Geothermal Advocates Ask for More

posted in: February 1991 | 0

Geothermal energy has not disappeared from the legislative agenda. The administration is seeking $3 million this year for geothermal exploration, plus about half a million more for the consultants preparing the environmental impact statement/master development plan. That is in addition to the $1.25 million the consultant has already received — but which has largely been spent on activities beyond the contractually specified scope of work.

Senator Richard Matsuura is proposing a bill to (according to its own language) “permit less stringent requirements for the drilling of exploratory wells both inside and outside designated geothermal resource subzones.”

He also is proposing a bill to exempt overland transmission corridors for geothermal energy from the regulations that govern all other electrical transmission corridors. It would allow the state to condemn private property for this purpose and to then turn the land over to private geothermal developers.

Under this same bill, the state would pay to developers transmitting geothermal energy from one county to another (in other words, by means of an undersea cable) an amount equal to their “interconnection costs not covered by avoided cost payments made by the contracting utility.” “The compensation,” the bill goes on to state, “will be a waiver by the State of the mineral rights royalty payments normally made by the developer.”

The language is not transparent. Our best interpretation, however, is this: if the geothermal developer sells energy to a utility at a rate roughly equivalent to what the utility pays for energy from fossil-fuel-based sources (the “avoided cost”), and that is not sufficient to cover the developer’s costs of constructing the transmission system (the “interconnection costs”), then the state will forego collection of royalties from the geothermal developer until those costs are recovered.

Several more benign bills have been introduced by another Big Island senator, Andrew Levin. Among other things, they call for: hiring a “state geothermal consultant” (how long, Lord, how long?) who would examine the myriad problems attending geothermal development and generally function as a sort of auditor of the state’s geothermal projects; allowing people living near geothermal developments to sue the state for “inverse condemnation” of their property or to petition the state to acquire it, thus allowing them recovery for losses brought on by the development; and expanding relocation opportunities for people living near a geothermal site.

Finally, Levin has sponsored bills to set up siting councils for facilities related to geothermal energy production and transmission. Both appear to make the process of siting geothermal facilities more stringent. In addition to the standard environmental impact statement, geothermal developers would be required to provide a report disclosing the short- and long-term effects of the development on the social and economic welfare of people in the nearest community and in the state at large, proposing measures to offset the adverse effects and giving “reasons for concluding why the social and economic benefits of the proposed action outweigh their risks, if any.”

Volume 1, Number 8 February 1991

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