News

U.S. Army going to drill two geothermal wells in Nevada

Alexander Richter 18 Mar 2009

The U.S. Army is drilling two geothermal wells at its Hawthorne Army Depot to power a generating plant that will be capable of providing electricity to approximately 50,000 homes in Western and Northern Nevada as well as the base, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Reported by the Nevada Appeal News Service, “the (U.S.) Army is drilling two geothermal wells at its Hawthorne Army Depot to power a generating plant that will be capable of providing electricity to approximately 50,000 homes in Western and Northern Nevada as well as the base, according to a senior Pentagon official.

Meeting with Mineral County commissioners and local community leaders, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army Paul P. Bollinger said he expects the drilling to be completed by early summer and the bidding process to private contractors for construction of the plant to begin shortly thereafter.

The drilling is being conducted with the technical assistance of the Navy which recently has built a geothermal energy-producing 300-megawatt facility at the China Lake Naval Weapons Station at Ridgecrest in California’s Mojave Desert.

The Hawthorne plant, Bollinger said, will be capable of generating 30 megawatts of power. He hopes it will be online by 2012.

The plant, using as its fuel source naturally occurring underground steam and hot water, will provide all required electrical power to the Depot here as well as selling surplus power to the north-south and east-west grids that provide power to public utilities serving homes and businesses in communities such as Fallon and Carson City.”

Source: Nevada Appeal News Service