Published: November 01, 2009 09:46 pm      

Amarillo College students explore geothermal power

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) — Amarillo College is digging deep to enhance its renewable energy program.

The school has long planned to add to its wind classes, which have proven popular at both its East Campus in Amarillo and Moore County Campus in Dumas with more than 300 students enrolled. And AC intends to add classes in solar power next year, but it will go underground in 2011 to offer classes in geothermal power and to install a demonstration system at its East Campus, said Trace Megenbier, coordinator of the renewable energy program.

AC and Texas Tech University recently hosted a day of energy lessons both at AC’s Business and Industry campus in downtown Amarillo and at the East Campus.

While wind turbines harvest the area’s abundant wind, and solar panels open to the sky for power, geothermal goes deep in the earth to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used to heat or cool the interior of buildings.

The key to most systems is tapping into the constant temperatures hundreds of feet below the surface.

“What’s more consistent than the ground?” said Don Penn, consulting engineer with Grapevine-based Image Engineering Group.

Systems IEG has installed across the country, including schools near Dallas, consist of holes drilled 250 to 400 feet deep spaced 15 to 20 feet apart. The well fields cover about the same square footage as the building that’s to be heated and cooled by the system.

One-inch pipes go to the bottom of the holes and back up, carrying water at low pressure that takes on the temperature of the soil. The water then flows to units that blow air across pipes and into individual rooms in the building.

“Each room has its own atmosphere,” Penn said. “We’ve seen 35 to 40 percent drops in energy usage in schools with this.”

That should translate into $1.7 million in savings from lower energy and maintenance costs over 20 years for a middle school in Frisco where the company installed a system to heat and cool 138,000 square feet, he said.

Despite the rosy projections, geothermal is still a hard sell.

“It’s like you’re selling snake oil,” Penn said.

The energy savings are about the same for residences.

“We’re not burning anything to make heat. We’re moving it,” said Paul Bony, director of residential market development at Climate Master in Montrose, Colo.

Some barriers to expanding the geothermal market include lack of contractor interest and expertise, and no long-term financing. However, there are federal tax credits available to help pay for installation.

Lubbock Christian University has been transitioning into geothermal heat and cooling and other energy management strategies since 2003. One way the university economized on the geothermal setup was by tapping into its landscape sprinkler system as a horizontal loop to control the water temperature rather than a vertical loop in a well, said Wilbur Jones, director of campus facilities.

“If the water gets too warm, we turn on the sprinklers to replace the water.”