2011 Alaska Statutes
Title 41. PUBLIC RESOURCES
Chapter 41.06. GEOTHERMAL RESOURCES
Sec. 41.06.060. Definitions.

In this chapter, unless the context otherwise requires,

(1) "commercial use" means the sale of heat or power to a third party;

(2) "commission" means the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission created under AS 31.05.005 ;

(3) "correlative rights" means the right of an owner of each property in a geothermal system to produce without waste the owner's just and equitable share of the geothermal resources in the geothermal system; a just and reasonable share is an amount, so far as can be practically determined and so far as can be practically produced without waste, that is substantially in proportion to the quantity of recoverable geothermal resources under the owner's property relative to the total recoverable geothermal resources in the geothermal system;

(4) "geothermal fluid" means liquids and steam at temperatures greater than 120 degrees Celsius or any commercial use of liquids and steam naturally present in a geothermal system at temperatures less than 120 degrees Celsius;

(5) "geothermal resources"

(A) means the natural heat of the earth at temperatures greater than 120 degrees Celsius, or any use of that heat for commercial purposes, measured at the point where the highest-temperature resources encountered enter or contact a well or other resource extraction device or any commercial use of the natural heat of the earth;

(B) includes

(i) the energy, including pressure, in whatever form present in, resulting from, created by, or that may be extracted from that natural heat;

(ii) the material medium, including steam and other gases, hot water, and hot brines constituting the geothermal fluid naturally present, as well as substances artificially introduced to serve as a heat transfer medium; and

(iii) all dissolved or entrained minerals and gases that may be obtained from the material medium, but excluding hydrocarbon substances and helium;

(6) "geothermal system" means a stratum, pool, reservoir, or other geologic formation containing geothermal resources;

(7) "operator" means a person drilling, maintaining, operating, producing, or in control of a well;

(8) "owner" means the person who has the right to drill into or produce from a geothermal system and to appropriate the geothermal resources produced from a geothermal system for that person and others;

(9) "waste" means, in addition to its ordinary meaning, physical waste, and includes an inefficient, excessive, or improper production, use, or dissipation of geothermal resources, including

(A) drilling, transporting, or storage methods that cause or tend to cause unnecessary surface loss of geothermal resources;

(B) locating, spacing, drilling, equipping, operating, producing, or venting of a well in a manner that results or tends to result in reducing the ultimate economic recovery of geothermal resources;

(10) "well" means a well drilled, converted, or reactivated for the discovery, testing, production, or subsurface injection of geothermal resources.