Impressed with Republican (Ack!) Senator Gordon Smith
I just finished up my time with Senator Gordon Smith this morning and I must admit, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Despite the set agenda and limited number of participants, we still spent quite a bit of time discussing renewable energy in general, and several people (myself included) got ample opportunity to express their opinion, and have a chance to listen to the Senator’s opinion as well.
While the Senator placed more emphasis on the economic and national security aspects of renewable energy than he did on the environment, it was still fairly close and I came away feeling he seemed more reasonable in person than I’ve read in the media. Besides, I fully understand the importance of the economy and national security, so it’s a very reasonable stance to take.
Throughout both the unstructured and structured portions of the discussion, the senator asked reasonable questions that I thought showed he was interested in the topic at hand. And while he did congratulate himself for recent activities, it was only very briefly.
The main goal of the meeting was to discuss geothermal energy, and apparently I’m way too uninformed as I wasn’t familiar with all the really cool stuff under way at OIT. Also, I wasn’t aware that the Senator had somehow gotten a million dollars earmarked for OIT’s geothermal aspirations. (I have to wonder if this was included with the “pork” totals that were recently touted in the media? I really need to find out more about this money.) Anyway, OIT is trying to drill a five thousand foot (approximately) geothermal well here on campus. The three hundred degree water this will yield will power a 3 megawatt (max) power plant that will supply ALL the power needs of the campus. The campus is already heated geothermally, so this would result in net negative energy consumption if constructed. The “cool” hundred and seventy degree (roughly) waste water from this is piped into a smaler, cooler power plant. Hot water could also be used to heat greenhouses that could serve as incubators for companies interested in geothermal, and possibly other geothermal-powered applications. All of this of course could be worked into curriculum on campus, and all of it would become a showcase for real geothermal application to encourage more investment in the technology.
The downside? Two and a half million to drill, two and a half million for the power plant equals a big number for a place like OIT. Fortunately there’s the million from the Senator, a two million grant opportunity for higher education application of geothermal that was just recently signed into law, and given the previous two amounts enough startup money to interest investors in the project.
All told I came away impressed with the Senator’s conviction that the country needs to supply its own energy and his interest in the different opportunities and their positive effects for Oregon. Apparently other people were impressed not just by him, but by myself as well, as I was congratulated by several other people that attended the meeting for my contribution. It was a positive and unique experience, one I’m glad for having.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 11:04 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
PreMagination » Blog Archive » Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury Wears Chacos! July 21st, 2008 at 8:24 pm
[...] positive impression of Mr. Bradbury. Interestingly, he seemed like a bit less of a politician than Gordon Smith or Greg Walden, but I don’t imagine working at the state level is THAT much different than [...]