Progress report on the OIT Geothermal Plant

[bhikkhu]

This was a $25 Mil project on the campus of OIT, planned to provide power and heat to both use and sell. They drilled the hole in record time last winter, much faster than any other well in town I've seen put in. It was cased and capped and...

...they built a chain-link fence around it, and there it sits. No sign of further activity in a year. I've dug around in the news to see if they got the temperatures and flows they were looking for, or to see if there was some problem, but I haven't heard anything.

Not that that says anything about anything, but it does fit right in with other posts lately. I actually am curious as to whether the whole thing got shelved for some reason - it sounded like perfect timing for the project.

[thunder rising]

1. Good point ... I'm sending an email to

For correspondence, please include proper e-mail address within the text to:
geoheat at oit.edu

Maybe they spent all the money on their web site (LOL)

[bhikkhu]

2. OK - I just got the scoop today

One of those synchronicity-type things - I happened to run into the guy I know who knows the scoop and I asked him:

Very simply, they spent the 5 million budgeted for start-up and drilling and they didn't hit usable hot water. There's some acrimony over it (needless to say), largely because the spot the geologists recommended didn't work out with the existing campus layout, so they drilled instead where there was an open area for the infrastructure that would have been needed...and wound up with a "dry hole", more or less.

[Nihil]

3. Classic!

> the spot the geologists recommended didn't work out with the existing
> campus layout, so they drilled instead where there was an open area
> for the infrastructure that would have been needed.

This is a real life version of the joke about the drunk looking for his
keys under the street light ... when asked about it, he said "No, I dropped
them over there but the light is better round here ...".

:facepalm: