Jess McDiarmid
Northern News Services
Published Wednesday, November 28, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - When Mory Ghomshei went down into Con Mine in 1989, the first thing that came to his mind was its potential for heat.

Resident John Williston recently finished installing a geothermal heating system in a house he's building in the Niven Lake area. The two pipes are all that's visible in the roughly $30,000 system. - Jess McDiarmid/NNSL Con Mine Facts • Seventy-two years ago, a field geologist from the Geological Survey of Canada and two prospectors found a quartz vein containing gold near Jackfish Lake. • It was the beginning of the first gold mine in Yellowknife. • Cominco staked its claim in 1935, and in 1938, Con Mine poured its first gold brick. It expanded throughout the 1950s and 1960s with the discovery of the Campbell Shear and the acquisition of the closed-down Negus Mine. • Until the city was named the territorial capital in 1967, its economy depended almost entirely on Con and Giant mines, as well as mineral exploration. • In 1977, Cominco finished the Robertson Shaft—the highest building in the Northwest Territories. By • 1985, the mine reached more than 6,200 feet beneath the city. • Con Mine was sold to the American company Nerco Minerals Limited in 1986. It changed hands again in 1993, purchased by Miramar Mining Corporation. • Gold mining came to an end at Con Mine in 2003, with operations stopping at Giant Mine the following year.

The international geothermal expert measured the heat emanating from the rock almost 1,400 metres under Yellowknife. It was 38 C.

That was long before the mine was decommissioned in September 2003, when air-conditioning lowered temperatures for workers.

After that trip Ghomshei wrote extensively on the mine and its potential to provide cheap, emissionless heat.

But for nearly two decades, the potential to tap the natural energy under the country's feet wasn't taken that seriously, said the University of British Columbia professor of mining engineering.

Now as concerns about greenhouse gas and climate change peak, Yellowknife - and a host of other places - are weighing options for using geothermal heat to keep the cold out.

The city's search for cash to study whether Con Mine is a viable source of heat a year ago came as a by-product of the Community Energy Plan, a strategy to reduce Yellowknife's reliance on unsustainable energy adopted by council this spring.

Nearly $300,000 hit city coffers in October from the federal and territorial governments, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the city.

The money will go toward a feasibility study scheduled to start early next year. It will determine the amount of energy in the mine and possible uses.

Con Mine's geothermal potential is just that - potential. While the concept of extracting the heat is off-the-shelf, said energy co-ordinator Mark Henry, the engineering required to do it isn't.

"We don't know how it's going to be done or if it can be done technically or economically," said Henry.

But the will is there.

"We're entering a period where we want to reduce our impact on the environment and build a more sustainable community," said Henry.

The results of the study, which will define the resource and look at extraction options and costs, will determine what sort of development, if any, will go ahead, said Henry.

That study builds on a preliminary report Ghomshei prepared earlier this year that determined Yellowknife to be one of the best markets for geothermal heat in the country.

The mine is close to - and in places directly under - the city, meaning energy doesn't need to be moved. The depths of the mine are estimated to be hotter than 40 C. And there is a huge demand for heat in Yellowknife.

City estimates put the total cost of energy and utility services in Yellowknife at $78 million a year. And 70 per cent of energy consumed in the city goes toward heating homes and buildings, according to Ghomshei's report. Most of that is generated through burning fossil fuels.

"Yellowknife has one of the highest carbon dioxide emissions per person," said Ghomshei.

"It would save enormously on energy costs and (reduce) emissions."

The government has asked Canadians to reduce emissions by a tonne per person. If Con Mine could heat half of Yellowknife - Ghomshei estimates - it would work out to two tonnes less emissions per person.

"Each Yellowknifer could do twice what Canadians are."

Con Mine wouldn't be the first geothermal system in Yellowknife.

John Williston started researching geothermal heating several years ago and decided to put a system in a house he's building in the Niven Lake area.

It's not been an easy task. He planned to move in this December but the difficulty of finding services to do the work has been a "nightmare," said Williston, who's lived in Yellowknife for more than two decades.

He had to contract a company in Alberta to get the design and engineering done and the project has been a learning process for everyone, he said.

The closed loop system - meaning the same liquid will circulate through seven pipes that extend 97 metres into bedrock below the house - required more than two months of drilling. It's cost about $30,000 and is designed to heat the whole house.

And all that's visible are two thin green pipes sticking out of the concrete of what's going to be the basement. If it doesn't work, there isn't any backup.

