Geothermal Energy Tapped to Power Oregon Institute of Technology
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY 
on 08. 8.08
photo: OIT
Here’s a “world’s first” that’s worth mentioning: the Oregon Institute of Technology will be the world’s first university to be entirely powered from geothermal energy. The Klamath Falls school announced this week that it will be constructing a $7.6 million dollar geothermal power plant on campus which will not only provide energy to the school, but will also allow students to study and research geothermal energy technologies.
Geothermal energy was chosen because Klamath Falls sits near a fault line, making it a relatively inexpensive and easily accessible resource. Though just announced, the university's geothermal plant will not come online for a couple of years, so there’s still time for some other school to swoop in and claim the “only geothermal powered school” prize.
There's no word on exactly how much power the plant will provide or what the expected energy bill savings will be.I wonder if tuition will go down as the school’s energy costs decline?
via :: OPB and :: Clean Technica
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Hopefully tuition will go down.
I bet if a lot of other schools were powered by renewable energy the cost of tuition would go down.
Now is a good time to tell people interested in geothermal about it's potential. The publication put out by MIT in 2006 entitled 'The Future of Geothermal Energy', clearly puts geothermal energy resources into the realm of being a potential power house. It's potential is huge because of it's ability to piggy-back existing well drilling technologies, ultra low emissions profile, and enhanced geothermal systems engineering.
It won't lower cost of tuition. Energy costs aren't more than 5% of a university's operating cost. Most of the money goes into faculty and staff salaries + benefits. Remember, the admin will want to "payback" the cost of the facility before letting any savings go into tuition reduction.