Geothermal system to put cool in school
Jul 15 - McClatchy-Tribune Regional News - James Haug Las Vegas
Review-Journal
Its natural lighting, V-shaped hallways and loftlike design give a cutting
edge vibe to the new Veterans Tribute Career and Technical Academy.
What's also cool is what can't be seen: a geothermal system of 180 wells
buried 400 feet deep.
They cool the building through a closed-loop system that sends hot water to
be cooled beneath the Earth's surface.
For geothermal systems, the Earth "is the sink to deposit unwanted heat,"
said Paul Gerner, the associate superintendent of facilities for the Clark
County School District.
"The green buzz is that you have to drill a hole into the Earth, but you
save on electricity forever," said Don Dyer, the senior project manager for
McCarthy Building Companies, the general contractor on the $59.8 million
construction project, which is coming in $100,000 under budget.
But the costs of digging a hole are usually offset in the savings from not
having to build the infrastructure for a conventional air-conditioning
system, Gerner said. Water towers, roof-top air compressors and mechanical
rooms, for instance, can all be "downsized" with geothermal systems.
If there are no construction savings, the "worst case scenario is that the
payback is two to three years," Gerner said.
Geothermal systems reduce energy costs by 25 percent to 35 percent, Gerner
said. At a high school, they reduce the amount of water needed for air
conditioning by 500,000 to 700,000 gallons a year.
The systems are expected to last 100 years. So while the school building
will have to be replaced in 50 years, the replacement school can simply be
re-attached to the old geothermal system, he said.
The Northwest Career and Technical Academy, on Vegas Drive, just east of
Martin Luther King Boulevard, was the first school to be built with a
geothermal system in 2005. Seven schools will have such a system once
construction is complete.
The other schools are Burkholder Middle School; East Career and Technical
Academy; Virtual High School, which is part of the new Vegas PBS complex;
Southwest Career and Technical Academy; and West Career and Technical
Academy, which will open in August 2010.
Schools are selected for geothermal systems based on soil conditions. Plans
for West Academy had to be modified because of hard earth underneath the
school, Gerner said.
Like Veterans Tribute, Southwest Academy is one of the seven new schools to
open on Aug. 24, the beginning of the school year. Both schools share the
same building prototype because they were designed by the Pugsley, Simpson
and Coulter architectural firm of Las Vegas.
Their similarities end there since Southwest, which is near the intersection
of Windmill Lane and South Rainbow Boulevard, has a different vocational
program with diverse classes such as interior design, nursing, dental
assisting and video game technology.
While Southwest has a more eclectic program, Veterans Tribute focuses on
vocational training for public service, such as law enforcement, 911
dispatch, emergency medical technicians and forensics. It even has a crime
scene lab, said Susan Thornton, the assistant principal.
As part of the curriculum, students will be required to take four years of
physical education and Spanish.
There is an outdoor obstacle course, but there's no gun range for the
budding police officers.
School district policy forbids "live weapons" on campus.
Contact reporter James Haug at jhaug@reviewjournal.com or 702-374-7917.
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