Tapping an Immortal Source of Energy

When we talk about the energy shortage, we aren’t talking about the earth as a whole. We are talking only about the foreseeable exhaustion of those energy sources we have learned to tap easily and efficiently, principal among them being oil, natural gas and coal.

12p,10,,1 Alternative Shelter There are others, at least four of them inexhaustible in terms of humanity. One such inexhaustible source we are just beginning to learn how to tap to a significant degree is the heat that comes directly from the sun.

Another is the heat of the earth’s interior. A Ramada Hotel under construction in San Bernardino and scheduled to open this spring is in the advance guard of that effort, as part of that city’s geothermal district heating project.

The $18.5-million, 12-story (“tallest structure in the Inland Empire,” according to the developer), 238-room hotel is also called the nation’s first to be heated entirely by geothermal energy.

Features of the hotel will include both luxury and executive suites with wet bars and living areas, special rooms for traveling women and for the handicapped, and designated no-smoking rooms. Appointments will include color cable TV, AM and FM radio reception, individual climate control and message lights.

The atrium lobby will have an indoor waterfall near the registration desk and shops, while the waterfall concept will be repeated in a porte-cochere --guests arriving by car will pass under another waterfall cascading into a nearby pond.

Off the lobby will be the hotel’s main lounge, featuring entertainment, and a spacious restaurant with an outdoor terrace, featuring California cuisine. An outdoor spa on the second floor above the porte-cochere will be served by an indoor connecting bar.

The owner-developer of the hotel is Herman A. English Jr., the architect is Howard Needles Tammen & Bergendoff and the contractor is Moran Co., all of Los Angeles. The hotel will be managed by Ramada Inns Inc., which has designated it a “flagship” hotel.

When San Bernardino’s geothermal (from Greek words meaning “earth” and “heat) project was announced, the state Energy Commission said it was the first large geothermal district heating project in an urban area in the state and the largest in any city in the nation. It was funded with a $2.75-million state grant that reverts to a loan this year.

It is managed by the city’s Municipal Water Department and the first well was drilled on the edge of the Orange Show grounds. Hot water from it is used by the department’s sewage treatment plant.

Kevin Fisher, geothermal resource engineer in the water department, said they hope to have a new well in production by April 1, serving the Ramada Inn, City Hall and the Convention Center; serving St. Bernardine’s Retirement Center and the city library by Sept. 1, and serving others including the Sun daily newspaper plant, the downtown county complex and the state transit building by November.

There are several “known geothermal resource areas” in the state. One of the largest is The Geysers in Northern California, where extensive geothermal development is under way. David Maul of the Energy Commission has said that area has a potential of generating 2,500 to 3,000 megawatts of electricity by AD 2000. Nearby are Clear Lake and Wilbur Hot Springs, all composing Region A in the energy commission’s planning.

Region B includes Calistoga, Sonoma and the Valley of the Moon, and the Napa Valley. Region C is the Sierra Cascades, including Mono Basin, Mammoth Lakes, Lake Isabella and 11 other areas, and Region E, the South Coast including Paso Robles, Ontario Hot Springs, Agua Caliente, Ojai, Los Angeles-Huntington Beach, San Bernardino, Lake Elsinore, the Winchester area and Warner Hot Springs.

In December, the State Lands Commission announced approval of the drilling of a geothermal well 10,000 feet deep near the Salton Sea--the deepest such well in the nation. The federal Energy Department will pay Bechtel Corp. to drill the well for the purpose of measuring underground temperatures and testing equipment. It will be on 40 acres of state-owned land and will cost $5.9 million.

I have seen it estimated that as much energy falls on Earth from the sun every 30 minutes as all of humanity uses in a year. If this is true, the expenditure on utilizing solar energy of as much thought and work as has been expended on oil drilling and coal mining technology could provide us with more energy than we have today, by a factor possibly of thousands.

And there would be no worry about its running out; it will keep on coming as long as the sun exists, currently forecast in the billions of years. Who knows where the human race will be then--or what it will be doing--or what it will be--or even if there will be one?

We are trying to capture and use this energy but the efforts are only getting under way, in relation to the whole problem, as are other efforts to utilize the other near-immortal source, the heat of the earth’s interior. It probably won’t last as long as the sun’s energy but will probably outlast the human race.

The other two inexhaustible energy sources? Wind and tides; they will course over the face of the earth as long as the earth circles the sun, the moon circles the earth, and there is an ocean left on the surface of the planet.