Unalaska’s geothermal power project collapsed in 2024. But the Qawalangin Tribe of Unalaska is going back to the drawing board, hoping the project could cut the island’s diesel consumption.
Magnus de Witt, a research professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, gave a community presentation about geothermal energy at the Unalaska Public Library on July 1. KUCB asked him if geothermal is possible here.
“If you ask an engineer if something is possible, the answer is always yes,” he said. “The main question is: is it feasible as well? And there, I think that's a question I can't answer yet. But I hope with more information it will be possible to answer.”
The Qawalangin Tribe is trying to get that information using federal money. Dolores Gregory, the tribe’s special projects manager, said there’s not much data that’s current.
“A lot of the data that is like groundwork was from the 1980s,” she said. “Our project that is currently … waiting approval for … is to update the information that’s available, utilize new methods to research the resource and confirm that there is a well that’s viable for future development.”
The Makushin geothermal project was last estimated to cost $250 million, and it was close to coming to fruition.
Unalaska’s for-profit Alaska Native corporation, the Ounalashka Corporation, or OC, partnered with the Fairbanks company Chena Power to pursue building a geothermal plant. They signed a power purchase agreement with the city of Unalaska in 2020 and started an access corridor to the site. They also bought a drill rig.
But the agreement with the city expired on Dec. 10, 2023 due to lack of financing, and the Unalaska City Council decided not to renegotiate. Chena Power is now suing Ounalashka Corporation, with a trial set for Jan. 25, 2027.
Gregory said the lawsuit hasn’t stopped the tribe.
“We’re just trying to gather information and get data,” she said. “I haven't seen it affect us yet.”
Gregory said the tribe recently applied for a separate federal grant to study other spots on the island for geothermal energy — places the state looked into in the past.
In 1980, state geologists searched for alternative energy sources around Alaska and turned their attention to Makushin. They found springs on the side of the volcano that ran hotter than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
In 1982 and 1983, the state drilled test holes into the east side of the volcano. Flow tests later suggested one commercial-size well could produce 7 to 12 megawatts — nearly half the 25 megawatts the island needs during peak season today.
No test drilling has happened since then, so the Qawalangin Tribe wants to update the data.
Gregory said the tribe’s work centers on an old well site called ST-1, near Broad Bay. She said its crews will map what’s underground using magnetic and gravity surveys, satellite radar and thermal imaging.
“We're not doing any drilling or anything like that in case people are worried about it,” Gregory said. “We've also had to go through some environmental questionnaires and things like that to ensure that we're not doing anything detrimental to the community.”
But whatever the crews end up finding, the tribe won’t be the one deciding what happens next.
“We will not make the determination if it's feasible or not,” said Tribal Administrator Chelsey Dorrough. “We’re kind of just playing our role, ‘Here’s the data.’ City and OC will make that determination with whatever it is that we find."
In an email to KUCB, the city of Unalaska said it’s waiting on the tribe’s data results to figure out where test wells might go, and that what the city does next will be in close collaboration with Ounalashka Corporation, since it’s the landowner.
The corporation did not respond to a request for comment.
For now, the Qawalangin Tribe is waiting on the U.S. Department of Energy to sign off on its data collection plan. Once that clears, locals could see a helicopter flying over Broad Bay as early as next spring, working alongside crews on the ground collecting Makushin geothermal data.
