As with roundabouts, Vail looks to become a national trend-setter with geothermal plan

Holy Cross Energy President and CEO Bryan Hannegan, left, with Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, center, and Vail Mayor Travis Coggin discuss the town’s new geothermal project, which received $250,000 from the state (David O. Williams photo).

On Thanksgiving weekend of 1994, the first traffic roundabout in Colorado — and one of the first in the United States — debuted in Vail.

Doubters had warned of mayhem. Instead, it was surprisingly effective at ending the gridlock that at times had paralyzed the resort community’s primary intersection, which had been governed by a four-way stop.

Since then, traffic roundabouts have become commonplace across the nation’s landscape.

Might Vail, an international destination, the flags of 45 nations in addition to that of the United States, fluttering along one of its frontage roads, also become a showcase for geothermal technology?

On a morning of still-smoky skies and heat blasting into the high ‘90s across much of Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis spent an hour in Vail to talk up geothermal and hear local reports.

Polis made geothermal his signature effort during his year as the chair of the Western Governors’ Association. He called it Heat Beneath Our Feet. That heat can be used in various ways. The more common way, already broadly deployed across Colorado, most famously at Colorado Mesa University, uses shallow coils about 10 feet underground to tap year-round temperatures to heat and cool about 800,000 square feet in buildings.

In California and to a lesser extent several other Western states, underground heat – commonly from deep wells – can be used to generate electricity. Polis contends that this enhanced geothermal technology – if currently cost prohibitive in Colorado – will mature sufficiently to help Colorado achieve its goals of 100% renewable electricity by 2040. And emission-free electricity will be key to achieving economy wide emissions-free energy.

Holy Cross Energy, the electrical cooperative that serves Vail, has been moving forward with goals of its own. It aims to be 100% by 2030 – or at least close.

In May, Holy Cross hit 80% renewable generation for its electricity, and the cooperative now believes it can attain 90% sometime in 2025 as new transmission capacity becomes available from a major new wind farm in eastern Colorado called Bronco II.

Bryan Hannegan, the chief executive of Holy Cross, has long said that the last 10% will be far more difficult. In Vail, he explained the synergy he sees between geothermal and his cooperative’s 100% goal.

“When we have too much wind or too much solar to serve the electricity load, we can partner with projects like this to provide extra hot or chilled water to help the thermal energy system meet its needs,” he explained.

“And that allows a very effective way for us to store that renewable energy during the midday that we would otherwise curtail at cost. We can store that energy to be used by the thermal system in the afternoon and reduce strain on the electric grid so we don’t have to build that grid bigger.

“The synergy between these two systems is a large part of what we think will get us to 100%. Really, it turns out to be a win-win for both consumers and the environment because we increase the efficiency on both the electric and the thermal side. Working together with our existing electric grid and these new emerging thermal grids, we can get the best of both worlds, clean electricity and clean heat.”

The specific mechanics of what Hannegan has in mind is probably best left for another story. What needs mention is exactly what Vail has in mind.

At some point, the town began deploying natural gas combustion to warm water for piping laid below the town’s famously pedestrian-friendly corridors to melt the snow.

Particulars about Vail

The test area for this geothermal experiment that could lead to a much broader geothermal outlay is between Dobson Ice Arena and the Vail Public Library.

One 500-foot test well has already been drilled, and more will be drilled now that the basic geology has been ascertained. A novel twist in the Vail project is the goal of milking the heat from treated wastewater at a sewage plant about six blocks. The heat can then be transferred to pedestrian areas that need to be shed of snow so nobody falls and breaks a leg, as one former town manager did in the 1990s. The de-heated — if that is a word — water can then comply with standards for releases into Gore Creek.

Heat from the adjacent buildings can also be used at this particular location.

Vail is still very early in this project. It has a $500,000 engineering study to get completed, and a $250,000 grant awarded by the state will help. The state in the same grant cycle awarded altogether $7.7 million to 35 different projects across Colorado.

Salient about Vail’s project is not only its novelties, but also the apparent resolve of the town to tidy up its carbon budget.

Aspen, Carbondale, Steamboat Springs and other Colorado jurisdictions are similarly intent on seeing how geothermal can be used to begin replacing natural gas combustion.

Total costs, however, have not yet been calculated for these projects.

With Vail’s green-and-white electric buses quietly gliding by in the background, Polis talked about the role of geothermal that he sees in displacing natural gas.

“We can replace the need for natural gas with reliable geothermal 365 days a year, 24 hours a day – (and with) next to zero ongoing cost,” he said.

Polis cited the example of the February 2022 storm, called Storm Uri by some, that paralyzed Texas and led to a run on natural gas.

“Xcel Energy, for instance, had to pass along close to $800 million to ratepayers because of the price gouging that occurred during a several-day period during the Texas storms. We want to be independent of that,” he said.

“I mean natural gas can go up because of wars in Europe. It can go up because of external economic factors. It can go up because of speculation. (Geothermal) removes the need for having to worry about that and provides next to zero ongoing cost – a little maintenance here and there. Unlimited heating for snowmelts for decades. These geothermal systems can last a century, and many of them do,” he said, citing a geothermal system in downtown Boise.

Polis said he hopes that some signs will be used to inform Vail’s visitors of the geothermal project when it’s completed. Vail can use geothermal to melt snow but also “ educate the millions of people who visit the area about what geothermal means globally.”

Colorado has several million in additional grants that will be announced later this year. Not quite half of the $7.7 million in awards announced in May will be devoted to projects which aim to generate electricity.

Many in the energy sector are skeptical of the great potential that Polis sees for electrical generation. The heat in Colorado lies far deeper than in Nevada and California. Polis, though, said he hopes that Colorado can gain “at least one, hopefully two or three geothermal electricity producers in Colorado that can make a major contribution to us achieving 100% renewable energy for our grid.”

More state legislation?

Afterward, in an interview with Big Pivots, Polis said that in addition to projects that got state grants, several others are likely “being pursued that didn’t need or aren’t yet ready for our funding.”

Asked if additional legislation would be needed, he said not necessarily. Instead, he pointed to coming rulemaking at the Energy and Carbon Management Commission on geothermal primacy with regard to well regulation.

“We want to make it easy to site and permit geothermal, and taking a lot of the learning from the oil-and-gas sector and applying it to the geothermal sector, and we’ll be one of the first states to really have a expedited approval system for geothermal.”

Editor’s note: This article first appeared on Big Pivots. Allen Best is a former Eagle County resident and editor of the Vail Trail newspaper. Please consider donating to Big Pivots, a nonprofit news organization focused on the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable and other sources of energy.