City of Boise Geothermal Expansion
Titan Tech helps expand Downtown Boise geothermal system
The City of Boise has the largest geothermal system in the United States and in 2011, 2014, and 2016, Titan Technologies helped expand that system. Totaling nearly 13,000 linear feet of fiberglass reinforced epoxy pipe. These projects alone garnered Titan nearly $3.2 million in capital.
The expansion allowed geothermal to be extended to more commercial buildings downtown. This included the extension of geothermal service connections to the new JUMP building. Work also included a pipeline crossing of the Capitol Blvd. Bridge.
Boise started utilizing geothermal heat in 1983 and is the largest of its kind in the United States and the sixth largest in the world. Nearly one third of downtown Boise is heated by geothermal energy, which includes 92 buildings; nearly 6 million square feet. The City estimates that it only costs around $1,000 per month to heat these buildings.
What is geothermal heat?
According to Idaho Press, Contrary to what some might think, the water in the geothermal system is not heated by volcanic activity beneath the city.
Instead, the water is heated by the decay of a large mass of rock formed from cooled magma beneath the mountains of central Idaho called a batholith.
Snowmelt and rainwater seep into the rocks from the mountains and come in contact with the rock, which is slowly giving off radioactive isotopes as it breaks down. The particles’ splitting off the atoms in the rock results in a high temperature beneath the surface. There has been no indication of decreasing water temperature over the last 125 years and the water is not expected to stop being heated to the current temperature for centuries.
