Feds opening 197 million acres of public lands for geothermal development

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said Wednesday that the federal government plans to open 197 million acres of public land for geothermal development.

The Bureau of Land Management oversees 118 million acres of that land and the National Forest Service manages 79 million acres.

Kempthorne predicted that 270 Western communities could benefit directly from geothermal resources in 12 Western states, where most of those resources are under federal land.

The plan calls for amending 122 BLM land-use plans to allow geothermal power development that could provide as much as 5,540 megawatts of new electricity for 5.5 million homes by 2015. Kempthorne predicted that by 2025, geothermal energy could bring electricity 12 million homes.

"Geothermal will play a key role in powering America's energy future," Kempthorne said during a telephone news conference.

Officials named 18 areas in Utah that could be affected, including Park City, St. George, Box Elder County, an area that borders Zion National Park and more remote locations such as the Book Cliffs that span Carbon and Grand counties, as well as the Henry Mountains in Garfield County.

A lease sale is scheduled for December in Salt Lake City, for parcels in Utah, Oregon and Idaho, where Kempthorne was governor and mayor of Boise. He boasted about how state and city facilities in Idaho are saving taxpayers money by using cheaper, cleaner geothermal resources to generate electricity.

Kempthorne pointed out that leasing revenues and royalties are shared with states and counties where geothermal development will take place, with 50 percent of those monies going to the state, 25 percent to the county and the rest to the BLM's Geothermal Royalty Fund to invest in future geothermal planning and development.

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