Raser's edge: Company technology targeted for geothermal power plants, electric motors

PROVO — Many companies revel in making The Big Splash or cranking out The Next Big Thing. Brent Cook turns to baseball for analogies when discussing the prospects for Raser Technologies Inc. and says he would be content if his company hits "singles and doubles."

The company's two business segments both have potential for success.

Home runs could come from its transportation and industrial segment, if hybrid electric vehicles in the future putter around town with Raser's energy-efficiency technology, giving them longer driving range.

The company's geothermal power-plant development is seen by market analysts as a surer bet. The company is on the verge of constructing facilities throughout the West.

Raser is doing it all with — jokes aside — cutting-edge technology, and the possibility exists that someday a person might drive a hybrid electric car containing Raser technology and charge it using electricity produced at one of its geothermal plants.

The hybrid and electric car business, however, is more difficult to predict, since auto companies can't tell you how many hybrid cars they're going to sell. To diversify, Cook, Raser's chief executive officer, has steered the company toward geothermal energy development.

"This strategy is our singles and doubles," he says. "We have a 'green' power strategy that we call 'wells to wheels.' We believe you can generate the power from a renewable, nonpolluting source, all the way to the wheels, which is using it in a hybrid application."

"The theory is you could have a zero-carbon imprint if you elect to buy 'green' power through a geothermal source and elect to have a hybrid electric car."

Heating up

Geothermal development is on the company's front burner.

Raser's niche in the industry comes from developing a system that, technicalities aside, can capture power generation at sites with temperatures lower than at traditional geothermal plants. The company has snatched up rights to hundreds of thousands of acres in a six-state Western area for possible development. That includes about 78,000 acres in Oregon and Washington that Raser picked after reviewing 229,000 acres of International Paper property.

Cook expects western Utah, Nevada and eastern California to yield the most plants. The only Utah project that has been announced is near Milford in Beaver County, but more are likely. Cook predicts that perhaps one-fourth of the company's total will be in the Beehive State.