Last week, the Rico Board of Trustees agreed to send members of the committee as well as Mayor Gregg Anderson and trustee Gary Reid to Denver to meet with state and federal officials about how to move forward in extracting energy from the small town’s large geothermal presence.
“We know we have a great resource, but we don’t know the boundaries of that resource. We need to work with experts at the state and federal level to answer those questions and actually be able to utilize some of the things sitting at our feet. This could really benefit the community and the region over the long haul pretty dramatically,” Downer said.
It remains unclear exactly how much energy could be harnessed from the geothermal activity beneath Rico, as extensive and expensive testing is needed to determine if the large scale drilling required for geothermal energy extraction would be effective. But, interested parties in Rico will continue fighting for geothermal, and the meeting next month with state authorities should shed more light on the feasibility of more widespread development of the untapped resource.
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