The Arizona Geothermal Working Group met in Tucson yesterday and agreed on preparing a strategic plan as a critical step in developing the state's geothermal resources.Paul Morgan, professor emeritus at NAU, laid out a compelling case for determining the state's potential and what needs to be done to take advantage of it. Paul runs the Group's web site, but when funding for it runs out in a year, AZGS has agreed to serve as a long-term online repository to make sure no information is lost. AZGS is building a geothermal page for our Web page now.
Arizona has few ground source heat pumps, no electrical generation from geothermal, but a few commercial direct-use applications, mostly for greenhouses.
Arizona has a reputation for dry soils that are not well suited for heat pumps but consultant Jim Witcher [right] noted that similar types of settings in New Mexico and West Texas have successful heat pumps in operation.
Amanda Ormand, who organized the meeting, is contributing to a study to delineate renewable energy resource zones that will affect placement of new transmission lines.
The City of Tucson has installed the infrastructure for a 40 ton ground source heat pump system for the Tucson Origins Heritage Park near downtown Tucson. The EPDM piping was installed at about 40' below grade in the excavtion of removed landfill during the remediation of the site in preparation for construciton of the new park and culteral developments in the area.
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