see hundreds of megawatts of development around the Newberry Caldera. I don’t think that would have too big of a footprint and too big of an impact,” he said. “I don’t know how I feel about thousands of megawatts of development around the Newberry Caldera.”
The Newberry Caldera is a 5-mile-wide crater that formed in an explosive eruption about 65,000 years ago. Two high-elevation lakes, Paulina Lake and East Lake, sit within the caldera. It’s protected from geothermal drilling by the Newberry National Volcanic Monument.
Interest from geothermal developers was what spurred the monument’s designation in 1990.
Still, the BLM proposed to include nearly 5,000 acres within the monument boundary for geothermal leasing. The Forest Service’s proposed environmental review shoots down that request.
Fiona Noonan, wild lands and water program manager with nonprofit Central Oregon LandWatch, called the monument’s protections against energy development a “story of success.”
But she said the group will be watching closely when details about specific projects come forward. One initial concern, Noonan said, is that the Forest Service’s environmental statement proposes removing protections for trees larger than 21 inches wide, which applies to Eastern Oregon.
“Right now, these exploratory projects that are going on near Newberry, to LandWatch feel like pretty interesting opportunities with exciting potential for renewable energy in Central Oregon,” Noonan said. “We definitely have some uncertainties remaining when it comes to long-term forest impacts, when it comes to water use. That is something we would like to see by the companies proposing these projects, by the agencies overseeing these processes.”
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