Unalaska, AK – Unalaska city officials are in talks with two of the largest geothermal companies in the United States about restarting the Makushin Volcano geothermal project.

City Manager Chris Hladick and financial consultant Mike Hubbard traveled to California and Nevada late last month to meet with representatives of Geothermex and Ormat Technologies, two American firms, about partnering on the project.

Hladick and Hubbard visited a geothermal plant built by Ormat in Nevada on a resource similar to Makushin's. Hladick said the technology he saw there looked more applicable to Unalaska's needs than the type of operations that city officials toured in Iceland last year.

"What I looked at was really clean, and it's all designed to be outdoors," he said. "There's very little maintenance required on these units."

Hladick said he plans to meet with both Geothermex and Ormat next month to come up with a design for the Makushin project. After that the city will commission a feasibility study, a six-month process that will hammer out the cost and logistics of tapping the superheated water beneath Makushin.

The Makushin development isn't new to either Geothermex or Ormat. Both companies were involved in proposals to develop the site in the early 1990s. What's different this time around is that the city hopes to be the primary developer in the project, rather than its customer. Officials decided to take that approach after talks with Icelandic American Energy fell apart last year.