The eagerness to teach Gateway Technical College’s first degree-related geothermal courses is heating up in Tom Niesen.

Niesen, who spent almost a year preparing the curriculum, greets students in the first such class in the nation on the school’s Kenosha campus Monday.

“I’m quite excited knowing that I might be one of the people who changes the public image of geothermal,” said the instructor, GTC’s division chairman of manufacturing and heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration.

Geothermal technology uses heat below ground to provide power.

There are other schools with a degree for water well and petroleum drillers or natural gas exploration, but none for geothermal, he said.

Niesen said he hopes the public warms up to the pollution-free energy source, especially after it has struggled with a bad reputation linked to problems with heat pumps during the 1970s.

“People think it doesn’t work,” he said.

The process can work, he said, but companies making the equipment say there are too few contractors to do the necessary drilling. Contractors drill several holes usually 300 feet deep in the earth as part of installation.

Classes for the two-year, associate degree for geothermal technician and one-year diploma for geothermal installer technician begin Monday, Friday and Saturday. Monday’s class centers on geoexchange drilling techniques and equipment, while Friday’s involves piping and Saturday’s includes grouting and sanitation techniques.

Geothermal courses offered at Gateway last spring weren’t for a degree, Niesen said. Degree courses continue into the summer and fall.

Niesen developed 18 geothermal classes for Gateway with grants from the state of Wisconsin and the National Science Foundation. He said state tech college officials approved implementing a curriculum without the school first doing the usual research because the renewable energy field is booming.

Niesen said time needed to start a course typically takes two to three years. The usual studies, preparations and committee reviews for the courses will be done but after they begin, he said.

The school also hopes by the end of April to have an agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Parkside to allow students with the associate degree to transfer there as sophomores in the geosciences program. Graduates from that program could qualify for hydrogeology jobs, for example.