The source of hot water that supplies the Takhini Hot Springs is robust enough to heat at least 400,000 square feet – five Canadian Tire stores – says the hot springs president.

Garry Umbrich was on hand Thursday for a joint territorial-federal announcement of $168,000 to fund a two-year desktop exercise compiling existing data to identify sites with the greatest potential for geothermal energy in the Yukon.

“We think this could kick-start more geothermal research in the Yukon,” he said of the new initiative.

Umbrich said they’ve done aerial infrared research around the hot springs looking for warm spots.

The City of Whitehorse has done studies on its potential around the city, as has Yukon Energy, but the Crown corporation isn’t sharing its information, he pointed out.

Umbrich said the data suggest there’s not just one location of hot water, but rather the source is an underground complex of various locations that are somehow joined by cracks and narrow openings.

“So we think it is all interconnected.”

In any case, he estimates, it’s likely the complex of hot water pockets is at least the equivalent of a lake that’s one metre deep, one kilometre wide and 15 kilometres long, and it’s replenishable, renewable.

The potential to tap into it as an energy source is enormous, he said, adding they plan to do just that as they rebuild and redesign the hot springs north of Whitehorse.

Umbrich said heat from the hot water supplying the springs used to heat 70 per cent of the building. With the build-up of mineral deposits in the pipes over the years, efficiency has fallen to 20 per cent.

The goal is to develop something like a geothermal park where you to take advantage of every ounce of energy, he said.

He said water leaving the hots springs is still able to support a supply of domestic hot water, building heat and visitor accommodations.

They’re exploring the possibility of heating a greenhouse, perhaps an indoor poultry facility and warming the soil temperatures of outdoor vegetable gardens to boost productivity.

Umbrich said the supply and temperature of the hot water at the springs are remarkably constant at 86 gallons a minute and 46. 5 C.

When those enjoying the hot springs think the water is sometimes cooler, it’s not the water temperature, it’s the wind, he said.

Umbrich said in the same way you blow on hot coffee to cool it off, the wind does the same at the hot springs.

In recent attempts to drill four cold water wells on the property, they hit warm water at 200 feet, at a temperature of 35 C, which is “warm enough for a nice warm water pool.

“We are going to be applying to the water board to use some of that water.”

Umbrich said the source of hot water for the springs alone has enough energy capacity to heat 200 homes at 2,000 square feet each, or 400,000 square feet in total.

From what they can tell by anecdotal evidence such as the build-up of mineral deposits, those rusty-coloured deposits, the hot springs have been bubbling for hundreds of years, maybe a 1,000 or more, he said.

“We know how much (deposits) has been created, and we know you can’t create that in a couple of hundred years,” he said. “So we know it is quite old.”

Umbrich said the great unknown is just how complicated the underground geothermal complex is.

Stinky Lake in Porter Creek doesn’t freeze in the winter, he pointed out.

“You will find a number of these seeps in the Whitehorse area that do not freeze in the winter. So you ask yourself, ‘what is going on?’”

Umbrich said he doesn’t know if the local geothermal complex has a limited energy capacity, and if it does, what the limit might be.

Ultimately, he said, the Takhini Hot Springs would like to explore the possibility of looking at power generation, but more studies are needed.

Umbrich was critical of Yukon Energy for not sharing the research its compiled on the potential for geothermal energy in the Yukon.

“To advance a geothermal industry in the Yukon, this kind of information needs to be made public,” he insisted. “People doing research on geothermal need to share this information.”

As an arm’s-length Crown corporation, Yukon Energy maintains its research is privately owned information.

And it’s not prepared to share it, in the same way a private-sector company would not make available its research so competing companies could take advantage of it, at no cost.