His goals for the geothermal system are pretty simple: to have clean energy, save some money and prove that it works.

"Part of it was a little bit of obstinance," said Williston. "People need proof that it's working."

In Springhill, Nova Scotia, closed mines have been used to withdraw geothermal energy since the 1980s.

The town fewer than 4,000 was devastated in 1958 when one of the deepest coal mines in the world collapsed, killing 74 miners.

It was the first major international event to appear in television broadcasts. And it was the end of what had been the lifeblood of the town. The coal mines would never open again.

But in the early 1980s, when Ropak - the largest producer of plastic shipping containers in North America - was considering pulling out due to the high costs of heating its facilities, the town pitched the concept of using geothermal energy to keep a major employer there.

"We were at the crossroads when Ropak decided to use the resource," said Don Tabor, town clerk and chief administrative officer.

It worked. Ropak began using geothermal and other major Springhill industries, such as Surrette Battery, followed suit. More than 20 years ago, heat from the earth was cutting costs and emissions.

There was great motivation to do so. In 1973, major oil-producers slapped an embargo on nations that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur war and drove prices sky high, pushing countries to seek alternatives.

Canada responded with a national geothermal program that ran from 1975 to 1985, which brought most of the geothermal information geologists are using today, Steve Grasby of the Geological Survey of Canada said in his keynote address at the recent Geoscience Forum in Yellowknife.

Geothermal projects were launched at locations across Canada, including Meager Creek near Whistler, B.C. and the University of Regina, where the federal government funded a geothermal test well.

The provincial government was to construct a building that would be heated by geothermal to test the concept, said Grasby.

The well was finished in the 1980s but then, as energy prices dipped, everyone lost interest in geothermal. The building never happened.

"So Canada's only fully installed geothermal system is now under a parking lot at the University of Regina campus," said Grasby.

All the other work that had gone on fell largely to the wayside for almost 20 years.

But the world is once again in an energy crunch as oil sources are depleted and costs are going up. Now, there's the added incentive of global warming and pollution. The forgotten resource is coming back.

Meanwhile, in Springhill, where geothermal energy has been heating buildings in the industrial park for decades, it's been slowly, quietly expanding. The town retrofitted the fire hall for geothermal heat.

Then in 2001, the Springhill Arena collapsed. The town decided to build a community centre complete with an arena, offices, a teen centre and a gymnasium.

"We thought, what an opportunity to try this technology," said Tabor.

"We're literally sitting on a gold mine and we've just got to channel our resources and tap into it."

The Dr. Carson and Marion Murray Community Centre opened in 2004, heated by geothermal energy.

Savings on heat costs are estimated to be $50,000 to $85,000 a year, with another $50,000 saved in maintenance, which works out to a five-year payback time frame. Then the money will be there for other services and projects in the community.

"It's been a wonderful project for us and a great example of the resource itself," said Tabor. "There are a lot of eyes on Springhill, not just locally but nationally and internationally."

According to Ghomshei, Yellowknife could develop a large-scale project or a smaller scale project using the Robertson shaft that could later be expanded.

Geothermal heat works on a loop system that pulls hot water from deep within the earth to the surface where a heat exchanger turns it into energy for heating buildings.

Cooled water is then pumped back into the ground to be reheated. It's an almost entirely sustainable resource.

Ghomshei put the price tag of a small scale project at $768,000, noting that in larger projects using hotter water from deeper in the mine can see efficiency improve dramatically.

Nevertheless, with $95,000 estimated in savings per year, the payback time is less than eight years.

"The payback period for larger scale projects... can be lower considering the lower infrastructure costs per unit of energy and also due to the fact that for high capacities in deeper levels of the mine - therefore higher temperatures - can be targeted," Ghomshei wrote in his preliminary assessment.

If Con Mine provided 20 per cent of the city's heat demands, the mine's market value would be over $13 million a year, along with $500,000 in greenhouse gas reduction.

Ghomshei estimated in his report, however, that further study was necessary to determine what resources are in the mine.

But he said he's optimistic that Con Mine could help heat the city, making it an example across the country.

"If Yellowknife goes ahead with it, it would be a great example for the rest of Canada," said Ghomshei.

Cities often become ghost towns after the mines that sustained them close down, said Ghomshei. But Con Mine, which breathed life into the economy of Yellowknife for more than 65 years, could keep doing it.

"And that would be a great example for the whole mining industry."