Take a tour at Coso Geothermal
The 12,000-acre Coso Geothermal Plant operation located in Southern Inyo County is a fascinating place to visit, as twenty local Inyo County residents discovered at last month’s tour of the facility. Coso Operating Company offers tours as part of its educational efforts to inform the public of the advantages of geothermal electricity produces by geothermal energy.
The plant operation is located several miles east of Route 395 near Coso Junction, and the only way to really see it is to take advantage of Coso Operating Company’s tours. The plant is located on land owned by the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station and is a restricted area. While there is little danger of being bombed while on the tour, the plant and its employees do have to shut-down and leave every so often before the naval air base conducts weapons testing or bombing, said geothermal facility General Manager Chris Ellis.
Meeting the visitors at the company’s office located just off Highway 395 at Coso Junction, Ellis, who has been with the plant operation since 1987, gave a quick rundown of the history of the plant and how geothermal energy is used to produce electricity. He explained that the plant produced up to 274 Megawatts (MW) at its peak and is currently running at 145 Megawatts. A single megawatt provides enough electricity to power up to 1,000 homes. And yes, they have also been affected by the drought, as has everyone else in the county and state. Water is critical to the operation and the company is concerned with the replenishment and recycling of ground water.
On how they can produce so much electricity, Ellis explained that unlike other forms of green energy that use solar or wind, geothermal plants can operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All of the electricity they produce is sold under contract to Southern California Edison.
The generating facility at Coso consists of four geothermal power plants that have a total of nine 30 MW turbine-generator sets for a total of 270 MW of rated capacity. Ellis told the visitors that what they do not have is ground water. The ground beneath the volcanically-active ground is granite. So how do they get the water needed to operate? Ellis said that they use about 140 production and injection wells that are drilled from 2,500 to 13,000 feet deep to supply their water needs.
“We are well-aware of the drought concerns and we share them,” Ellis told the visitors. “Although we have a County Conditional Use Permit from Hays Ranch that allows us to use a certain amount of water, we have an extensive mitigation program in place and we are only using one-third of permitted water use … and if things worsen, we will adjust accordingly.”
Ellis emphasized that the company wants to be a “good neighbor and partner” to the County of Inyo. The company has become well-known for its support of local events and causes important to the residents of the county, hire local people whenever possible, and shop locally as well whenever they can do so.
“We are also the largest private taxpayer in Inyo County,” he said. The schools receive two-thirds of the taxes paid by Coso. Lone Pine Unified School District (LPUSD) Superintendent Dr. Sean Cianfarano, Lone Pine Elementary School Principal Heidi Torix, and LPUSD Board trustee Cheryl Howerton were part of the day’s tour group.
After loading everyone into vans, the tour stopped at one of the production wells, and then continued on to see the brine ponds, miles of varying sizes of pipe, and the actual plants themselves. The visitors were told that the pipes are subject to constant maintenance as they become clogged with mineral deposits that must be cleaned out or replaced. Geothermal water extraction also produces toxic gasses such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, which the company separates out. They run the hydrogen sulfide through a process that produces “laboratory grade sulfur,” Ellis said, and, while expensive to produce, sell it for only $1 a container-load to farmers for use as fertilizer in the San Joaquin Valley.
Visitors were treated to lunch, given a tour of the control room that is used to oversee all four of the geothermal plants, and taken out to view the volcanic mudpots found on the property as well. The boiling, bubbling mud would occasionally shoot up to 15 or 20 feet into the air.
The area is important as well for its historical value to Native-Americans. Obsidian was collected at Sugarloaf Mountain and was used for trading with other native tribes as far away as the coast of California, according to Ellis.
After the tour, Melanie and Scott Hubbard were asked for their impression of it. “We found the trip fascinating,” they said. “We have wanted to see it since it went in back in the eighties. The concept of geothermal electricity is relatively simple … But for Melanie and me it was more like magic. To put water down a hole to get electricity out would seem impossible, were it not that we have had the science explained to us. Chris, Operations Manager Mark Kolar, and Julie Faber did a superb job of explaining and answering questions … We feel very lucky to have been shown such an important facility in our community.”
For more information on future tours each Spring and Fall, contact Public Relations Officer Julie Faber at 760-920-7675 or email her at julie@mtnstudio.com.
