Tuesday, March 3, 2009 | 4:16 p.m.
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A Las Vegas company wants to build its first geothermic power plant south of Boulder City.
Geothermic Solution LLC last month asked to lease land from the city near the Western Area Power Administration's substation on Buchanan Boulevard.
The geothermic power generation station would draw heat from dry rocks between four and six miles under the earth's surface, said Kirk Harrison, executive vice president and general council for Geothermic Solution. Geothermal plants are different because they draw heat from hot water in the earth's core.
The year-old company's $550 million plant would generate about 250 megawatts of energy, though that amount is subject to change, Harrison said.
The City Council on March 10 will consider approving a change to the Land Management Plan, which is a working map of all accepted land uses in and around Boulder City, so the lease would be legal. The land in the area being considered is not zoned and is in the federal historic district.
If the council forwards the request to the Planning Commission for its consideration, and the commission approves the change and sends it back to council, the council would hold a public hearing and consider approving the map change.
The city would then commission an appraisal of the land and ask for requests for proposals.
Harrison, a retired lawyer, is one of five principal members in the company. The others include engineers, a chief financial officer who was vice president of an oil and gas company, and an expert in international deep mining geology.
Harrison said Boulder City is a great location for the plant, based on a 2006 Massachusetts Institute of Technology study about untapped geothermal and geothermic energy in the western United States.
He said once finished, the plant would look like a two-story building.
Turbines would harvest the heat, and there would be no emissions and minimal noise, he said.
The company is securing funding, though the "lapse of the capital markets makes it a challenge," he said.
Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or [email protected].
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