My wife, Zan, and I were recently on the Big Island, Hawaii, and while there we toured the state's only geothermal plant. It's located close to the town of Hilo on the island's east side and on the flank of Kilauea, the world's most active volcano.
This is the entire control room of the 30 megawatt facility. Two affable men explained how the whole plant worked inside of ten minutes.
Here's the scoop: Engineers drill a hole about 6,000 feet down where the magma has heated the surrounding area to about 400-500 degrees Farenheit. An injection well pumps water into this hot layer where it is turned to steam. A second well is drilled close by and the steam is released into ten turbines that generate electricity.
It's a little bit more complex than that, but not much.
Once the capital costs of setting up the facility are recouped, about ten years in this case, all they have are maintenance and operational costs since the energy source is essentially free forever. There is no pollution to speak of with these plants.
This 30 MW represents around 20% of the island's demand for power. Another 5% comes from wind and 5% from hydro. The rest of Hawaii's electricity is generated by burning oil. Yes, tankers of dirty, expensive oil are brought in and boatloads of money are shipped back to the oil companies.
Oil burning is one of the single biggest sources of pollution coming from the whole state.
Richard Dods, a consultant working with the Israeli company that owns the facility,
Ormat Technologies, says that in theory, there's enough geothermal capacity here to power all of Hawaii. In practice however, getting power from island to island is a major challenge. More locations are currently being scouted out in order to place additional geothermal plants close to areas of greatest demand.
Geothermal is particularly attractive since it's a "forever" renewable power source much like wind and solar - but without the intermittency of those clean energy sources. This means it is a "base load" energy. Clean base load energy is particularly important since that is usually generated by nukes, burning coal or, in the case of Hawaii, oil. As Hawaii taps into more of this clean geothermal energy, they can retire, one by one, their dirty, expensive oil burners.
Here's a shot of the facility. It uses only about five acres out of 500 acres of property. The whole facility employs 18 people and is very efficient all the way around.
And as a timely follow up to my story above, read yesterday's NY Times article on Hawaii's plan for Electric Cars after the jump.
Here is the full text of the NY Times article (in case the link goes bad).
Hawaii Endorses Plan for Electric Cars
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: December 2, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO — The State of Hawaii and the Hawaiian Electric Company on Tuesday endorsed an effort to build an alternative transportation system based on electric vehicles with swappable batteries and an “intelligent” battery recharging network.
The plan, the brainchild of the former Silicon Valley software executive Shai Agassi, is an effort to overcome the major hurdles to electric cars — slow battery recharging and limited availability.
By using existing electric car technologies, coupled with an Internet-connected web of tens of thousands of recharging stations, he thinks his company, Better Place L.L.C. of Palo Alto, Calif., will make all-electric vehicles feasible.
Mr. Agassi has succeeded in assembling a growing consortium of national governments, regional planning organizations and one major car company. Tuesday’s announcement follows earlier endorsements from Israel, Denmark, Australia, Renault-Nissan and a coalition of Northern California localities supporting the idea leading to the deployment of an electric vehicle with a range of greater than 100 miles, beginning at the end of 2010 in Israel.
The company plans test deployments of vehicles in 2009 and broad commercial sales in 2012.
Mr. Agassi has raised $200 million in private financing for his idea. In October, he obtained a commitment from the Macquarie Capital Group to raise an additional $1 billion for an Australian project.
On Tuesday, he said that he was optimistic about his project despite the dismal investment and credit markets because his network could provide investors with an annuity. Users of his recharging network would subscribe to the service, paying for access and for the miles they drive.
Given the downturn in the mortgage market, he said that investors are looking for new classes of assets that will provide dependable revenue streams over many years.
“I believe the new asset class is batteries,” he said. “When you have a driver in a car using a battery, nobody is going to cut their subscription and stop driving.”
Mr. Agassi has argued that even if oil prices continued to decline, his electric recharging network — which ideally would use renewable energy sources like solar and wind — could provide competitively priced energy for a new class of vehicles.
He supposes that his network idea will be appropriate first for “island” economies that typically have significantly higher energy costs, and then will become more cost-competitive as it is scaled up.
“We always knew Hawaii would be the perfect model,” he said in a telephone interview. “The typical driving plan is low and leisurely, and people are smiling.”
Hawaii is a relatively small market with high energy costs. The state has about 1.2 million cars and replaces 70,000 to 120,000 vehicles annually.
Drivers on the islands also rarely make trips of more than 100 miles, meaning there will be less need for his proposed battery recharging stations. Part of Mr. Agassi’s model depends on quick-change service stations to swap batteries for drivers who need to use their cars before they have completely recharged their batteries.
Peter Rosegg, a spokesman for the Hawaiian Electric Company, said that Better Place would become a major customer for electricity and was also planning to invest in renewable energy sources that would be connected to the electric grid.
“It’s going to be a nonexclusive agreement, but so far they’re the only one that has shown up,” Mr. Rosegg said.
In late November, the mayors of San Francisco and other major Bay Area cities endorsed the Better Place network to help create an electric recharging network by 2012. The company estimates that it will cost $1 billion to build a charging network in the Bay Area that may create as many as half a million charging stations.
Despite challenges, the Better Place model is promising, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California, Berkeley. It could appeal to owners of fleets of vehicles and to early adopter customers who are willing to work through the difficulties that will inevitably accompany a new transportation system. “It has a lot of promising features,” he said.
[Source:
NY Times]
Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and noted New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman blazed through town recently to promote his new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America."
Comments
Los Angeles electricians could build an electric car from scratch. Do you need a mechanical background at all or is it just hooking up wires from a battery to an engine? I could get some contractors together and build my own! You've inspired me!!!