Peppermill hits green jackpot
When executives of the Peppermill Resort Spa Casino gambled on an $8 million project to drill a deep hole on their property, they were looking for liquid gold.
In this case, it wasn’t oil. It was hot water, really hot water.
The heat of the water they discovered in an underground reservoir, just north of the resort’s new 17-story tower, hovers around 170 degrees. This cauldron is big enough and hot enough to heat all 2.1 million square feet of the resort’s space, including all restaurants, casino floors, the expansive spa, plus every shower and sink in 1,600-plus hotel rooms year-round.
“The Peppermill, they really did hit a nice temperature of water,” said Lowell Price, oil, gas and geothermal manager for Nevada’s Division of Minerals, which oversees the permitting process of geothermal wells on private property.
“It (Peppermill’s well) is really not hot enough for the big players like Ormat (geothermal technologies) for the generation of electricity, but what they are trying to do, they have a real nice find there, very nice,” Price said.
The new green-energy system is schedule to go online in January. Only a severe and prolonged winter cold spell would force the Peppermill to restart one of its existing boilers for heat and hot water, resort executives said. Read full story:
